many pulpits. "We have now for our Church," cried one loyal
preacher, "the word of a King, and of a King who was never worse than
his word." This pointed sentence was fast circulated through town and
country, and was soon the watchword of the whole Tory party. [226]

The great offices of state had become vacant by the demise of the crown
and it was necessary for James to determine how they should be filled.
Few of the members of the late cabinet had any reason to expect his
favour. Sunderland, who was Secretary of State, and Godolphin, who was
First Lord of the Treasury, had supported the Exclusion Bill. Halifax,
who held the Privy Seal, had opposed that bill with unrivalled powers
of argument and eloquence. But Halifax was the mortal enemy of despotism
and of Popery. He saw with dread the progress of the French arms on the
Continent and the influence of French gold in the counsels of England.
Had his advice been followed, the laws would have been strictly
observed: clemency would have been extended to the vanquished Whigs: the
Parliament would have been convoked in due season: an attempt would have
been made to reconcile our domestic factions; and the principles of
the Triple Alliance would again have guided our foreign policy. He
had therefore incurred the bitter animosity of James. The Lord Keeper
Guildford could hardly be said to belong to either of the parties into
which the court was divided. He could by no means be called a friend of
liberty; and yet he had so great a reverence for the letter of the
law that he was not a serviceable tool of arbitrary power. He was
accordingly designated by the vehement Tories as a Trimmer, and was to
James an object of aversion with which contempt was largely mingled.
Ormond, who was Lord Steward of the Household and Viceroy of Ireland,
then resided at Dublin. His claims on the royal gratitude were superior
to those of any other subject. He had fought bravely for Charles the
First: he had shared the exile of Charles the Second; and, since the
Restoration, he had, in spite of many provocations, kept his loyalty
unstained. Though he had been disgraced during the predominance of the
Cabal, he had never gone into factious opposition, and had, in the
days of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, been foremost among the
supporters of the throne. He was now old, and had been recently tried by
the most cruel of all calamities. He had followed to the grave a son who
should have been his