cal balance and had sought to carry out his designs with the
single support of the Nonconformists. But the new policy had broken down
like the old. The Nonconformists refused to betray the cause of
Protestantism, and Shaftesbury, their leader, was pressing on measures
which would rob Catholicism of the hopes it had gained from the
conversion of James. In straits like these Charles resolved to win back
the Commons by boldly adopting the policy on which the House was set.

[Sidenote: Danby.]

The majority of its members were still a mass of Cavalier Churchmen, who
regarded Sir Thomas Osborne, a dependant of Arlington's, as their
representative in the royal councils. The king had already created
Osborne Earl of Danby and raised him to the post of Lord Treasurer in
Clifford's room. In 1674 he frankly adopted the policy of Danby and of
his party in the Parliament. The policy of Danby was in the main that of
Clarendon. He had all Clarendon's love of the Church, his equal hatred
of Popery and Dissent, his high notions of the prerogative tempered by a
faith in Parliament and the law. His policy rested like Clarendon's on a
union between the king and the two Houses. He was a staunch Protestant,
and his English pride revolted against any schemes which involved
dependence on France. But he was a staunch Royalist. He wished for a
French war, but he would not force the king to fight France against his
will. His terror of Popery failed to win him over to any plans for a
change in the succession. The first efforts indeed of the king and his
minister were directed to strengthen James's position by measures which
would allay the popular panic. Mary, the Duke's eldest child and after
him the presumptive heir to the Crown, was confirmed by the royal order
as a Protestant. It was through Mary indeed that Charles aimed at
securing the Prince of Orange. The popularity of William throughout the
Protestant world was great; and in England, as the terror of a Popish
king increased, men remembered that were James and his house excluded
from the throne William as the king's nephew, the son of his sister Mary
and the grandson of Charles the First, stood next in succession to the
Crown. The Prince was drawn by his desire to detach England from the
French alliance into close connexion with Shaftesbury and the leaders of
the Country party, and already pledges from this quarter had reached him
that he should be declared heir to the throne. It was to me