My Lord Marquess left His Majesty after a dry and formal interview concerned with minor but necessary business, and, leaving the King still sitting before the map of the United Provinces, proceeded to the incomplete and ill-furnished council-chamber, where my lords Shrewsbury, Caermarthen, Nottingham, and Godolphin were gloomily conferring. Halifax was the only man in the assembly not of decided Whig or Tory politics—it was believed that this was the reason that the King had elected him to fill the highest place in his councils. Lord Caermarthen, who, jealous of his elevation, was known to be secretly working his downfall, greeted him with haughty frankness. "I hope, my lord," he said, "your interview with His Majesty hath had some smack of satisfaction in it——" "Why, none," answered the Lord Privy Seal; "there is no satisfaction anywhere." He seated himself on one of the red damask covered stools by the table, and looked with a kind of cynical amusement at the other ministers, all of whom, he well knew, were, however diverse their several opinions (with the exception of Lord Godolphin), doing their utmost to oust him from the position he held. His mobile, easy, and delicate face was turned towards the meagre but noble figure of Caermarthen, in whom he recognised his chief enemy. Indeed, that statesman, who, as Lord Danby, had himself narrowly escaped the attacks of Jack Howe in the last Parliament, was endeavouring to stir up the present Commons to impeach Halifax. "His Majesty," added the Lord Privy Seal, in his pleasant, tolerant voice, "is very discontented with all of us." Shrewsbury—a duke now, and crowded with dignities beyond his years—blushed. "What are we to do?" he asked, in a kind of frantic way. The other Secretary, Nottingham, dark as a Spaniard and sour in expression, remarked briefly— "We can do nothing until we see which way the Parliament moveth." "The Parliament," said Caermarthen, "will do nothing until some satisfaction is given for the money voted to Ireland. Schomberg, I doubt, is doited; he hath not moved since he landed——" "The King," put in Halifax, "is desperate to go to the Continent, where the allies clamour for him and King Louis gaineth headway every week——" Caermarthen sprang up from the window-seat. "By God, he cannot go abroad until Ireland is settled!" he cried; "the country will not stand any war but that——" "The King," answered the Lord Privy Seal, "hath such a mind to France one would think he took England but on the way——" "France," said Shrewsbury, with feverish anxiety, "is not the question; we have to think of England. War was declared last May, and we are still incapable of putting a single regiment in the field. By Heaven, the Government is too disjointed for us to interfere in foreign affairs!" "You should have thought of that, my lord," answered Nottingham dryly, "when you put a foreigner on the throne." A deep colour again flushed Shrewsbury’s beautiful face.