found to quarrel with the judgment of the Lord Chancellor, who told Dangerfield: “You are a fine fellow, first to come to his Majesty and there tell him one story, then to my Lord Powis, and from thence to my Lord Shaftesbury’s, discovering to one what discourse you held with the other; and thus to bring one story to the council, another to the Earl of Shaftesbury.”[380] The Duke of York’s conduct in the Meal Tub Plot was characteristic of him. He had brought Dangerfield to the king and by his imprudence was the cause of much suspicion and distrust. No one felt certain how the affair would turn out. People thought that James would “never leave off tampering.”[381] He was a man with the smallest aptitude for diplomacy. He was able neither to let events take their course without interference nor by fingering ever to improve them. He was always for action of a decided and generally a tactless kind. While he persistently endeavoured to make others change their views, his own were held with an obstinacy that nothing could uproot. His continual desire for activity was one of the difficulties which most hampered Charles II’s policy. Apart from his itch for management and a preference shared with other politicians of the time for underhand dealing his very presence at court was as a trumpet call to his enemies. His severance from the Church of England was a severance from the English people likewise. The Church of Rome was traditionally held the enemy of the nation. It was responsible for many of the doubts and difficulties of the restored monarchy. Its action was coupled in the general mind with the aggression of foreign foes. For the heir to the throne at such a time to go over to it was an act of great hardiness. Nor could he do so without himself being proclaimed an enemy of the people and disloyal to his duty. The horror expressed at the notion that James should depart from the faith which his father had signed with blood was increased by contemplation of the results attending the step. The Roman Catholic religion, it was said, introduced an _imperium in imperio_ and, were it settled in England, would at once destroy the liberties and drain the wealth of the country.[382] It seemed as if the duke must have some deep and sinister motive in his mind to leave the religion that had been won by so much blood. Many princes had changed their faith for reason of state, but the instance of one who departed from the church of the people against the clearest command of expedience and, as it seemed to them, the no less clear showing of reason was unparalleled. And the subtle influence of Jesuits who had wrought this in him was feared as well in the present as for the future. So long as the duke remained at the king’s right hand there was the added terror that he would shape the royal policy in the direction whither he would direct it himself from the throne. Nothing could be devised to cure the distrust aroused by his