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HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

chap. King of pusillanimity. Why retreat from Salisbury? Why-jjjg—not try the event of a battle? Could people be blamed forsubmitting to the invader when they saw their sovereign runaway at the head of his army? James felt these insults keenly,and remembered them long.' Indeed even Whigs thought thelanguage of Clarendon indecent and ungenerous. Halifaxspoke in a very different tone. During several years of perilhe had defended with admirable ability the civil and eccle-siastical constitution of his country against the prerogative.But his serene intellect, singularly unsusceptible of enthu-siasm, and singularly averse to extremes, began to lean to-wards the cause of royalty at the very moment at which thosenoisy Royalists who had lately execrated the Trimmers aslittle better than rebels were everywhere, rising in rebellion.It was his ambition to be, at this conjuncture, the peacemakerbetween the throne and the nation. Ilis talents and cha-racter fitted him for that office; and, if he failed, the failure isto be ascribed to causes against which no human skill couldcontend, and chiefly to the folly, faithlessness, and obstinacyof the Prince whom he tried to save.

Halifax now gave utterance to much unpalatable truth, butwith a delicacy which brought,on him the reproach of flatteryfrom spirits too abject to understand that what would justly becalled flattery when offered to the powerful is a debt of hu-manity to the fallen. With many expressions of sympathy anddeference, he declared it to be his opinion that the King mustmake up his mind to groat sacrifices. It was not enough toconvoke a Parliament or to open a negotiation with thePrince of Orange. Some at least of the grievances ofwhich the nation complained should be instantly redress-ed without waiting till redress was demanded by. theHouses or by the captain of the hostile army. Nottingham,in language equally respectful, declared that he agreed withHalifax. The chief concessions which these Lords pressedthe King to make were three. He ought, they said, forthwithto dismiss all Roman Catholics from office, to separate himselfwholly from France, and to grant an unlimited amnesty tothose who were in arms against him. The last of these propo-

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