ose influence over her
brother and brother in law had been so pernicious to her country, was
no more. Her death gave rise to horrible suspicions which, for a moment,
seemed likely to interrupt the newly formed friendship between the
Houses of Stuart and Bourbon: but in a short time fresh assurances of
undiminished good will were exchanged between the confederates.

The Duke of York, too dull to apprehend danger, or too fanatical to care
about it, was impatient to see the article touching the Roman Catholic
religion carried into immediate execution: but Lewis had the wisdom
to perceive that, if this course were taken, there would be such an
explosion in England as would probably frustrate those parts of the plan
which he had most at heart. It was therefore determined that Charles
should still call himself a Protestant, and should still, at high
festivals, receive the sacrament according to the ritual of the Church
of England. His more scrupulous brother ceased to appear in the royal
chapel.

About this time died the Duchess of York, daughter of the banished
Earl of Clarendon. She had been, during some years, a concealed Roman
Catholic. She left two daughters, Mary and Anne, afterwards successively
Queens of Great Britain. They were bred Protestants by the positive
command of the King, who knew that it would be vain for him to profess
himself a member of the Church of England, if children who seemed likely
to inherit his throne were, by his permission, brought up as members of
the Church of Rome.

The principal servants of the crown at this time were men whose names
have justly acquired an unenviable notoriety. We must take heed,
however, that we do not load their memory with infamy which of right
belongs to their master. For the treaty of Dover the King himself is
chiefly answerable. He held conferences on it with the French agents:
he wrote many letters concerning it with his own hand: he was the person
who first suggested the most disgraceful articles which it contained;
and he carefully concealed some of those articles from the majority of
his Cabinet.

Few things in our history are more curious than the origin and growth of
the power now possessed by the Cabinet. From an early period the
Kings of England had been assisted by a Privy Council to which the law
assigned many important functions and duties. During several centuries
this body deliberated on the gravest and most delicate affairs. But
by degrees its cha