Having failed in one direction, Shaftesbury’s attention was promptly turned to others. A difficulty confronting him in his hope of excluding the Duke of York from the succession was the choice of a substitute. The scheme of Charles’ divorce and second marriage would have overcome this, but when that was dashed it became necessary to pursue the question further. At the time when Clarendon was chief minister, his opponents and among them the Duke of Buckingham proposed, in order to remove his son-in-law James, whose influence was thought to support him, that the Duke of Monmouth, the eldest of Charles’ sons living in England, should be declared legitimate and heir to the crown.[413] The idea had created agitation at other times as well; and now Shaftesbury infused fresh life into it by adopting the bastard’s cause and supporting him with a powerful following. It was this which rent the Whig party and destroyed its chance of success. Up to a certain point Shaftesbury could carry the other leaders. Halifax was at one with him on the treatment of the Plot, for he said that it must be handled as if it were true, whether it were so or no, and told Sir William Temple that, unless he would concur in points so necessary for the people’s satisfaction, he would brand him everywhere as a papist. He demanded that Catholic priests should without receiving public warning be submitted to the rigours of a law unenforced since the reign of Elizabeth. He was willing to join with Shaftesbury in planning such steps as the French ambassador thought would tend to the entire annihilation of the royal authority and reduce England to a republic under kingly forms. But when it became apparent that Shaftesbury had adopted the cause of the graceful, popular, feather-headed Duke of Monmouth, Halifax drew away to the king’s side and took with him “the party volant,” which boasted with the proud title of Trimmers to hold the balance in the constitution. With them for the moment were also the more respectable of the old Presbyterian party under the lead of Lord Holles.[414] If the nation was divided by the Exclusion bill, those in favour of the project were divided among themselves by the problem in whose favour exclusion should be. Of the two claimants to consideration the Prince of Orange in virtue of his wife and his mother had obviously the better title. On the other hand it was thought that his father-in-law the Duke of York might have a dangerous influence over him; and there were fears that the republican party in Holland would in alarm cast itself into the hands of Louis XIV and thus ruin still more irretrievably the interests it was desired to preserve. The reasons against the Duke of Monmouth were evident. To alter the succession for the son of a prostitute, for the duke’s mother was a woman of low character, could not but cause offence to many. Still more would resent the violation of the rights of an heir who had done nothing to