320

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

IX.

1688 .

Conncilof Lordsbold byJames.

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ment was found empty, the consternation was great in White-hall. While the Ladies of her Bedchamber ran up and downthe courts of the palace, screaming and wringing their hands,while Lord Craven, who commanded the Foot Guards, wasquestioning the sentinels in the gallery, while the Chancellorwas sealing up the papers of the Churchills, the Frincess’snurse broke into the royal apartments crying out that the dearlady had been murdered by the Papists. The news flew toWestminster Hall. There the story was that Her Highnesshad been hurried away by force to a place of confinement.When it could no longer be denied that her flight had beenvoluntary, numerous fictions were invented to account for it.She had been grossly insulted; she had been threatened; nay,though she was in that situation in which woman is entitled topeculiar tenderness, she had been beaten by her cruel step-mother. The populace, which years of misrule had madesuspicious and irritable, was so much excited by these calum-nies that the Queen was scarcely safe. Many Roman Ca-tholics, and some Protestant Tories whose loyalty was proofto all trials, repaired to the palace that they might be in rea-diness to defend her in the event of an outbreak. In the midstof this distress and terror arrived the news of Prince George’sflight. The courier who brought these evil tidings was fastfollowed by the King himself. The evening was closing inwhen James arrived, and was informed that his daughter haddisappeared. After all that he had suffered, this afflictionforced a cry of misery from his lips. “ God help me, ” hesaid; “my own children have forsaken me.”*

That evening he sate in Council with his principal minis-ters till a late hour. It was determined that he should sum-mon all the Lords Spiritual and Temporal who were then inLondon to attend him on the following day, and that he shouldsolemnly ask their advice. Accordingly, on the afternoon ofTuesday the twenty-seventh, the Lords met in the diningroom of the palace. The assembly consisted of nine prelates* Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 192.; Citlers, 1688; Clarke's

Life of James, ii. 226. Orig. Mem.; Clarendon’s Diary, Nov. 26.;Revolution Politics.