Sherlock would, perhaps, have doubted whether the government to which he had submitted was entitled to be called a settled government, if he had known all the dangers by which it was threatened.  Scarcely had Preston’s plot been detected; when a new plot of a very different kind was formed in the camp, in the navy, in the treasury, in the very bedchamber of the King.  This mystery of iniquity has, through five generations, been gradually unveiling, but is not yet entirely unveiled.  Some parts which are still obscure may possibly, by the discovery of letters or diaries now reposing under the dust of a century and a half, be made clear to our posterity.  The materials, however, which are at present accessible, are sufficient for the construction of a narrative not to be read without shame and loathing.62

We have seen that, in the spring of 1690, Shrewsbury, irritated by finding his counsels rejected, and those of his Tory rivals followed, suffered himself, in a fatal hour, to be drawn into a correspondence with the banished family.  We have seen also by what cruel sufferings of body and mind he expiated his fault.  Tortured by remorse, and by disease the effect of remorse, he had quitted the Court; but he had left behind him men whose principles were not less lax than his, and whose hearts were far harder and colder.

Early in 1691, some of these men began to hold secret communication with Saint Germains.  Wicked and base as their conduct was, there was in it nothing surprising.  They did after their kind.  The times were troubled.  A thick cloud was upon the future.  The most sagacious and experienced politician could not see with any clearness three months before him.  To a man of virtue and honour, indeed, this mattered little.  His uncertainty as to what the morrow might bring forth might make him anxious, but could not make him perfidious.  Though left in utter darkness as to what concerned his interests, he had the sure guidance of his principles.  But, unhappily, men of virtue and honour were not numerous among the courtiers of that age.  Whitehall had been, during thirty years, a seminary of every public and private vice, and swarmed with lowminded, doubledealing, selfseeking politicians.  These politicians now acted as it was natural that men profoundly immoral should act at a crisis of which none could predict the issue.  Some of them might have a slight predilection for William; others a slight predilection for James; but it was not by any such predilection that the conduct of any of the breed was guided.  If it had seemed certain that William would stand, they would all have been for William.  If it had seemed certain that James would be restored, they would all have been for James.  But what was to be done when the chances appeared to be almost exactly balanced?  There were honest men of one party who would have answered, To stand by the true King and the true Church, and, if necessary, to die for them like Laud.  There