While the Convocation was wrangling on one side of Old Palace Yard, the Parliament was wrangling even more fiercely on the other. The Houses, which had separated on the twentieth of August, had met again on the nineteenth of October. On the day of meeting an important change struck every eye. Halifax was no longer on the woolsack. He had reason to expect that the persecution, from which in the preceding session he had narrowly escaped, would be renewed. The events which had taken place during the recess, and especially the disasters of the campaign in Ireland, had furnished his persecutors with fresh means of annoyance. His administration had not been successful; and, though his failure was partly to be ascribed to causes against which no human wisdom could have contended, it was also partly to be ascribed to the peculiarities of his temper and of his intellect. It was certain that a large party in the Commons would attempt to remove him; and he could no longer depend on the protection of his master. It was natural that a prince who was emphatically a man of action should become weary of a minister who was a man of speculation. Charles, who went to Council as he went to the play, solely to be amused, was delighted with an adviser who had a hundred pleasant and ingenious things to say on both sides of every question. But William had no taste for disquisitions and disputations, however lively and subtle, which occupied much time and led to no conclusion. It was reported, and is not improbable, that on one occasion he could not refrain from expressing in sharp terms at the council board his impatience at what seemed to him a morbid habit of indecision.[1] Halifax, mortified by his mischances inpublic
- ↑ "Halifax a eu une reprimande sévère publiquement dans le conseil par le Prince d'Orange pour avoir trop balancé." — Avaux to De Croissy, Dublin, June 16-26, 1689. "His mercurial Wit," says Burnet, ii. 4., "was not well suited with the King's phlegm."
