he flew about from Hampton Court to the Royal Exchange, and from
the Royal Exchange back to Hampton Court. How he found time for dress,
politics, lovemaking and balladmaking was a wonder. [73] Delamere was
gloomy and acrimonious, austere in his private morals, and punctual in
his devotions, but greedy of ignoble gain. The two principal ministers
of finance, therefore, became enemies, and agreed only in hating their
colleague Godolphin. What business had he at Whitehall in these days of
Protestant ascendency, he who had sate at the same board with Papists,
he who had never scrupled to attend Mary of Modena to the idolatrous
worship of the Mass? The most provoking circumstance was that Godolphin,
though his name stood only third in the commission, was really first
Lord. For in financial knowledge and in habits of business Mordaunt and
Delamere were mere children when compared with him; and this William
soon discovered. [74]

Similar feuds raged at the other great boards and through all the
subordinate ranks of public functionaries. In every customhouse, in
every arsenal, were a Shrewsbury and a Nottingham, a Delamere and a
Godolphin. The Whigs complained that there was no department in which
creatures of the fallen tyranny were not to be found. It was idle to
allege that these men were versed in the details of business, that they
were the depositaries of official traditions, and that the friends
of liberty, having been, during many years, excluded from public
employment, must necessarily be incompetent to take on themselves at
once the whole management of affairs. Experience doubtless had its
value: but surely the first of all the qualifications of a servant was
fidelity; and no Tory could be a really faithful servant of the new
government. If King William were wise, he would rather trust novices
zealous for his interest and honour than veterans who might indeed
possess ability and knowledge, but who would use that ability and that
knowledge to effect his ruin.

The Tories, on the other hand, complained that their share of power bore
no proportion to their number and their weight in the country, and that
every where old and useful public servants were, for the crime of being
friends to monarchy and to the Church, turned out of their posts to make
way for Rye House plotters and haunters of conventicles. These upstarts,
adepts in the art of factious agitation, but ignorant of all that
belonged to their new calling, would