returned, then, as soon as he could, and was welcomed on the 25th of
March by a warrant, but was, however, suffered to live in his own
house, under the custody of the messenger, till he was examined
before a committee of the Privy Council, of which Mr. Walpole was
chairman, and Lord Coningsby, Mr. Stanhope, and Mr. Lechmere were
the principal interrogators, who, in this examination, of which
there is printed an account not unentertaining, behaved with the
boisterousness of men elated by recent authority. They are
represented as asking questions sometimes vague, sometimes
insidious, and writing answers different from those which they
received. Prior, however, seems to have been overpowered by their
turbulence; for he confesses that he signed what, if he had ever
come before a legal judicature, he should have contradicted or
explained away. The oath was administered by Boscawen, a Middlesex
justice, who at last was going to write his attestation on the wrong
side of the paper. They were very industrious to find some charge
against Oxford, and asked Prior, with great earnestness, who was
present when the preliminary articles were talked of or signed at
his house? He told them that either the Earl of Oxford or the Duke
of Shrewsbury was absent, but he could not remember which, an answer
which perplexed them, because it supplied no accusation against
either. "Could anything be more absurd," says he, "or more inhuman,
than to propose to me a question, by the answering of which I might,
according to them, prove myself a traitor? And notwithstanding
their solemn promise that nothing which I should say should hurt
myself, I had no reason to trust them, for they violated that
promise about five hours after. However, I owned I was there
present. Whether this was wisely done or no I leave to my friends
to determine." When he had signed the paper, he was told by Walpole
that the committee were not satisfied with his behaviour, nor could