Jacobites every where, and prone to believe whatever he wished, might easily put an erroneous construction on invectives such as the haughty and irritable Devonshire was but too ready to utter, and on sarcasms such as, in moments of spleen, dropped but too easily from the lips of the keenwitted Dorset. Caermarthen, a Tory, and a Tory who had been mercilessly persecuted by the Whigs, was disposed to make the most of this idle hearsay. But he received no encouragement from his master, who, of all the great politicians mentioned in history, was the least prone to suspicion. When William returned to England, Preston was brought before him, and was commanded to repeat the confession which had already been made to the ministers. The King stood behind the Lord President's chair and listened gravely while Clarendon, Dartmouth, Turner and Penn were named. But as soon as the prisoner, passing from what he could himself testify, began to repeat the stories which Penn had told him, William touched Caermarthen on the shoulder and said, "My Lord, we have had too much of this."[1] This judicious magnanimity had its proper reward. Devonshire and Dorset became from that day more zealous than ever in the cause of the master who, in spite of calumny for which their own indiscretion had perhaps furnished some ground, had continued to repose confidence in their loyalty.[2]
Even those who were undoubtedly criminal were generally treated with great lenity. Clarendon lay in the Tower about six months. His guilt was fully established; and a party among the Whigs called loudly and importunately for his head. But he was saved by the pathetic entreaties of his brother Rochester, by the good offices of the humane and generous Burnet, and by Mary's respect for the memory of her mother. The
- ↑ That this account of what passed is true in substance is sufficiently proved by the Life of James, ii. 443. I have taken one or two slight circumstances from Dalrymple, who, I believe, took them from papers, now irrecoverably lost, which he had seen in the Scotch College at Paris.
- ↑ The success of William's "seeming clemency" is admitted in the Life of James, ii. 443. The Prince of Orange's method, it is acknowledged, "succeeded so well that, whatever sentiments those Lords which Mr. Penn had named might have had at that time, they proved in effect most bitter enemies to His Majesty's cause afterwards." It ought to be observed that this part of the Life of James was revised and corrected by his son.
