WILLIAM AND JIAKX.

13

Plantagenets, the Tudors, and the Stuarts, there had been chap.ministers; but there had been no ministry. The servants of the — I6a ,y—Crown were not, as now, bound in frankpledge for each other.

They were not expected to be of the same opinion even on ques-tions of the gravest importance. Often they were politicallyand personally hostile to each other, and made no secret oftheir hostility. It was not yet felt to be inconvenient or un-seemly that they should accuse each other of high crimes, anddemand each other’s heads. No man had been more active inthe impeachment of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon thanCoventry, who was a Commissioner of the Treasury. No manhad been more active in the impeachment of the Lord TreasurerDanby thanWinnington, who was Solicitor General. Amongthe members of the Government there was only one point ofunion, their common head, the Sovereign. The nation con-sidered him as the proper chief of the administration, andblamed him severely if he delegated his high functions to anysubject. Clarendon has told us that nothing was so hateful tothe Englishmen of his time as a Prime Minister. They wouldrather, he said, be subject to an usurper like Oliver, who wasfirst magistrate in fact as w-ell as in name, than to a legitimateKing who referred them to a Grand Vizier. One of the chief ac-cusations which the country party had brought against Charlesthe Second was that he was too indolent and too fond of plea-sure to examine with care the balance sheets of public accoun-tants and the inventories of military stores. James, when hecame to the crown, had determined to appoint no Lord HighAdmiral or Board of Admiralty, and to keep the entire direc-tion of maritime affairs in his own hands; and this arrangement,which would now be thought by men of all parties unconstitu-tional and pernicious in the highest degree, was then generallyapplauded even by people who iverc not inclined to see his con-duct in a favourable light. Iiow completely the relation in