I made myself easy on being informed that he would be quiet next day and
take physic. He wanted both that and bleeding, for his spirits were in a
fever.'

Up to this point Mrs. Yorke's account, written apparently to explain and
vindicate her own share in the transaction, tallies with that of her
brother-in-law, except that she states that Lord Hardwicke had been much
more favourable to the idea of Charles Yorke's acceptance than the above
narrative leads one to suppose; according to her the family felt 'it was
too great a thing to refuse.' Lord Hardwicke's wife, the Marchioness
Grey, indeed, had called upon Mrs. Yorke to urge it, saying among other
things that 'the great office to which Mr. Yorke was invited was in the
line of his profession, that though it was intimately connected with
state affairs, yet it had not that absolute and servile dependance on
the Court which the other ministerial offices had; that Mr. Yorke had
already seen how vain it was to depend on the friendship of Lord
Rockingham and his party; that the part he had acted had always been
separate and uninfluenced, and therefore she thought he was quite at
liberty to make choice for himself, and by taking the seals he would
perhaps have it in his power to reconcile the different views of people
and form an administration which might be permanent and lasting; that if
he now refused the seals they would probably never be offered a second
time ... and that these were Lord Hardwicke's sentiments as well as her
own.'

Lord Mansfield's advice had been more emphatic still. 'He had no doubt
of the propriety of his accepting the Great Seal, indeed was so positive
that Mr. Yorke told me he would hear no reason against it.' Mrs. Yorke
herself was at first opposed to the idea; but influenced by such
opinions and by her husband's extreme dejection after refusing the