Her patronage of the well-meaning but mischievous, the learned but unwise Whiston is quite sufficient to condemn her in the opinion of many people. Here was a man who had not yet, indeed, left the Church of England for the Baptist community, because the Athanasian creed was an offence to him, but he had pronounced Prince Eugène to be the man foretold in the Apocalypse as the destroyer of the Turkish Empire, had declared that the children of Joseph and Mary were the natural brothers and sisters of Christ, set up a heresy in his ‘Primitive Christianity Revived,’ made open profession of Arianism, boldly made religious prophecies which were falsified as soon as made, and, more innocently, translated ‘Josephus,’ and tried to discover the longitude. Caroline showed her admiration of heterodox Whiston by conferring on him a pension of fifty pounds a-year; and as she had a regard for the mad scholar, she paid him with her own hand, and had him as a frequent visitor at the palace. The King was more guarded in his patronage of Whiston, and one day said to him, as King, Queen, and preacher were walking together in Hampton Court Gardens, that his opinions against Athanasianism might certainly be true, but perhaps it would have been better if he had kept them to himself. Now Whiston was remarkable for his wit and his fearlessness, and looking straight in the face of the man who was King by right of the Reformation, and who was the temporal head of the Church and, _ex-officio_, Defender of the Faith, he said: ‘If Luther had followed such advice, I should like to know where your Majesty would have been at the present moment.’ ‘Well, Mr. Whiston,’ said Caroline, ‘you are, as I have heard it said you were, a very free speaker. Are you bold enough to tell me my faults?’ ‘Certainly,’ was Whiston’s reply. ‘There are many people who come every year from the country to London upon business. Their chief, loyal, and natural desire is to see their King and Queen. This desire they can nowhere so conveniently gratify as at the Chapel Royal. But what they see there does not edify them. They behold your Majesty talking, during nearly the whole time of service, with the King--and talking loudly. This scandalises them; they go into the country with false impressions, spread false reports, and effect no little mischief.’ The Queen pleaded that the King _would_ talk to her, acknowledged that it was wrong, promised amendment, and asked what was the next fault he descried in her. ‘Nay, madam,’ said he, ‘it will be time enough to go to the second when your Majesty has corrected the first.’