Lord Churchill, and the gifted woman who probably in a great degree participated his irresolution, and influenced his counsels, have shared largely in the condemnation bestowed upon others who adopted the same course which they, on this great occasion, thought it wise and right to pursue. Those who accuse them of ingratitude, must, however, recollect that there is a higher degree of gratitude than any which can be due to an earthly power; and that there are duties which no obligations can annul; a disregard of which becomes treachery in its most extended sense. The conduct of Lord Churchill, throughout the reign of James the Second, was a consistent endeavour to withdraw from all participation in honours which he could not receive from the King without degradation, and from schemes which he must have viewed with disgust. Even when James sent to require his presence at the birth of the Prince of Wales, he declined to attend, assigning some slight reason. His desertion of James, as it was called, was the work of some years, not the sudden impulse of a day; it was wrung from Churchill unwillingly, and by painful degrees, and not till after his reflective mind had been saddened by an unparalleled succession of injuries inflicted upon his unhappy country, until mournful presage knew not where to stop. Brought up in notions of devoted loyalty to the Stuarts, his own family, that of his wife, his intimate friends, and his brothers, being all wedded to the same opinions and devoted to the same cause, the conduct of Churchill on this occasion astounded the King more, it is said, than that of any of the other men of character and influence of the time. It was easy for the enemies of Churchill, or of his party—for personal enemies he could scarcely have—to account for the measures taken with caution, but pursued with vigour and firmness, by this great man. Dean Swift, whose aspersions, unlike most ephemeral writings, ate into the heart of his victims like caustic, and when once engrafted on the memory even of the indifferent, can scarcely be erased, has thus in his own charitable way explained the matter. In describing the character of Churchill he says:—“He was bred up in the height of what is called the Tory principle, and continued with a strong bias that way till the other party had bid higher for him than his friends could afford to give.”[105] In another singular production of the day, entitled “Oliver’s Pocket Looking Glass,” he was compared to Judas, and even reproached for ingratitude towards James, on the score of his lavish generosity to the degraded Arabella Churchill, the sister of the Duke.[106] But Churchill adopted not the measures which he prudently but resolutely adhered to, without a respectful but manly remonstrance with James, which proved his real attachment to the royal person, and his desire to warn him, if possible, from continuing his infatuated course.[107]