a rigorous administration of that penal legislation against Nonconformists which they had purchased with so many and such lavish supplies.  As a matter of fact, these penal laws were very fitfully enforced.  In London they were often totally disregarded, and we read of congregations numbering two thousand openly attending Presbyterian services.  The Lord Mayor for the time being took his orders direct from the king.

What was Charles to do?  After the fall of Clarendon, the king’s favourite privy councillors, called the “Cabal,” because the initial letters of their names formed a word which for some time previously had been in common use, represent only too faithfully the confusion and corruption of the times.  Clifford was a zealous Roman, Arlington a cautious one, Buckingham a free-thinker and mocker, friendly to France and on good terms with the more advanced English sectaries; Ashley made no pretence to be a Christian, but favoured philosophic toleration; whilst Lauderdale, one of the most learned ministers that ever sat in council (so Ranke says[185:1]), was, as a matter of profession, a Presbyterian, but in reality a man wholly and slavishly devoted to the king’s interests, and prepared at any moment to pour into the kingdom soldiers from Scotland to purge or suppress all Free Institutions.

Irritated, disgusted, thwarted, and annoyed, the king, acting, it well may be, under the influence of his accomplished sister, the beautiful and ill-fated Duchess of Orleans, struck up, to use Marvell’s own words, “an invisible league with France.”  The negotiations were either by word of mouth or by letters which have been burnt.  Dr. Lingard in his history gives an interesting account of this mysterious transaction.  Two things are apparent as the objects of the Treaty of Dover.  The Dutch Republic is to be destroyed, and the cause of Catholicism in England is to be promoted and maintained.  It was this latter object that seems most to have excited the hopes of the Duchess of Orleans.  A woman’s hand is traceable throughout.  Charles promised to profess himself openly a Roman Catholic at the time that should appear to be most expedient, and subsequently to that profession he was to join with Louis in making war upon the Dutch Republic.  At the date of this bewildering agreement, it was high treason by statute even to say that Charles was a Roman Catholic.  In case the king’s public conversion should lead to disturbances, Louis promised an “aid” of two millions of livres and an armed force of six thousand men.  He also agreed to pay the whole cost of the Dutch War on land, and to contribute thirty men-of-war to the English fleet.  Holland once crushed, England’s share of the plunder was to be Walcheren, Sluys, and Cadsand.  A remarkable conversion!  It is difficult to suppose that either Charles or Louis were quite serious over this part of the business.  Yet there it is.  The Catholic provisions of the secret Treaty of Dover were only known to Clifford, whose soul was fired by them, and to Arlington, who did not share the confident hopes of his co-religionist.  Clifford thought there were thousands of Englishmen “of light and leading” among the English Catholics who would be both willing and able to assume the burdens of the State and to rally round a Catholic king.  Arlington thought otherwise.