“An acquaintance of mine saw a fresh letter to my Lady Walgrave, from my Lord Galmoy, at St. Germains, who I think is her husband, where he says he has never been credulous in the hopes of King James’ coming; but that now he is well assured, it will be attempted the end of this year, and with good appearance of success. The same person saw another letter from another hand, they would not say from whom, but from one more likely to know than the former, and spoke in the same language, but with more assurance.”[288] Fenwick, after his capture, made revelations, as Shrewsbury supposed him not unlikely to do; but, to the great surprise and indignation of the latter, he learnt before long, that the cunning conspirator had woven a story, by which he had contrived to bring the Duke himself into suspicion. The fact is, that for a long time after the Revolution, things were said and done--whispered, insinuated, listened to, and winked at--which bore an ugly look in the eyes of honest people; and it is wonderful in what a perilous position the frail, eagle-faced champion of constitutional rights and of European Protestantism stood for years after he had accepted the British crown. True, some men were accused without good reason, but to many cases the adage applied, “Where there is smoke there is fire.”[289] [Sidenote: 1696.] Charles, Earl of Middleton, took an active part in Jacobite intrigues, and he is worth notice here as an example of Jacobitism in alliance with Protestantism, or rather in alliance with views anti-Catholic. He married into a Popish family, but did not adopt their religion. Indeed, his principles on that score were very loose, although he knew how, with a clever stroke, to repel the onsets of Jesuitical sophistry. A priest one day tried to prove to him the doctrine of Transubstantiation. “Your Lordship,” said he, “believes in the Trinity;” Middleton stopped him by asking, “Who told you so?” The priest felt amazed, upon which the Peer added, it was the priest’s business to prove that his own belief was true, and not to question another man about his.[290] In one of the Earl’s furtive missions to England upon the business of the exiled Prince, he had met with Shrewsbury, and had evidently tried, in an underhand way, to work his mind into a Jacobite direction. Fenwick had got hold of this, and had made the most of it against the Duke, who now occupied the office of Secretary of State,[291] and had, during William’s absence, discharged, along with the Archbishop of Canterbury and others, the high function of a Lord Justice. The letter which Shrewsbury wrote to William is worth insertion, as illustrative of what went on behind the scenes, of the scrapes men fell into, of the way they got out of them, of the generosity and forgiving spirit of the King, and of the rickety condition of English Protestantism, if it had rested upon nothing better than the character of politicians. [Sidenote: JACOBITES.]