n it would not be in his power to second them
effectually. [591] In truth, while Mary lived, it might well be doubted
whether the murder of her husband would really be a service to the
Jacobite cause. By his death the government would lose indeed the
strength derived from his eminent personal qualities, but would at the
same time be relieved from the load of his personal unpopularity. His
whole power would at once devolve on his widow; and the nation would
probably rally round her with enthusiasm. If her political abilities
were not equal to his, she had not his repulsive manners, his foreign
pronunciation, his partiality for every thing Dutch and for every thing
Calvinistic. Many, who had thought her culpably wanting in filial piety,
would be of opinion that now at least she was absolved from all duty to
a father stained with the blood of her husband. The whole machinery
of the administration would continue to work without that interruption
which ordinarily followed a demise of the Crown. There would be no
dissolution of the Parliament, no suspension of the customs and excise;
commissions would retain their force; and all that James would have
gained by the fall of his enemy would have been a barren revenge.

The death of the Queen changed every thing. If a dagger or a bullet
should now reach the heart of William, it was probable that there would
instantly be general anarchy. The Parliament and the Privy Council would
cease to exist. The authority of ministers and judges would expire with
him from whom it was derived. It might seem not improbable that at such
a moment a restoration might be effected without a blow.

Scarcely therefore had Mary been laid in the grave when restless and
unprincipled men began to plot in earnest against the life of William.
Foremost among these men in parts, in courage and in energy was Robert
Charnock. He had been liberally educated, and had, in the late reign,
been a fellow of Magdalene College, Oxford. Alone in that great society
he had betrayed the common cause, had consented to be the tool of the
High Commission, had publicly apostatized from the Church of England,
and, while his college was a Popish seminary, had held the office of
Vice President. The Revolution came, and altered at once the whole
course of his life. Driven from the quiet cloister and the old grove of
oaks on the bank of the Cherwell, he sought haunts of a very different
kind. During several years he led the perilous