Of a very different character was Thomas, created, in 1714, Marquis of Wharton, whose white staff was given by the Queen, before his face, to Sir Edward Seymour,—an affront so marked as to draw down the following threat in private from the offended nobleman:—“That he would soon provide himself with other rods to chastise the new ministers.”[404] This able, but unprincipled man, received his dismissal in a manner very different from the dignified demeanour of Somers, on incurring a similar mortification. Wharton was a specimen of those unsound materials of which parties are composed, and of which honest and great men are forced, by political compact, to make use. It seems singular that a man who scoffed at all religions, and outraged every right feeling, should have been brought up in the most rigid puritanical principles. The mother of Lord Wharton, more especially, was one of the zealous adherents to the Presbyterian faith. But though he deviated from the parental precept, and conformed to the national worship, Wharton had imbibed in his early education a love of constitutional freedom, which not all the seductions of royal favour could efface.[405] His morals he owed to a different school. A favourite companion of Charles the Second, he never, like Marlborough, and Somers, and Cavendish, retrieved the errors of early youth by a sincere and effectual amendment. The consciences of those individuals were wounded by a sense of their transgressions; but his was hardened. His nature was debased by habitual sin; they, “like sheep, were led astray,” but their hearts were not corrupted. Purity, holiness, honour, had always charms for these great men, and must always have charms for those who are really great; but, to Lord Wharton, these lights were dim.[406] In the opinion entertained of Lord Wharton by the world, William seems to have coincided; for, in spite of Wharton’s activity as one of his most powerful partisans, and of his Majesty’s endurance, not to say enjoyment, of his coarse and fearless jokes,[407] he advanced Wharton to no place of political importance. By William, Lord Wharton was made comptroller of the household, an office far below his ambition, and, as far as ability should be taken into account, his deserts. Wharton was an associate, but not a friend, of Marlborough and Godolphin. He was, in truth, a brier in their path; a dangerous friend, more dreaded than a foe; a man whose elevation they feared even more than his open enmity. He was an able debater, bold, and therefore likely to be, to a certain extent, powerful; for irresolute characters are governed by those of a decisive and fearless temper. His fluency, however, was devoid of all grace, his manner was coarse, his wit pungent, but always tainted with grossness. His attacks upon others were unsparing and reckless.