their thumbs at certain passages in the Marquess’s discourse, he thought a little to please his Majesty, though he pleased not them, the men who were so much displeased already protesting unto his Majesty, that no man was so much for the absolute power of a king as Aristotle. Desiring the book out of the King’s hand, he told the King that he would show him one remarkable passage to that purpose, turning to that place that had this verse:-- “A king can kill, a king can save, A king can make a lord a knave, And of a knave a lord also,” &c. “Whereupon there were divers new-made lords who slunk out of the roome, which the King observing, told the Marquess--‘My lord, at this rate, you will drive away all my Nobility!’ “The Marquess replied--‘I protest unto your Majesty, I am as new a made lord as any of them all;[248] but I was never called knave and rogue so much in all my life, as I have been since I received this last honour, and why should not they bear their shares?’” But the Marquess, like many of the King’s party, seems to have wanted that undoubting confidence of success, which not unfrequently secures it. How different from the determined tone of a Cromwell is this:--“When the King first entered the gates of Raglan, the Marquess delivered his Majesty the keys, according to the ordinary custom; the King restoring of them to the Marquis, the Marquis said, ‘I beseech your Majesty to keep them, and you please, for they are in a good hand; but I am afraid that ere it be long, I shall be forced to deliver them into the hands of those who will spoil the compliment.’” And so it happened. The plans taken by the King, while residing in Raglan Castle, to persuade the Marquess of Worcester to farther advances of money, afford a subject for a humiliating chapter in the royal history. The aged Marquess had three ruling principles--loyalty to the King, attachment to the Roman Catholic religion, and fondness for money. His loyalty had been already extensively drawn upon, and there remained now to be tried an attempt upon his proselytizing zeal. He had now to be flattered with the idea that he might possibly persuade the King to profess the tenets of his ancestors. Charles, indeed, had not made great progress in Protestant doctrines; and the Marquess, confident in his theological powers, imagined he would find an easy convert. Here is Dr. Bayly’s account of the matter:--