nsist in great part of the most popular noblemen and gentlemen in the
kingdom. Such persons being the natural, as well as the safest,
mediators between princes and discontented subjects, this seems to have
been the best possible expedient. Hume says it was found too feeble a
remedy; but he does not take notice that it was never in fact tried,
inasmuch as not only the king's confidence was withheld from the most
considerable members of the council, but even the most important
determinations were taken without consulting the council itself. Nor can
there be a doubt but the king's views, in adopting Temple's advice, were
totally different from those of the adviser, whose only error in this
transaction seems to have consisted in recommending a plan, wherein
confidence and fair dealing were of necessity to be principal
ingredients, to a prince whom he well knew to be incapable of either.
Accordingly, having appointed the council in April, with a promise of
being governed in important matters by their advice, he in July dissolved
one parliament without their concurrence, and in October forbade them
even to give their opinions upon the propriety of a resolution which he
had taken of proroguing another. From that time he probably considered
the council to be, as it was, virtually dissolved; and it was not long
before means presented themselves to him, better adapted, in his
estimation, even to his immediate objects, and certainly more suitable to
his general designs. The union between the court and the church party,
which had been so closely cemented by their successful resistance to the
Exclusion Bill, and its authors, had at length acquired such a degree of
strength and consistency, that the king ventured first to appoint Oxford,
instead of London, for the meeting of parliament; and then, having
secured to himself a good pension from France, to dissolve the parliament
there met, with a full resolution never to call another; to which
resolution, indeed, Louis had bound him, as one of the conditions on
which he was to receive a stipend. No measure was ever attended with
more complete success. The most flattering addresses poured in from all
parts of the kingdom; divine right, and indiscriminate obedience, were
everywhere the favourite doctrines; and men seemed to vie with each other
who should have the honour of the greatest share in the glorious work of
slavery, by securing to the king, for the present, and after him to th