The Protestant Lords assembled at the Privy Council held by James the Second imagined that the King was altered, and that his powers of mind had forsaken him. They asked each other “where were the looks, and where was the spirit, which had made three nations tremble?” “They perceived not,” says Dalrymple, “that the change was not in the King, but in themselves.”[126] In their consciousness of the monarch’s feebleness, contrasted with former power, consisted the change. The Princess Anne was not, it is to be presumed, enabled to conquer her fears of encountering her humbled parent, since no mention is found of her return to the metropolis until after all storms were hushed and Mary, “possessing neither the authority of a queen, nor the influence of a wife,”[127] became the presiding power of the concerns of a remodelled court. The personal character of Mary may be said to have had a considerable influence upon the conduct of Lady Churchill, and upon her position in that purified region, the British court; since, during the whole period of her short reign, the two royal sisters were scarcely ever on affectionate or even friendly terms; and it has been deemed necessary by Lady Churchill to justify herself as the supposed cause of these continual differences, not to say complete though disguised alienation, between those Princesses. Bishop Burnet has described, in his character of Queen Mary, a perfect model of feminine excellence. “The queen,” he says, “gave an example to the nation, which shined in all the parts of it.”[128] Tall and majestic, of a form exquisitely proportioned, her countenance expressive and agreeable, notwithstanding a constitutional weakness in her eyes, Mary moved with dignity and grace, spoke with equal propriety and spirit, and acted, when occasion required, with masculine resolution. In all that duty and station exacted, she was admirable. She possessed, in its perfection, that quality, “not a science,” as Pope expresses it, “but worth all the seven, prudence.” Her intentions for the benefit of her subjects were excellent.[129] Her first and continual care was to promote reform in every department which she superintended. She began by attacking those habits of idleness which had tended to demoralise the court, and exposed its fair ornaments to many temptations. She set the fashion of industry, by employing herself in needlework, working many hours a day herself, with her ladies and her maids of honour similarly engaged around her, whilst one of the party read to the rest. She freed her court from all doubtful or censurable characters, so that there was not a colour of suspicion of any improprieties, such as had been the source of just censure in the preceding reigns. She expressed a deep sense of religion, and formed a standard of principle and duty in her mind, upon the sense of her obligations as a Christian. Industrious and pious, she was consequently cheerful and unconstrained. Every moment had