s the First to the English
Parliament, and was therefore, in the estimation of good Cavaliers, a
traitor, if possible, of a worse description than those who had sate in
the High Court of Justice. He often talked with a noisy jocularity
of the days when he was a canter and a rebel. He was now the chief
instrument employed by the court in the work of forcing episcopacy
on his reluctant countrymen; nor did he in that cause shrink from the
unsparing use of the sword, the halter, and the boot. Yet those who knew
him knew that thirty years had made no change in his real sentiments,
that he still hated the memory of Charles the First, and that he still
preferred the Presbyterian form of church government to every other.

Unscrupulous as Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale were, it was not
thought safe to intrust to them the King's intention of declaring
himself a Roman Catholic. A false treaty, in which the article
concerning religion was omitted, was shown to them. The names and seals
of Clifford and Arlington are affixed to the genuine treaty. Both these
statesmen had a partiality for the old Church, a partiality which the
brave and vehement Clifford in no long time manfully avowed, but which
the colder and meaner Arlington concealed, till the near approach of
death scared him into sincerity. The three other cabinet ministers,
however, were not men to be kept easily in the dark, and probably
suspected more than was distinctly avowed to them. They were certainly
privy to all the political engagements contracted with France, and were
not ashamed to receive large gratifications from Lewis.

The first object of Charles was to obtain from the Commons supplies
which might be employed in executing the secret treaty. The Cabal,
holding power at a time when our government was in a state of
transition, united in itself two different kinds of vices belonging
to two different ages and to two different systems. As those five evil
counsellors were among the last English statesmen who seriously thought
of destroying the Parliament, so they were the first English statesmen
who attempted extensively to corrupt it. We find in their policy at once
the latest trace of the Thorough of Strafford, and the earliest trace of
that methodical bribery which was afterwards practiced by Walpole. They
soon perceived, however, that, though the House of Commons was chiefly
composed of Cavaliers, and though places and French gold had been
lavished on the mem