Orange. This deliberate invention he entrusted under pledge of profound secrecy to Barillon, knowing that it would lose nothing in the ambassador's next despatch, where it duly appeared under date 26 Nov. Again, when Rochester voted against the suspension of Compton, bishop of London (to which Sunderland gave his full support), he pointed out the danger of dissentients and the need for a united ministry, while he insinuated that sooner or later dissentients would have to be eliminated from the council. His master-stroke was played on 19 Dec. 1686, when he induced the king to confer on religious matters with Rochester, by insinuating that he had traced signs of religious trouble with indications of a yielding mood in the demeanour of that stalwart Anglican. The result of these overtures and their inevitable failure fulfilled his expectations, for Rochester was dismissed from the treasurership in the following January (1687). Almost simultaneously (1 Jan. 1686–7) he had the satisfaction of sending a letter of recall to Clarendon, directing him to resign the government of Ireland to Tyrconnel.
During 1686 James contemplated the appointment of a vicar-general to exercise the spiritual prerogatives of the crown in much the same manner as Thomas Cromwell exercised them under Henry VIII, and Sunderland expressed readiness to undertake the office, which could hardly have failed to throw much patronage into his hands; but eventually, in August 1686, he contented himself with a seat in the new ecclesiastical commission. Next year the king, feeling thoroughly dissatisfied with the results of the ‘closeting’ of members, determined to apply more drastic measures with a view to obtaining a well-affected parliament. In November 1687 the lists of sheriffs were revised, and Sunderland, by whose advice the king was constantly guided in such matters, was put upon the board for the regulation of municipalities, along with Jeffreys and Sir Nicholas Butler. He was elected a K.G. on 26 April in this year, and installed at Windsor on 23 May following.
Sunderland afterwards insisted that he did all in his power to prevent the king from removing the tests, from exerting the dispensing power, and from harassing the Anglican body. Prudence would doubtless have dictated such a course; but in order to retain his lucrative offices it was essential that he should show himself zealous in support of the king's personal policy, and there is no doubt that he identified himself with the Roman catholic vote at the council board. James himself credits him with the sentiment ‘As we have wounded the Anglican party, we must destroy it.’ It is more certain that when the repeal of the Test Act was staunchly opposed in the lords, he threatened to create the requisite number of new peerages by calling up the elder sons of such peers as were already his partisans. According to Halifax, he vaunted that rather than lose the vote he would make peers of the whole of Lord Feversham's troop. In order to conciliate the nonconformists, he proposed a number of ingenious expedients (Mackintosh, p. 195). He tried to throw the responsibility of some of his recommendations for the relief of Roman catholics upon the papal nuncio, D'Adda; but the astute Italian offered him no advice, merely promising him his own and the pope's prayers for his guidance.
The new year (1688) found Sunderland in an extremely difficult position. He had given in his adhesion to the victorious catholic party; but, so far from being unanimous, that party was split into three widely diverging factions. First, there were the Fabians, under the old catholic aristocracy, backed up by Ronquillo, the Spanish ambassador, who deprecated the rash policy of James in outraging public opinion. Then there was the anti-French party, headed by the papal nuncio, to which the queen gave adherence. Thirdly, there was the jesuit party, supported by Petre, by the Irish jesuits, and by all the resources of French intrigue. Sunderland was not fully in sympathy with any of them. He hoped that all might still go well if he were only promoted to the vacant post of lord treasurer. But he failed in this, either through Petre or the queen; and when the king seemed to be giving a decisive adhesion to the most dangerous courses by admitting Petre to the privy council, he became distracted with apprehensions. Petre, in the advice that he gave the king, drew more and more closely to France, and Sunderland realised that not only was Petre becoming a dangerous rival, but that the handsome pension which he had been in the habit of receiving from France was in danger. To gauge his precise position in relation to the turn affairs were taking, he had recourse to two characteristic devices. In the first place he proposed a reconstruction of the cabinet, by which the affairs of Scotland and Ireland, as well as internal matters, were to be referred to the nominal privy council, which Petre was not in the habit of attending; foreign affairs exclusively were to be reserved for the secret cabinet within the council. His second step was to demand a secret extraordinary gratuity from France in addition to his regular pension of sixty thousand livres (about
