liam--Conduct of Shrewsbury--The Council of
Nine--Conduct of Clarendon--Penn held to Bail--Interview between William
and Burnet; William sets out for Ireland--Trial of Crone--Danger of
Invasion and Insurrection; Tourville's Fleet in the--Channel--Arrests
of suspected Persons--Torrington ordered to give Battle to
Tourville--Battle of Beachy Head--Alarm in London; Battle of
Fleurus--Spirit of the Nation--Conduct of Shrewsbury

WHILE the Convocation was wrangling on one side of Old Palace Yard, the
Parliament was wrangling even more fiercely on the other. The Houses,
which had separated on the twentieth of August, had met again on the
nineteenth of October. On the day of meeting an important change struck
every eye. Halifax was no longer on the woolsack. He had reason to
expect that the persecution, from which in the preceding session he had
narrowly escaped, would be renewed. The events which had taken place
during the recess, and especially the disasters of the campaign in
Ireland, had furnished his persecutors with fresh means of annoyance.
His administration had not been successful; and, though his failure was
partly to be ascribed to causes against which no human wisdom could have
contended, it was also partly to be ascribed to the peculiarities of his
temper and of his intellect. It was certain that a large party in the
Commons would attempt to remove him; and he could no longer depend
on the protection of his master. It was natural that a prince who was
emphatically a man of action should become weary of a minister who was a
man of speculation. Charles, who went to Council as he went to the play,
solely to be amused, was delighted with an adviser who had a hundred
pleasant and ingenious things to say on both sides of every question.
But William had no taste for disquisitions and disputations, however
lively and subtle, which occupied much time and led to no conclusion. It
was reported, and is not improbable, that on one occasion he could
not refrain from expressing in sharp terms at the council board his
impatience at what seemed to him a morbid habit of indecision, [517]
Halifax, mortified by his mischances in public life, dejected by
domestic calamities, disturbed by apprehensions of an impeachment, and
no longer supported by royal favour, became sick of public life,
and began to pine for the silence and solitude of his seat in
Nottinghamshire, an old Cistercian Abbey buried deep among woods. Early
in Octobe