lifax discussed the state and prospects of the country with his
usual subtlety and vivacity, but took care not to pledge himself to any
perilous line of conduct. Danby wrote in a bolder and more determined
tone, and could not refrain from slily sneering at the fears and
scruples of his accomplished rival. But the most remarkable letter
was from Churchill. It was written with that natural eloquence which,
illiterate as he was, he never wanted on great occasions, and with an
air of magnanimity which, perfidious as he was, he could with singular
dexterity assume. The Princess Anne, he said, had commanded him to
assure her illustrious relatives at the Hague that she was fully
resolved by God's help rather to lose her life than to be guilty of
apostasy. As for himself, his places and the royal favour were as
nothing to him in comparison with his religion. He concluded by
declaring in lofty language that, though he could not pretend to have
lived the life of a saint, he should be found ready, on occasion, to die
the death of a martyr. [273]

Dykvelt's mission had succeeded so well that a pretence was soon
found for sending another agent to continue the work which had been so
auspiciously commenced. The new Envoy, afterwards the founder of a noble
English house which became extinct in our own time, was an illegitimate
cousin german of William; and bore a title taken from the lordship of
Zulestein. Zulestein's relationship to the House of Orange gave him
importance in the public eye. His bearing was that of a gallant soldier.
He was indeed in diplomatic talents and knowledge far inferior to
Dykvelt: but even this inferiority had its advantages. A military man,
who had never appeared to trouble himself about political affairs,
could, without exciting any suspicion, hold with the English aristocracy
an intercourse which, if he had been a noted master of state craft,
would have been jealously watched. Zulestein, after a short absence,
returned to his country charged with letters and verbal messages not
less important than those which had been entrusted to his predecessor. A
regular correspondence was from this time established between the Prince
and the opposition. Agents of various ranks passed and repassed between
the Thames and the Hague. Among these a Scotchman, of some parts and
great activity, named Johnstone, was the most useful. He was cousin
of Burnet, and son of an eminent covenanter who had, soon after the
Restoration,