interval of selfrestraint, into debauchery which all Christian
divines condemn as sinful, and which, in an elderly man married to
an agreeable young wife, is regarded even by people of the world as
disreputable. Lady Dorchester had returned from Dublin, and was again
the King's mistress. Her return was politically of no importance. She
had learned by experience the folly of attempting to save her lover from
the destruction to which he was running headlong. She therefore suffered
the Jesuits to guide his political conduct and they, in return, suffered
her to wheedle him out of money; She was, however, only one of several
abandoned women who at this time shared, with his beloved Church, the
dominion over his mind. [194] He seems to have determined to make some
amends for neglecting the welfare of his own soul by taking care of the
souls of others. He set himself, therefore, to labour, with real good
will, but with the good will of a coarse, stern, and arbitrary mind,
for the conversion of his kinsman. Every audience which the Treasurer
obtained was spent in arguments about the authority of the Church and
the worship of images. Rochester was firmly resolved not to abjure his
religion; but he had no scruple about employing in selfdefence artifices
as discreditable as those which had been used against him. He affected
to speak like a man whose mind was not made up, professed himself
desirous to be enlightened if he was in error, borrowed Popish books,
and listened with civility to Popish divines. He had several interviews
with Leyburn, the Vicar Apostolic, with Godden, the chaplain and almoner
of the Queen Dowager, and with Bonaventure Giffard, a theologian trained
to polemics in the schools of Douay. It was agreed that there should
be a formal disputation between these doctors and some Protestant
clergymen. The King told Rochester to choose any ministers of the
Established Church, with two exceptions. The proscribed persons were
Tillotson and Stillingfleet. Tillotson, the most popular preacher of
that age, and in manners the most inoffensive of men, had been much
connected with some leading Whigs; and Stillingfleet, who was renowned
as a consummate master of all the weapons of controversy, had given
still deeper offence by publishing an answer to the papers which had
been found in the strong box of Charles the Second. Rochester took the
two royal chaplains who happened to be in waiting. One of them was
Simon Patrick, whose c