ut his vigorous
understanding, now thoroughly awakened by anxiety for the public
interests and for his own, was no longer to be duped, if indeed it ever
had been duped, by such childish fallacies. He at once gave in his
own adhesion to the conspiracy. He then exerted himself to obtain the
concurrence of Compton, the suspended Bishop of London, and succeeded
without difficulty. No prelate had been so insolently and unjustly
treated by the government as Compton; nor had any prelate so much to
expect from a revolution: for he had directed the education of the
Princess of Orange, and was supposed to possess a large share of her
confidence. He had, like his brethren, strongly maintained, as long as
he was not oppressed, that it was a crime to resist oppression; but,
since he had stood before the High Commission, a new light had broken in
upon his mind. [419]

Both Danby and Compton were desirous to secure the assistance of
Nottingham. The whole plan was opened to him; and he approved of it.
But in a few days he began to be unquiet. His mind was not sufficiently
powerful to emancipate itself from the prejudices of education. He went
about from divine to divine proposing in general terms hypothetical
cases of tyranny, and inquiring whether in such cases resistance would
be lawful. The answers which he obtained increased his distress. He at
length told his accomplices that he could go no further with them. If
they thought him capable of betraying them, they might stab him; and he
should hardly blame them; for, by drawing back after going so far, he
had given them a kind of right over his life. They had, however, he
assured them, nothing to fear from him: he would keep their secret; he
could not help wishing them success; but his conscience would not suffer
him to take an active part in a rebellion. They heard his confession
with suspicion and disdain. Sidney, whose notions of a conscientious
scruple were extremely vague, informed the Prince that Nottingham had
taken fright. It is due to Nottingham, however, to say that the general
tenor of his life justifies us in believing his conduct on this occasion
to have been perfectly honest, though most unwise and irresolute. [420]

The agents of the Prince had more complete success with Lord Lumley,
who knew himself to be, in spite of the eminent service which he
had performed at the time of the Western insurrection, abhorred
at Whitehall, not only as a heretic but as a renegade, and