On all occasions, the king was open in declaring, that men must now look for a more active and more vigilant government, and that he would retain no ministers who did not practise an unreserved obedience to his commands. We are not indeed to look for the springs of his administration so much in his council and chief officers of state, as in his own temper, and in the character of those persons with whom he secretly consulted. The queen had great influence over him; a woman of spirit, whose conduct had been popular till she arrived at that high dignity. She was much governed by the priests especially the Jesuits; and as these were also the King’s favorites, all public measures were taken originally from the suggestions of these men, and bore evident marks of their ignorance in government, and of the violence of their religious zeal. The king, however, had another attachment, seemingly not very consistent with this devoted regard to his queen and to his priests: it was to Mrs. Sedley, whom he soon after created countess of Dorchester, and who expected to govern him with the same authority which the duchess of Portsmouth had possessed during the former reign. But James, who had entertained the ambition of converting his people, was told, that the regularity of his life ought to correspond to the sanctity of his intentions; and he was prevailed with to remove Mrs. Sedley from court; a resolution in which he had not the courage to persevere. Good agreement between the mistress and the confessor of princes is not commonly a difficult matter to compass: but in the present case, these two potent engines of command were found very incompatible. Mrs. Sedley, who possessed all the wit and ingenuity of her father, Sir Charles made the priests and their counsels the perpetual objects cf her raillery; and it is not to be doubted but they, on their part, redoubled their exhortations with their penitent to break off so criminal an attachment. How little inclination soever the king, as well as his queen and priests, might bear to an English parliament, it was absolutely necessary, at the beginning of the reign, to summon that assembly. The low condition to which the whigs, or country party, had fallen during the last years of Charles’s reign, the odium under which they labored on account of the Rye-house conspiracy; these causes made that party meet with little success in the elections. The general resignation, too, of the charters had made the corporations extremely dependent; and the recommendations of the court, though little assisted at that time by pecuniary influence, were become very prevalent. The new house of commons, therefore, consisted almost entirely of zealous tories and churchmen; and were, of consequence, strongly biased by their affections in favor of the measures of the crown.