lear himself from
another imputation equally unmerited. The Bishop of Winchester had been
hastily summoned from Oxford to attend an extraordinary meeting of
the Privy Council, or rather an assembly of Notables, which had been
convoked at Whitehall. With the Privy Councillors were joined, in this
solemn sitting, all the Peers Spiritual and Temporal who chanced to be
in or near the capital, the Judges, the crown lawyers, the Lord Mayor
and the Aldermen of the City of London. A hint had been given to Petre
that he would do well to absent himself. In truth few of the Peers would
have chosen to sit with him. Near the head of the board a chair of state
was placed for the Queen Dowager. The Princess Anne had been requested
to attend, but had excused herself on the plea of delicate health.

James informed this great assembly that he thought it necessary to
produce proofs of the birth of his son. The arts of bad men had poisoned
the public mind to such an extent that very many believed the Prince
of Wales to be a supposititious child. But Providence had graciously
ordered things so that scarcely any prince had ever come into the world
in the presence of so many witnesses. Those witnesses then appeared and
gave their evidence. After all the depositions had been taken, James
with great solemnity declared that the imputation thrown on him was
utterly false, and that he would rather die a thousand deaths than wrong
any of his children.

All who were present appeared to be satisfied. The evidence was
instantly published, and was allowed by judicious and impartial persons
to be decisive. [493] But the judicious are always a minority; and
scarcely anybody was then impartial. The whole nation was convinced that
all sincere Papists thought it a duty to perjure themselves whenever
they could, by perjury, serve the interests of their Church. Men who,
having been bred Protestants, had for the sake of lucre pretended to be
converted to Popery, were, if possible, less trustworthy than sincere
Papists. The depositions of all who belonged to these two classes were
therefore regarded as mere nullities. Thus the weight of the testimony
on which James had relied was greatly reduced. What remained was
malignantly scrutinised. To every one of the few Protestant witnesses
who had said anything material some exception was taken. One was
notoriously a greedy sycophant. Another had not indeed yet apostatized,
but was nearly related to an apostate. The