n of note who bore
office in that great province, only six had held out hopes that they
should support the policy of the court. [323] The Duke of Beaufort,
whose authority extended over four English shires and over the whole
principality of Wales, came up to Whitehall with an account not less
discouraging. [324] Rochester was Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire. All
his little stock of virtue had been expended in his struggle against the
strong temptation to sell his religion for lucre. He was still bound to
the court by a pension of four thousand pounds a year; and in return for
this pension he was willing to perform any service, however illegal or
degrading, provided only that he were not required to go through the
forms of a reconciliation with Rome. He had readily undertaken to manage
his county; and he exerted himself, as usual, with indiscreet heat and
violence. But his anger was thrown away on the sturdy squires to whom he
addressed himself. They told him with one voice that they would send up
no man to Parliament who would vote for taking away the safeguards
of the Protestant religion. [325] The same answer was given to the
Chancellor in Buckinghamshire. [326] The gentry of Shropshire, assembled
at Ludlow, unanimously refused to fetter themselves by the pledge which
the King demanded of them. [327] The Earl of Yarmouth reported from
Wiltshire that, of sixty magistrates and Deputy Lieutenants with whom
he had conferred, only seven had given favourable answers, and that even
those seven could not be trusted. [328] The renegade Peterborough made
no progress in Northamptonshire. [329] His brother renegade Dover was
equally unsuccessful in Cambridgeshire. [330] Preston brought cold news
from Cumberland and Westmoreland. Dorsetshire and Huntingdonshire were
animated by the same spirit. The Earl of Bath, after a long canvass,
returned from the West with gloomy tidings. He had been authorised to
make the most tempting offers to the inhabitants of that region. In
particular he had promised that, if proper respect were shown to the
royal wishes, the trade in tin should be freed from the oppressive
restrictions under which it lay. But this lure, which at another time
would have proved irresistible, was now slighted. All the justices
and Deputy Lieutenants of Devonshire and Cornwall, without a single
dissenting voice, declared that they would put life and property in
jeopardy for the King, but that the Protestant religion was de