Page:Hutton, William Holden - Hampton Court (1897).djvu/151

Rh certain unconscious honesty) by Gilbert Burnet, prince of ecclesiastical toadies.

"During all these debates"—he is speaking of the discussion as to the succession, the claims of Mary as James's eldest daughter and of Anne as having a nearer right than William—"and the great heat with which they were managed, the Prince's own behaviour was very mysterious. He stayed at Saint James's: he went very little abroad: access to him was not very easy. He heard all that was said to him, but seldom made any answers. He did not affect to be affable or popular, nor would he take any pains to gain any one person to his party. He said he came over, being incited to save the nation: he had now brought together a free and true representative of the kingdom: and when things were once settled he should be well satisfied to go back to Holland again. Those who did not know him well, and who imagined that a crown had charms which human nature was not strong enough to resist, looked on all this as an affectation and as a disguised threatening, which imported that he would leave the nation to perish unless this method of settling it was followed. After a reservedness that had continued so close for several weeks that nobody could certainly tell what he desired, he called for the Marquis of Halifax, and the Earls of Shrewsbury and Danby, and some others, to explain himself more distinctly to them.