Elisabeth Villiers, long since he had asked her counsel or listened to
her fascinating conversation except in the presence of other persons.
She had been some years married to George Hamilton, a soldier who had
distinguished himself by his courage in Ireland and Flanders, and who
probably held the courtier like doctrine that a lady is not dishonoured
by having been the paramour of a king. William was well pleased with the
marriage, bestowed on the wife a portion of the old Crown property in
Ireland, and created the husband a peer of Scotland by the title of
Earl of Orkney. Assuredly William would not have raised his character by
abandoning to poverty a woman whom he had loved, though with a criminal
love. He was undoubtedly bound, as a man of humanity and honour, to
provide liberally for her; but he should have provided for her rather
by saving from his civil list than by alienating his hereditary revenue.
The four malecontent commissioners rejoiced with spiteful joy over this
discovery. It was in vain that the other three represented that the
grant to Lady Orkney was one with which they had nothing to do, and
that, if they went out of their way to hold it up to obloquy, they might
be justly said to fly in the King's face. "To fly in the King's face!"
said one of the majority; "our business is to fly in the King's face. We
were sent here to fly in the King's face." With this patriotic object a
paragraph about Lady Orkney's grant was added to the report, a paragraph
too in which the value of that grant was so monstrously exaggerated that
William appeared to have surpassed the profligate extravagance of
his uncle Charles. The estate bestowed on the countess was valued at
twenty-four thousand pounds a year. The truth seems to be that the
income which she derived from the royal bounty, after making allowance
for incumbrances and for the rate of exchange, was about four thousand
pounds.

The success of the report was complete. The nation and its
representatives hated taxes, hated foreign favourites, and hated Irish
Papists; and here was a document which held out the hope that England
might, at the expense of foreign courtiers and of popish Celts, be
relieved from a great load of taxes. Many, both within and without
the walls of Parliament, gave entire faith to the estimate which the
commissioners had formed by a wild guess, in the absence of trustworthy
information. They gave entire faith also to the prediction that a strict