Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

AS DIPLOMATIST 93
certain unconscious honesty) by Gilbert Burnet,1 prince
of ecclesiastical toadies.
" During all these debates "— he is speaking of the
discussion as to the succession, the claims of Mary
as James's eldest daughter and of Anne as having a
nearer right than William — "and the great heat with
which they were managed, the Prince's own behaviour
was very mysterious. He stayed at Saint James's: he
went very little abroad: access to him was not very
easy. He heard all that was said to him, but seldom
made any answers. He did not affect to be affable or
popular, nor would he take any pains to gain any one
person to his party. He said he came over, being incited
to save the nation: he had now brought together
a free and true representative of the kingdom: 2 and
when things were once settled he should be well
satisfied to go back to Holland again. Those who did
not know him well, and who imagined that a crown
had charms which human nature was not strong enough
to resist, looked on all this as an affectation and as a
disguised threatening, which imported that he would
leave the nation to perish unless this method of settling
it was followed. After a reservedness that had
continued so close for several weeks that nobody could
certainly tell what he desired, he called for the Marquis
of Halifax, and the Earls of Shrewsbury and Danby,
and some others, to explain himself more distinctly to
them.
1" History ofhis OwnTime,"ed. 1753, vol. iii.p. 297.
" The ConventionParliament.