not only in the capital that the Jacobites, at this time, made a
great display of their wit. They mustered strong at Bath, where the Lord
President Caermarthen was trying to recruit his feeble health. Every
evening they met, as they phrased it, to serenade the Marquess. In other
words they assembled under the sick man's window, and there sang doggrel
lampoons on him. [465]

It is remarkable that the Lord President, at the very time at which
he was insulted as a Williamite at Bath, was considered as a stanch
Jacobite at Saint Germains. How he came to be so considered is a
most perplexing question. Some writers are of opinion that he, like
Shrewsbury, Russell, Godolphin and Marlborough, entered into engagements
with one king while eating the bread of the other. But this opinion
does not rest on sufficient proofs. About the treasons of Shrewsbury,
of Russell, of Godolphin and of Marlborough, we have a great mass of
evidence, derived from various sources, and extending over several
years. But all the information which we possess about Caermarthen's
dealings with James is contained in a single short paper written by
Melfort on the sixteenth of October 1693. From that paper it is quite
clear that some intelligence had reached the banished King and his
Ministers which led them to regard Caermarthen as a friend. But there is
no proof that they ever so regarded him, either before that day or after
that day. [466] On the whole, the most probable explanation of this
mystery seems to be that Caermarthen had been sounded by some Jacobite
emissary much less artful than himself, and had, for the purpose of
getting at the bottom of the new scheme of policy devised by Middleton,
pretended to be well disposed to the cause of the banished King, that an
exaggerated account of what had passed had been sent to Saint Germains,
and that there had been much rejoicing there at a conversion which soon
proved to have been feigned. It seems strange that such a conversion
should even for a moment have been thought sincere. It was plainly
Caermarthen's interest to stand by the sovereigns in possession. He
was their chief minister. He could not hope to be the chief minister of
James. It can indeed hardly be supposed that the political conduct of a
cunning old man, insatiably ambitious and covetous, was much influenced
by personal partiality. But, if there were any person to whom
Caermarthen was partial, that person was undoubtedly Mary. That he had
s