ood had been shed on the scaffold. Another arrival
still more important was speedily announced. Colchester, Wharton, and
Russell belonged to that party which had been constantly opposed to
the court. James Bertie, Earl of Abingdon, had, on the contrary, been
regarded as a supporter of arbitrary government. He had been true to
James in the days of the Exclusion Bill. He had, as Lord Lieutenant of
Oxfordshire, acted with vigour and severity against the adherents of
Monmouth, and had lighted bonfires to celebrate the defeat of Argyle.
But dread of Popery had driven him into opposition and rebellion. He was
the first peer of the realm who made his appearance at the quarters of
the Prince of Orange. [520]

But the King had less to fear from those who openly arrayed themselves
against his authority, than from the dark conspiracy which had spread
its ramifications through his army and his family. Of that conspiracy
Churchill, unrivalled in sagacity and address, endowed by nature with
a certain cool intrepidity which never failed him either in fighting
or lying, high in military rank, and high in the favour of the Princess
Anne, must be regarded as the soul. It was not yet time for him to
strike the decisive blow. But even thus early he inflicted, by the
instrumentality of a subordinate agent, a wound, serious if not deadly,
on the royal cause.

Edward, Viscount Cornbury, eldest son of the Earl of Clarendon, was a
young man of slender abilities, loose principles, and violent temper. He
had been early taught to consider his relationship to the Princess Anne
as the groundwork of his fortunes, and had been exhorted to pay her
assiduous court. It had never occurred to his father that the hereditary
loyalty of the Hydes could run any risk of contamination in the
household of the King's favourite daughter: but in that household
the Churchills held absolute sway; and Cornbury became their tool. He
commanded one of the regiments of dragoons which had been sent westward.
Such dispositions had been made that, on the fourteenth of November, he
was, during a few hours, the senior officer at Salisbury, and all
the troops assembled there were subject to his authority. It seems
extraordinary that, at such a crisis, the army on which every thing
depended should have been left, even for a moment, under the command of
a young Colonel who had neither abilities nor experience. There can
be little doubt that so strange an arrangement was the resul