The Peers met in their own House on the 22nd of December. Nothing of moment passed. The day before Christmas-day they met again, and we find Clarendon, with a lingering regard for the Stuart family, asking for an inquiry into the birth of the Prince of Wales, when Lord Wharton, an old Puritan, indignantly replied, “My Lords, I did not expect, at this time of day, to hear anybody mention that child, who was called the Prince of Wales; indeed I did not, and I hope we shall hear no more of him.” It was at last decided that an address should be presented to the Prince of Orange to take on him the Administration of affairs, and to issue circular-letters to the counties, cities, universities, and cinque-ports, to send Representatives to a Convention at Westminster on the 22nd of January following.[79] The Archbishop did not attend. Clarendon and the Bishop of Ely sent for him, “but the King’s being gone had cast such a damp upon him that he would not come.”[80] James, soon after his flight, had written to the Primate, informing him that, but for his hasty departure, he should have explained the reasons of his becoming a Roman Catholic; that although he had not thought proper to do this on a former occasion, when his re-conversion had been attempted, yet he never refused speaking freely with Protestants, especially with His Grace, “whom he always considered to be his friend, and for whom he had a great esteem.” His own “conversion had taken place in his riper years, and on the full conviction of his mind as to the controverted points.”[81] Sancroft, with all his weakness, narrowness, and obstinacy, had a kindness of heart, which, in spite of the treatment received from the fallen Monarch, inspired compassion for him in a season of deep adversity. [Sidenote: 1689.] Clarendon busied himself in interviews with the Prelates, and we find that on the 29th of December, he and the Bishops of St. Asaph and Ely were together reading over the King’s reasons for leaving Rochester. Different opinions of his conduct appear, together with Clarendon’s predilections in favour of his old master, in the following passage of his Diary--a Diary which sheds much light on that changeful time:--“The Bishop of Ely and I were moved, but the Bishop of St. Asaph took the paper, and began to comment upon it, saying it was a Jesuitical masterpiece. I think I never heard more malicious inferences than he drew from the King’s expression in that paper. Good God! where is loyalty and Christian charity.”[82] On New Year’s-day, 1689, amidst a hard frost, Clarendon’s lingering loyalty to James did not prevent his paying court to William; and afterwards visiting Sir Edward Seymour, he heard him say, amongst other things, the countenance shown by the Prince to Dissenters “gave too much cause of jealousy to the Church of England,” and if that Church were not supported, England would “run into a Commonwealth, and all would be ruined.”[83]