Up to this point Mrs. Yorke's account, written apparently to explain and vindicate her own share in the transaction, tallies with that of her brother-in-law, except that she states that Lord Hardwicke had been much more favourable to the idea of Charles Yorke's acceptance than the above narrative leads one to suppose; according to her the family felt 'it was too great a thing to refuse.' Lord Hardwicke's wife, the Marchioness Grey, indeed, had called upon Mrs. Yorke to urge it, saying among other things that 'the great office to which Mr. Yorke was invited was in the line of his profession, that though it was intimately connected with state affairs, yet it had not that absolute and servile dependance on the Court which the other ministerial offices had; that Mr. Yorke had already seen how vain it was to depend on the friendship of Lord Rockingham and his party; that the part he had acted had always been separate and uninfluenced, and therefore she thought he was quite at liberty to make choice for himself, and by taking the seals he would perhaps have it in his power to reconcile the different views of people and form an administration which might be permanent and lasting; that if he now refused the seals they would probably never be offered a second time ... and that these were Lord Hardwicke's sentiments as well as her own.' Lord Mansfield's advice had been more emphatic still. 'He had no doubt of the propriety of his accepting the Great Seal, indeed was so positive that Mr. Yorke told me he would hear no reason against it.' Mrs. Yorke herself was at first opposed to the idea; but influenced by such opinions and by her husband's extreme dejection after refusing the offer, she ended by strongly urging him to accept, and was afterwards blamed for having encouraged his fatal ambition. Lord Rockingham alone, who had been greatly dependent upon the advice and assistance of Mr. Yorke, 'to whom,' as Mrs. Yorke remarks, 'he could apply every moment,' and 'without whom he would have made no figure at all in his administration,' put the strongest pressure on him to decline, for selfish reasons as appears from Mrs. Yorke's story. It was therefore against the advice of his own family and 'the generality of his friends,' including Lord Chief Justice Wilmot, that Charles Yorke, in obedience to his own high sense of political honour, at first refused the dazzling promotion, and this fact must be recorded to his credit.