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HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

VIII.

Among these the most conspicuous was the second temporal■peer of the realm, Charles Seymour, commonly called theThe Duke P rou d Duke of Somerset. He was in truth a man in whom theof so- pride of birth and rank amounted almost to a disease. Themcrset. f or j une w j 1 ; c j 1 } ie had inherited was not adequate to the highplace which he held among the English aristocracy: but hehad become possessed of the greatest estate in England by hismarriage with the daughter and heiress of the last Percy whowore the ancient coronet of Northumberland. Somerset wasonly in his twenty-fifth year, and was very little known to thepublic. He was a Lord of the King’s Bedchamber, and co-lonel of one of the regiments which had been raised at thetime of the Western insurrection. He had not scrupled tocarry the sword of state into the royal chapel on days offestival: but he now resolutely refused to swell the pomp ofthe Nuncio. Some members of his family implored him notto draw on himself the royal displeasure: but their intreatiesproduced no effect. The King himself expostulated. “Ithought, my Lord,” said he, “that I was doing you a greathonour in appointing you to escort the minister of the first ofall crowned heads.” “Sir,” said the Duke, “I am advisedthat I cannot obey your Majesty without breaking the law.”“I will make you fear me as well as the law,” answered theKing, insolently. “Do you not know that I am above thelaw?” “Your Majesty may be above the law,” replied So-merset; “but I am not; and, while I obey the law, I fearnothing.” The King turned away in high displeasure, andSomerset was instantly dismissed from his posts in the house-hold and in the army.*

On one point, however, James showed some prudence.He did not venture to parade the Papal Envoy in state beforethe vast population of the capital. The ceremony was per-formed, on the third of July 1687, at Windsor. Great mul-titudes flocked to the little town. The visitors were so nume-rous that there was neither food nor lodging for them; and

* Memoirs of Ihe Duke of Somerset; Citters, July A' *681; Eachard’sHistory of the Revolution; Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 116,117,118.; Lord Lonsdale’s Memoirs.