ng as possible, with both Kings. His irritable and
imperious nature was constantly impelling him to quarrel with both. His
spleen was excited one week by a dry answer from William, and the
next week by an absurd proclamation from James. Fortunately the most
important day of his life, the day from which all his subsequent years
took their colour, found him out of temper with the banished King.

Godolphin had not, and did not pretend to have, any cause of complaint
against the government which he served. He was First Commissioner of the
Treasury. He had been protected, trusted, caressed. Indeed the favour
shown to him had excited many murmurs. Was it fitting, the Whigs had
indignantly asked, that a man who had been high in office through the
whole of the late reign, who had promised to vote for the Indulgence,
who had sate in the Privy Council with a Jesuit, who had sate at the
Board of Treasury with two Papists, who had attended an idolatress to
her altar, should be among the chief ministers of a Prince whose title
to the throne was derived from the Declaration of Rights? But on William
this clamour had produced no effect; and none of his English servants
seems to have had at this time a larger share of his confidence than
Godolphin.

Nevertheless, the Jacobites did not despair. One of the most zealous
among them, a gentleman named Bulkeley, who had formerly been on terms
of intimacy with Godolphin, undertook to see what could be done. He
called at the Treasury, and tried to draw the First Lord into political
talk. This was no easy matter; for Godolphin was not a man to put
himself lightly into the power of others. His reserve was proverbial;
and he was especially renowned for the dexterity with which he, through
life, turned conversation away from matters of state to a main of cocks
or the pedigree of a racehorse. The visit ended without his uttering a
word indicating that he remembered the existence of King James.

Bulkeley, however, was not to be so repulsed. He came again, and
introduced the subject which was nearest his heart. Godolphin then asked
after his old master and mistress in the mournful tone of a man who
despaired of ever being reconciled to them. Bulkeley assured him that
King James was ready to forgive all the past. "May I tell His Majesty
that you will try to deserve his favour?" At this Godolphin rose, said
something about the trammels of office and his wish to be released from
them, and put an end t