Note 104 — Chapter XIV · THE REIGN OF JAMES II.

Rochester makes so very bad a figure in all Barillon's correspondence, that there really seems no want of candour in this supposition. He was evidently the most active co-operator in the connection of both the brothers with France, and seems to have had as few compunctious visitings, where the church of England was not concerned, as Sunderland himself. Godolphin was too much implicated, at least by acquiescence, in the counsels of this reign; yet we find him suspected of not wishing "se passer entièrement de parlement, et à rompre nettement avec le prince d'Orange." Fox, Append, p. 60.

If Rochester had gone over to the Romanists, many, probably, would have followed: on the other hand, his steadiness retained the wavering. It was one of the first great disappointments with which the king met. But his dismissal from the treasury created a sensible alarm. Dalrymple, 179.