the wheel. William was
earnest and resolute. "It is necessary," he said, "for my service; and
I must lay on your conscience the responsibility of refusing me your
help." Here the conversation ended. It was, indeed, not necessary that
the point should be immediately decided; for several months were still
to elapse before the Archbishopric would be vacant.

Tillotson bemoaned himself with unfeigned anxiety and sorrow to Lady
Russell, whom, of all human beings, he most honoured and trusted, [504]
He hoped, he said, that he was not inclined to shrink from the service
of the Church; but he was convinced that his present line of service was
that in which he could be most useful. If he should be forced to accept
so high and so invidious a post as the primacy, he should soon sink
under the load of duties and anxieties too heavy for his strength. His
spirits, and with his spirits his abilities, would fail him. He gently
complained of Burnet, who loved and admired him with a truly generous
heartiness, and who had laboured to persuade both the King and
Queen that there was in England only one man fit for the highest
ecclesiastical dignity. "The Bishop of Salisbury," said Tillotson, "is
one of the best and worst friends that I know."

Nothing that was not a secret to Burnet was likely to be long a secret
to any body. It soon began to be whispered about that the King had
fixed on Tillotson to fill the place of Sancroft. The news caused cruel
mortification to Compton, who, not unnaturally, conceived that his own
claims were unrivalled. He had educated the Queen and her sister; and
to the instruction which they had received from him might fairly be
ascribed, at least in part, the firmness with which, in spite of the
influence of their father, they had adhered to the established religion.
Compton was, moreover, the only prelate who, during the late reign, had
raised his voice in Parliament against the dispensing power, the only
prelate who had been suspended by the High Commission, the only prelate
who had signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, the only prelate
who had actually taken arms against Popery and arbitrary power, the
only prelate, save one, who had voted against a Regency. Among the
ecclesiastics of the Province of Canterbury who had taken the oaths,
he was highest in rank. He had therefore held, during some months, a
vicarious primacy: he had crowned the new Sovereigns: he had consecrated
the new Bishops: he was ab