irs." [44]

And now the tide was on the turn. The death of Stafford, witnessed with
signs of tenderness and remorse by the populace to whose rage he was
sacrificed, marks the close of one proscription. The acquittal of
Delamere marks the close of another. The crimes which had disgraced the
stormy tribuneship of Shaftesbury had been fearfully expiated. The blood
of innocent Papists had been avenged more than tenfold by the blood of
zealous Protestants. Another great reaction had commenced. Factions
were fast taking new forms. Old allies were separating. Old enemies
were uniting. Discontent was spreading fast through all the ranks of
the party lately dominant. A hope, still indeed faint and indefinite,
of victory and revenge, animated the party which had lately seemed to be
extinct. Amidst such circumstances the eventful and troubled year 1685
terminated, and the year 1686 began.

The prorogation had relieved the King from the gentle remonstrances
of the Houses: but he had still to listen to remonstrances, similar in
effect, though uttered in a tone even more cautious and subdued. Some
men who had hitherto served him but too strenuously for their own fame
and for the public welfare had begun to feel painful misgivings, and
occasionally ventured to hint a small part of what they felt.

During many years the zeal of the English Tory for hereditary monarchy
and his zeal for the established religion had grown up together and
had strengthened each other. It had never occurred to him that the two
sentiments, which seemed inseparable and even identical, might one day
be found to be not only distinct but incompatible. From the commencement
of the strife between the Stuarts and the Commons, the cause of the
crown and the cause of the hierarchy had, to all appearance, been one.
Charles the First was regarded by the Church as her martyr. If Charles
the Second had plotted against her, he had plotted in secret. In public
he had ever professed himself her grateful and devoted son, had knelt
at her altars, and, in spite of his loose morals, had succeeded in
persuading the great body of her adherents that he felt a sincere
preference for her. Whatever conflicts, therefore, the honest Cavalier
might have had to maintain against Whigs and Roundheads he had at least
been hitherto undisturbed by conflict in his own mind. He had seen the
path of duty plain before him. Through good and evil he was to be true
to Church and King. But, if those