e. That day
was employed in settling the order of proceeding. A clerk was appointed:
and, as no confidence could be placed in any of the twelve judges, some
serjeants and barristers of great note were requested to attend, for the
purpose of giving advice on legal points. It was resolved that on the
Monday the state of the kingdom should be taken into consideration.
[612]

The interval between the sitting of Saturday and the sitting of Monday
was anxious and eventful. A strong party among the Peers still cherished
the hope that the constitution and religion of England might be secured
without the deposition of the King. This party resolved to move a solemn
address to him, imploring him to consent to such terms as might remove
the discontents and apprehensions which his past conduct had excited.
Sancroft, who, since the return of James from Kent to Whitehall, had
taken no part in public affairs, determined to come forth from his
retreat on this occasion, and to put himself at the head of the
Royalists. Several messengers were sent to Rochester with letters
for the King. He was assured that his interests would be strenuously
defended, if only he could, at this last moment, make up his mind
to renounce designs abhorred by his people. Some respectable Roman
Catholics followed him, in order to implore him, for the sake of their
common faith, not to carry the vain contest further. [613]

The advice was good; but James was in no condition to take it. His
understanding had always been dull and feeble; and, such as it was,
womanish tremors and childish fancies now disabled him from using it. He
was aware that his flight was the thing which his adherents most dreaded
and which his enemies most desired. Even if there had been serious
personal risk in remaining, the occasion was one on which he ought to
have thought it infamous to flinch: for the question was whether he and
his posterity should reign on an ancestral throne or should be vagabonds
and beggars. But in his mind all other feelings had given place to a
craven fear for his life. To the earnest entreaties and unanswerable
arguments of the agents whom his friends had sent to Rochester, he had
only one answer. His head was in danger. In vain he was assured that
there was no ground for such an apprehension, that common sense, if not
principle, would restrain the Prince of Orange from incurring the guilt
and shame of regicide and parricide, and that many, who never would
cons