les of impeachment, and still further articles when the first
were not found to be strong enough for the purpose. Stanhope impeached
the Duke of Ormond; Aislabie impeached Lord Strafford--not of
high-treason, but of high crimes and misdemeanors; Strafford was
accused of being not only "the tool of a Frenchified ministry," but the
adviser of most pernicious measures. Strafford's part in the
negotiations had not been one of any considerable importance. He had
been sent as English Plenipotentiary to the Congress at Utrecht.
Associated with him as Second Plenipotentiary was Dr. John Robinson,
then Bishop of Bristol, and more lately made Bishop of London, the
churchman on whom the office of the Privy Seal had been conferred by
Harley, to the great anger of the Whigs. It was said that Strafford,
in his high and mighty way, had refused flatly to accept a mere poet
like Prior for his official colleague. Strafford had, in reality,
little or nothing to do with the making of the Treaty. The
negotiations were carried on between Bolingbroke and {110} the Marquis
de Torcy, French Secretary of State and nephew of the great Colbert;
and when these wanted agents they employed men more clever and less
pompous than Strafford. Aislabie, in bringing on his motion, drew a
curious distinction between Strafford and Strafford's official
colleague. "The good and pious Prelate," he said, had been only a
cipher, and "seemed to have been put at the head of that negotiation
only to palliate the iniquity of it under the sacredness of his
character." He was glad, therefore, that nothing could be charged upon
the Bishop, and complacently observed that the course taken with regard
to Dr. Robinson, who was not to be impeached, "ought to convince the
world that the Church was not in danger." There was some wisdom as
well as wit in a remark made thereupon by a member of the House in
opposing the motion--"the Bishop, it seems, is to have the benefit of
clergy."

[Sidenote: 1715--Ormond's hesitation]

The motions for the impeachment of Bolingbroke and Oxford were carried
without a division. This fact, however, would be little indication as
to the result of an impeachment after a long trial, and after the minds
of men had cooled down on both sides; when Whigs had grown less
passionate in their hate, and Tories had recovered their courage to
sustain their friends. Even at the moment the impeachment of the Duke
of Ormond was a matter of far greate