dissentient Lords
prevented several other noblemen from subscribing the address but the
Hydes and the Bishops persisted. Nineteen signatures were procured; and
the petitioners waited in a body on the King. [525]

He received their address ungraciously. He assured them, indeed, that he
passionately desired the meeting of a free Parliament; and he promised
them, on the faith of a King, that he would call one as soon as the
Prince of Orange should have left the island. "But how," said he, "can a
Parliament be free when an enemy is in the kingdom, and can return near
a hundred votes?" To the prelates he spoke with peculiar acrimony. "I
could not," he said, "prevail on you the other day to declare against
this invasion: but you are ready enough to declare against me. Then you
would not meddle with politics. You have no scruple about meddling now.
You have excited this rebellious temper among your flocks, and now you
foment it. You would be better employed in teaching them how to obey
than in teaching me how to govern." He was much incensed against his
nephew Grafton, whose signature stood next to that of Sancroft, and said
to the young man, with great asperity, "You know nothing about religion;
you care nothing about it; and yet, forsooth, you must pretend to have
a conscience." "It is true, sir," answered Grafton, with impudent
frankness, "that I have very little conscience: but I belong to a party
which has a great deal." [526]

Bitter as was the King's language to the petitioners, it was far less
bitter that that which he held after they had withdrawn. He had done,
he said, far too much already in the hope of satisfying an undutiful and
ungrateful people. He had always hated the thought of concession: but
he had suffered himself to be talked over; and now he, like his
father before him, had found that concession only made subjects more
encroaching. He would yield nothing more, not an atom, and, after his
fashion, he vehemently repeated many times, "Not an atom." Not only
would he make no overtures to the invaders, but he would receive
none. If the Dutch sent flags of truce, the first messenger should be
dismissed without an answer; the second should be hanged. [527] In such
a mood James set out for Salisbury. His last act before his departure
was to appoint a Council of five Lords to represent him in London during
his absence. Of the five, two were Papists, and by law incapable of
office. Joined with them was Jeffreys, a