On the accession of James II., the well-known means by which that King essayed to bring over to his own creed those by whom he was surrounded were employed upon Lord Rochester, amongst others. He was made First Commissioner, in the place of Lord Godolphin, to whom was confided, in lieu, the post of Chamberlain to the Queen. But James's tactics failed; and it was not long before the skilled financier was again at the Treasury--this time as Second Commissioner, with, for his colleagues, two Roman Catholic noblemen, Lord Bellasis and Lord Dover--a conjunction which the High Church party could not, for a long time, forgive their Protestant colleague. What would they have said had they known that, on the approach of the Prince of Orange, Godolphin was the man whom James selected to carry on his affairs during the King's temporary absence in the west; and that to this trusted Minister, together with the Marquis of Halifax and the Earl of Nottingham, were confided the proposals for an 'accommodation' which James sent to William, at Hungerford, on December 8th, 1688? That these proposals failed in their object is matter of history; but it is, perhaps, not so generally known that the exiled King, pressed for money whilst at Rochester, was obliged to have recourse to his Minister for a gift of a hundred guineas! He is said to have accompanied James to the coast, and to have kept up a correspondence with that monarch until his death. Sidney Godolphin was no man of 'mere abstract ideas.' He moved entirely in the sphere of practical politics; and, notwithstanding his intimacy with the Stuarts, and his having been one of those who, in the Convention Parliament, had been in favour of a Regency--perhaps, indeed, partly because of all this--he soon found favour with the new King of England. Can it be believed that throughout a career so rapid and so brilliant, the powerful Minister was sighing for repose, and retirement to the old home in Cornwall? Evelyn[156] assures us that such was the case with his 'deare friend,' at any rate, during the brief years of his happy married life. But Margaret--his well-beloved Margaret--had died in giving birth to Francis, their only son.