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434 servedly. Yet, in 1682, when the administration was wholly in favour of the Duke of York, a promise was obtained from the king to bestow upon him the mastership of the Temple, which was likely to be immediately vacant; upon which he was again sent for by the king-, and treated with extraordinary kindness. Burnet himself, however, waved the promise that had been made him, when he found that he was expected, in return for the place, to break up correspondence with all those who had been his best friends. He felt himself at this time upon such dangerous ground, that he was afraid of all communication with either of the parties that at this time were agitating the public mind; and as an excuse for privacy, built a laboratory, and for a whole year amused himself with performing experiments in chemistry. He was at this time offered a living of three hundred pounds a year by the earl of Essex, upon condition that he would continue to reside in London. In case of having the cure of souls, however, Burnet thought residence an indispensable obligation, and the benefice was given to another. In 1683, he narrowly escaped being brought by his friends into trouble by the Ryehouse plot; and by his conducting the trial and attending on Lord William Russel in prison and on the scaffold, and particularly by defending his memory before the council, he incurred the odium of the court, which, from a certain knowledge of his integrity, could not fail at this time to be greatly afraid of him. In the course of this year, probably to be out of the way of his enemies, he went over to Paris, where he was treated with great deference, by the express orders of Louis XIV. Here, his friends, apprehensive of danger to him at home, wished him to remain; but as no consideration could induce him to be long absent from his charge, he of course returned in a short time. That same year, however, he was discharged from his lecture at St Clements, by a mandate from the king, and in March 1684, he was forbid preaching any more in the chapel at the rolls. Being thus happily disengaged from all his employments, at the death of Charles II. upon the accession of James VII. he requested, and obtained leave to quit the kingdom, and went to Paris, where he lived in great retirement, to avoid being involved in the conspiracies which the duke of Monmouth and the earl of Argyle were then forming against the government. When that business was at an end, he in company with an officer, a protestant in the French service, made the tour of Italy, and in 1684, came to Utrecht, where he found letters from some of the principal ministers of state at the Hague, requesting him to wait upon the prince and princess of Orange. As the Revolution in England was already in contemplation, Dr Burnet met from these personages a most gracious reception, and was soon admitted to an entire confidence. When Dyckvelt was sent over ambassador to England, with a view particularly to sound the inclinations of the people, his secret instructions were drawn up by Dr Burnet, of which the rough draught in his own liand writing is still preserved. James, in the meantime, was highly incensed against him for the reflections he had made on the richness of the catholic countries, through which he had passed, in an account of his travels recently published, which it was supposed had had a sensible effect upon the people of England. His majesty accordingly wrote two severe letters against him to the princess of Orange, and forbade his envoy at the Hague to transact any business with that court till Dr Burnet was forbidden to appear there. This to humour James was done; but Hallewyn Fogel and the rest of the Dutch ministers consulted with him privately every day. A prosecution for treason was now commenced against Dr Burnet in Scotland; but before this could be notified to the States, he had been naturalized with a view to his marriage with a Dutch Lady; and in a letter in answer to the charges preferred against him, directed to the earl of Middleton, he stated that being now naturalized in Holland, his