JAMES THE SECOND.

83

Churchill himself was no superficial observer. He knewexactly what his interest really was. If his master were once ■at full liberty to employ Papists, not a single Protestant wouldbe employed. For a time a few highly favoured servantsof the crown might possibly be exempted from the generalproscription in the hope that they would be induced to changetheir religion. But even these would, after a short respite,fall one by one, as Rochester had already fallen. Churchillmight indeed secure himself from this danger, and might raisehimself still higher in the royal favour, by conforming to theChurch of Rome; and it might seem that one who was not lessdistinguished by avarice and baseness than by capacity andvalour was not likely to be shocked at the thought of hearinga mass. But so inconsistent is human nature that there aretender spots even in seared consciences. And thus this man,who had owed his rise to his sister’s dishonour, who had beenkept by the most profuse, imperious, and shameless ofharlots, and whose public life, to those who can look steadilythrough the dazzling blaze of genius and glory, will appear aprodigy of turpitude, believed implicitly in the religion whichhe had learned as a boy, and shuddered at the thought offormally abjuring it. A terrible alternative was before him.The earthly evil which he most dreaded was poverty. Theone crime from which his heart recoiled was apostasy. And,if the designs of the Court succeeded, he could not doubtthat between poverty and apostasy he must soon make hischoice. He therefore determined to cross those designs; andit soon appeared that there was no guilt and no disgrace whichhe was not ready to incur, in order to escape from thenecessity of parting either with his places or with his re-ligion.*

* The motive which determined the conduct of the Churchills isshortly and plainly set forth in the Duchess of Marlborough’s Vindi-cation. “It was,” she says, “evident to all the world that, as thingswere carried on by King James, everybody sooner or later must beruined, who would not become a Roman Catholic. This considerationmade me very well pleased at the Prince of Orange's undertaking torescue us from such slavery.”

CHAP.

VII.

1687.

6 *