ser. The poor man, ready to faint with grief and fear,
was conducted by the officers of the House to a place of confinement.
[393]

But scarcely was he in his prison when a large body of members
clamorously demanded a more important victim. Burnet had, shortly after
he became Bishop of Salisbury, addressed to the clergy of his diocese a
Pastoral Letter, exhorting them to take the oaths. In one paragraph of
this letter he had held language bearing some resemblance to that of the
pamphlet which had just been sentenced to the flames. There were indeed
distinctions which a judicious and impartial tribunal would not have
failed to notice. But the tribunal before which Burnet was arraigned was
neither judicious nor impartial. His faults had made him many enemies,
and his virtues many more. The discontented Whigs complained that he
leaned towards the Court, the High Churchmen that he leaned towards the
Dissenters; nor can it be supposed that a man of so much boldness and so
little tact, a man so indiscreetly frank and so restlessly active,
had passed through life without crossing the schemes and wounding the
feelings of some whose opinions agreed with his. He was regarded with
peculiar malevolence by Howe. Howe had never, even while he was in
office, been in the habit of restraining his bitter and petulant tongue;
and he had recently been turned out of office in a way which had
made him ungovernably ferocious. The history of his dismission is not
accurately known, but it was certainly accompanied by some circumstances
which had cruelly galled his temper. If rumour could be trusted, he had
fancied that Mary was in love with him, and had availed himself of an
opportunity which offered itself while he was in attendance on her
as Vice Chamberlain to make some advances which had justly moved her
indignation. Soon after he was discarded, he was prosecuted for having,
in a fit of passion, beaten one of his servants savagely within the
verge of the palace. He had pleaded guilty, and had been pardoned; but
from this time he showed, on every occasion, the most rancorous personal
hatred of his royal mistress, of her husband, and of all who were
favoured by either. It was known that the Queen frequently consulted
Burnet; and Howe was possessed with the belief that her severity was to
be imputed to Burnet's influence. [394] Now was the time to be revenged.
In a long and elaborate speech the spiteful Whig--for such he still
affected to be--