at an end. "The
king," Shaftesbury said bitterly, "who if he had been so happy as to
have been born a private gentleman had certainly passed for a man of
good parts, excellent breeding, and well natured, hath now, being a
Prince, brought his affairs to that pass that there is not a person in
the world, man or woman, that dares rely upon him or put any confidence
in his word or friendship." The one man in England indeed on whom the
discovery of the king's perfidy fell with the most crushing effect was
Shaftesbury himself. Ashley Cooper had piqued himself on a penetration
which read the characters of men around him and on a political instinct
which discerned every coming change. He had bought, as he believed, the
Declaration of Indulgence, the release of the imprisoned Nonconformists,
and freedom of worship for all dissidents, at the price of a consent to
the second attack on Holland; and he was looked on by the public at
large as the minister most responsible both for the measures he advised
and the measures he had nothing to do with. But while facing the
gathering storm of unpopularity, Ashley learnt in a moment of drunken
confidence the secret of the king's religion. He owned to a friend "his
trouble at the black cloud which was gathering over England"; but
troubled as he was he still believed himself strong enough to use
Charles for his own purposes. His acceptance of the Chancellorship and
of the earldom of Shaftesbury, as well as his violent defence of the war
on opening the Parliament, identified him yet more with the royal
policy. It was after the opening of the Parliament, if we credit the
statement of the French Ambassador, a statement which squares with the
sudden change in his course, that he learnt from Arlington, who desired
to secure his help in driving Clifford from the royal councils, the
secret of the Treaty of Dover.

[Sidenote: Shaftesbury's change of Policy.]

Whether this was so, or whether suspicion as in the people at large
deepened into certainty, Shaftesbury saw he had been duped. To the
bitterness of such a discovery was added the bitterness of having aided
in schemes which he abhorred. His change of policy was rapid and
complete. He pressed in the royal council for the withdrawal of the
Declaration of Indulgence. In Parliament he supported the Test Act with
extraordinary vehemence. But he was far from any thought of resigning
his post. He clung to it in fact more tenaciously than ever, for the