fessed a strong attachment, but whom he had deserted with
characteristic inconstancy and assailed with characteristic petulance,
seized the opportunity of revenging himself. "It is quite unnecessary,"
the shrewd old statesman said, "that the noble Earl should withdraw
at present. The question which we have now to decide is merely whether
these papers do or do not deserve our censure. Who wrote them is a
question which may be considered hereafter." It was then moved and
unanimously resolved that the papers were scandalous, and that the
author had been guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour. Monmouth
himself was, by these dexterous tactics, forced to join in condemning
his own compositions. [775] Then the House proceeded to consider the
charge against him. The character of his cousin the Duchess did not
stand high; but her testimony was confirmed both by direct and by
circumstantial evidence. Her husband said, with sour pleasantry, that he
gave entire faith to what she had deposed. "My Lord Monmouth thought her
good enough to be wife to me; and, if she is good enough to be wife to
me, I am sure that she is good enough to be a witness against him." In a
House of near eighty peers only eight or ten seemed inclined to show any
favour to Monmouth. He was pronounced guilty of the act of which he had,
in the most solemn manner, protested that he was innocent; he was sent
to the Tower; he was turned out of all his places; and his name was
struck out of the Council Book. [776] It might well have been thought
that the ruin of his fame and of his fortunes was irreparable. But there
was about his nature an elasticity which nothing could subdue. In his
prison, indeed, he was as violent as a falcon just caged, and would, if
he had been long detained, have died of mere impatience. His only solace
was to contrive wild and romantic schemes for extricating himself from
his difficulties and avenging himself on his enemies. When he regained
his liberty, he stood alone in the world, a dishonoured man, more hated
by the Whigs than any Tory, and by the Tories than any Whig, and reduced
to such poverty that he talked of retiring to the country, living like
a farmer, and putting his Countess into the dairy to churn and to make
cheeses. Yet even after this fall, that mounting spirit rose again, and
rose higher than ever. When he next appeared before the world, he had
inherited the earldom of the head of his family; he had ceased to be
called by th