who had not, in the drunkenness of factious animosity, lost all sense of reason and justice, must have felt that it was impossible to make a distinction between two parts of that paper, and to treat all that related to Shrewsbury and Russell as false, and all that related to Godolphin as true.  This was acknowledged even by Wharton, who of all public men was the least troubled by scruples or by shame.748 If Godolphin had stedfastly refused to quit his place, the Whig leaders would have been in a most embarrassing position.  But a politician of no common dexterity undertook to extricate them from their difficulties.  In the art of reading and managing the minds of men Sunderland had no equal; and he was, as he had been during several years, desirous to see all the great posts in the kingdom filled by Whigs.  By his skilful management Godolphin was induced to go into the royal closet, and to request permission to retire from office; and William granted that permission with a readiness by which Godolphin was much more surprised than pleased.749

One of the methods employed by the Whig junto, for the purpose of instituting and maintaining through all the ranks of the Whig party a discipline never before known, was the frequent holding of meetings of members of the House of Commons.  Some of those meetings were numerous; others were select.  The larger were held at the Rose, a tavern frequently mentioned in the political pasquinades of that time;750 the smaller at Russell’s in Covent Garden, or at Somers’s in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

On the day on which Godolphin resigned his great office two select meetings were called.  In the morning the place of assembly was Russell’s house.  In the afternoon there was a fuller muster at the Lord Keeper’s.  Fenwick’s confession, which, till that time, had probably been known only by rumour to most of those who were present, was read.  The indignation of the hearers was strongly excited, particularly by one passage, of which the sense seemed to be that not only Russell, not only Shrewsbury, but the great body of the Whig party was, and had long been, at heart Jacobite.  “The fellow insinuates,” it was said, “that the Assassination Plot itself was a Whig scheme.”  The general opinion was that such a charge could not be lightly passed over.  There must be a solemn debate and decision in Parliament.  The best course would be that the King should himself see and examine the prisoner, and that Russell should then request the royal permission to bring the subject before the House of Commons.  As Fenwick did not pretend that he had any authority for the stories which he had told except mere hearsay, there could be no difficulty in carrying a resolution branding him as a slanderer, and an address to the throne requesting that he might be forthwith brought to trial for high treason.751