A Committee of Secrecy was now formed to examine into the conduct of the last Ministry of Queen Anne with regard to the Treaty of Utrecht and James’s restoration. This committee consisted of twenty-one members, all Whigs, and when at safe distance he saw the list, Bolingbroke must have known that he had little chance of a fair trial, for the chairman of the committee was his bitter enemy, Robert Walpole. The Tories in Parliament still believed, or pretended to believe, that matters would not be carried to extremities, and talked much of the clemency of the King, but they were mistaken. When the committee reported it was found that Oxford, Ormonde and Bolingbroke were to be impeached of high treason, and Strafford, who was one of the plenipotentiaries at Utrecht, was accused of high crimes and misdemeanours. Ormonde was living at Richmond in great state, and, since his dismissal, had ostentatiously ignored the House of Hanover. He was very popular with the people, and had powerful friends in both Houses of Parliament, many of whom urged him to seek an audience of the King at once, and throw himself on the royal clemency. Others wished him to go to the west of England, and stir up an insurrection in favour of James. Ormonde did neither. Like Bolingbroke, he was seized with panic, and determined to fly to France. Before he went he visited Oxford and besought him to escape also. Oxford refused, and Ormonde took leave of him with the words: “Farewell, Oxford, without a head,” to which the latter replied: “Farewell, duke, without a duchy”. Of the threatened lords Oxford was now the only one who remained. He was in the House of Lords to hear his impeachment, and when it was moved that he should be committed to the Tower, he made a short and dignified speech in his defence. He was escorted to the Tower by an enormous crowd, who cheered loudly for him and the principles he represented. The cheers were ominous to the Government, and showed that the Whigs in their lust for vengeance had shot their bolt too far. These impeachments were in fact merely the result of party animosity, and could not be justified on broad grounds. The Treaty of Utrecht, whether bad or good, had been approved by two Parliaments, and the responsibility for it therefore rested not upon the ex-Ministers, but upon the nation, which had sufficiently punished those Ministers when it drove them from power. From the report of the committee it seemed that the impeached lords had contemplated the restoration of James as a political possibility, but they had left no evidence to show that they had determined to restore him. On the contrary, both before and after the proclamation of the new King, they had made professions of loyalty to the House of Hanover.