14. =Shaftesbury and the King. 1679.=--New elections were held, with the result that a House of Commons was chosen even more bitterly hostile to the Court than its predecessor. Shaftesbury was now at the height of his glory. Oates and other informers were adding new lies to those which they had told before, and the continual trials and executions of the Catholics for participation in the supposed Popish Plot kept the excitement in favour of the Exclusion Bill at a fever heat. Shaftesbury's position was very similar to Pym's in =1641=. He had on his side the fundamental principle that a nation cannot safely be governed by a ruler whose ideas on the most important question of the day are directly opposed to those of his subjects, and he was right, as the result showed, in holding that, in the seventeenth century, a Catholic king could not satisfactorily govern a Protestant people. After Danby's fall, the king became the real head of the party opposed to Shaftesbury. His ability had always been great, but hitherto he had alienated those who were disposed to be his friends by attempting to establish an absolute government with the help of the king of France and of an army dependent on himself. He now set himself to overthrow Shaftesbury by appealing to a popular sentiment which was quite as strong, and might be stronger, than the dislike of a Catholic successor; that is to say, to the horror with which anything which threatened a new civil war filled the hearts of his subjects. 15. =Shaftesbury and Halifax. 1679.=--Shaftesbury had already allowed it to be known that he intended, if he carried the Exclusion Bill, to propose that the future king should be the Duke of Monmouth. Monmouth was the eldest of Charles's illegitimate sons, and it was currently, though falsely, believed that Charles had been privately married to his mother, so that he might rightly be regarded as the heir to the Crown. Charles, who knew better than any one else that this story was untrue, stood faithfully by his brother, and, though his constancy made little impression as yet, he had on his side a man whose judgment might usually be taken as an indication of the ultimate decision of public opinion. That man was George Savile, Earl, and afterwards Marquis of Halifax. He had been one of the bitterest enemies of Danby, but he devoted himself to no party. He called himself a Trimmer, as if his business was to trim the boat, and to throw himself against each party in turn as it grew violent in consequence of success. He now supported the king against Shaftesbury, on the ground that it was uncertain whether James would survive his brother, and that, if he did, he was not likely to survive him long; whereas, the succession of the Duke of Monmouth would not only exclude from the throne the Catholic James, but also his daughters, who were both Protestants. As Monmouth had no real hereditary right, there was every likelihood that, even if he