Lord Chamberlain, and to prevail on the Whig
leaders in the Lower House to oppose any motion which Dyke or Norris
might make. Wharton answered in a manner which made it clear that
from him no help was to be expected. Sunderland's terrors now became
insupportable. He had requested some of his friends to come to his house
that he might consult them; they came at the appointed hour, but found
that he had gone to Kensington, and had left word that he should soon
be back. When he joined them, they observed that he had not the gold key
which is the badge of the Lord Chamberlain, and asked where it was. "At
Kensington," answered Sunderland. They found that he had tendered his
resignation, and that it had been, after a long struggle, accepted.
They blamed his haste, and told him that, since he had summoned them to
advise him on that day, he might at least have waited till the morrow.
"To morrow," he exclaimed, "would have ruined me. To night has saved
me."

Meanwhile, both the disciples of Somers and the disciples of Trenchard
were grumbling at Harley's resolution. The disciples of Somers
maintained that, if it was right to have an army at all, it must be
right to have an efficient army. The disciples of Trenchard complained
that a great principle had been shamefully given up. On the vital
issue, Standing Army or no Standing Army, the Commons had pronounced an
erroneous, a fatal decision. Whether that army should consist of five
regiments or of fifteen was hardly worth debating. The great dyke which
kept out arbitrary power had been broken. It was idle to say that the
breach was narrow; for it would soon be widened by the flood which would
rush in. The war of pamphlets raged more fiercely than ever. At the same
time alarming symptoms began to appear among the men of the sword. They
saw themselves every day described in print as the scum of society,
as mortal enemies of the liberties of their country. Was it
reasonable,--such was the language of some scribblers,--that an honest
gentleman should pay a heavy land tax, in order to support in idleness
and luxury a set of fellows who requited him by seducing his dairy maids
and shooting his partridges? Nor was it only in Grub Street tracts that
such reflections were to be found. It was known all over the town that
uncivil things had been said of the military profession in the House of
Commons, and that Jack Howe, in particular, had, on this subject,
given the rein to his wit and to h