ournal to Stella," December 8th (_ibid.,_ p. 296).
[W.S.J.]]

It was, I conceive, upon these motives, that the treasurer advised Her
Majesty to create twelve new lords,[64] and thereby disable the sting of
faction for the rest of her lifetime: this promotion was so ordered,
that a third part were of those on whom, or their posterity, the peerage
would naturally devolve; and the rest were such, whose merit, birth, and
fortune, could admit of no exception.

[Footnote 64: See note, vol. ii., p. 308, and note, vol. v., p. 446.
[W.S.J.]]

The adverse party, being thus driven down by open force, had nothing
left but to complain, which they loudly did; that it was a
pernicious[65] example set for ill princes to follow, who, by the same
rule, might make at any time an hundred as well as twelve, and by these
means become masters of the House of Lords whenever they pleased, which
would be dangerous to our liberties. To this it was answered, that ill
princes seldom trouble themselves to look for precedents; that men of
great estates will not be less fond of preserving their liberties when
they are created peers; that in such a government as this, where the
Prince holds the balance between two great powers, the nobility and
people, it is the very nature of his office to remove from one scale
into the other, or sometimes put his own weight in the lightest, so as
to bring both to an equilibrium; and lastly, that the other party had
been above twenty years corrupting the nobility with republican
principles, which nothing but the royal prerogative could hinder from
overspreading us.

[Footnote 65: P. Fitzgerald says "dangerous." [W.S.J.]]

The conformity bill above mentioned was prepared by the Earl of
Nottingham before the Parliament met, and brought in at the same time
with the clause against peace, according to the bargain made between him
and his new friends: this he hoped would not only save his credit with
the Church party, but bring them over to his politics, since they must
needs be convinced, that instead of changing his own principles, he had
prevailed on the greatest enemies to the established religion to be the
first movers in a law for the perpetual settlement of it. Here it was
worth observing, with what resignation the Junto Lords (as they were
then called) were submitted to by their adherents and followers; for it
is well known, that the chief among the dissenting teachers in town were
consulted upon this affair,