pinion. Thus James
found that the two things which he most desired could not be enjoyed
together. His second wish was to be feared and respected abroad. But his
first wish was to be absolute master at home. Between the incompatible
objects on which his heart was set he, for a time, went irresolutely
to and fro. The conflict in his own breast gave to his public acts a
strange appearance of indecision and insincerity. Those who, without
the clue, attempted to explore the maze of his politics were unable to
understand how the same man could be, in the same week, so haughty and
so mean. Even Lewis was perplexed by the vagaries of an ally who passed,
in a few hours, from homage to defiance, and from defiance to
homage. Yet, now that the whole conduct of James is before us, this
inconsistency seems to admit of a simple explanation.

At the moment of his accession he was in doubt whether the kingdom
would peaceably submit to his authority. The Exclusionists, lately so
powerful, might rise in arms against him. He might be in great need
of French money and French troops. He was therefore, during some days,
content to be a sycophant and a mendicant. He humbly apologised for
daring to call his Parliament together without the consent of the French
government. He begged hard for a French subsidy. He wept with joy over
the French bills of exchange. He sent to Versailles a special embassy
charged with assurances of his gratitude, attachment, and submission.
But scarcely had the embassy departed when his feelings underwent a
change. He had been everywhere proclaimed without one riot, without
one seditions outcry. From all corners of the island he received
intelligence that his subjects were tranquil and obedient. His spirit
rose. The degrading relation in which he stood to a foreign power seemed
intolerable. He became proud, punctilious, boastful, quarrelsome. He
held such high language about the dignity of his crown and the balance
of power that his whole court fully expected a complete revolution in
the foreign politics of the realm. He commanded Churchill to send home a
minute report of the ceremonial of Versailles, in order that the honours
with which the English embassy was received there might be repaid, and
not more than repaid, to the representative of France at Whitehall. The
news of this change was received with delight at Madrid, Vienna, and
the Hague. [249] Lewis was at first merely diverted. "My good ally talks
big," he sa