succession, concluded that there would be no way to save this nation from great trouble but for the Duke to resign, which we thought he would hardly do, being governed so much by his priests. My Lord Feversham told me that he had sent the Duke word that none of his friends would help him but himself, meaning the changing his religion, which, if he did it thoroughly, would dash all his enemies.[1]
- ↑ Lord Feversham was a Frenchman by birth, and nephew of Marshal Turenne; a faithful adherent of James in all his fortunes. Burnet describes him as "an honest, brave, and goodnatured man, but weak to a degree not to be conceived." Speaking of these applications, James says: "These were not all the difficulties he was to fence against; his friends relapsed again into their fears, which was more grievous to him than all the rest, had they had the boldness to press him to change his religion as the only resource he had left, and that without it, both himself, the King, and Monarchy too would infallibly be lost.
"These menaces would have staggered a Prince of less Christian resolution, but no earthly motive could shake his perseverance when justice or truth were concerned; so he replied with something more of asperity than ordinary—'that he wondered those to whom he was known could fancy him capable of so much levity, in a business of that high nature, as either to have changed his religion at first, without full conviction, or to relinquish it now for temporal ends—that what he had done was upon full deliberation; and that he was resolved, let the consequence be what it will, to persevere in the truth he had already embraced.'"—Life of James II. i., 560.
