came to London, and the next day Lord Sunderland went to his house.
4th.I went to Shene, where Sir W. Temple told me that I was to acquaint the Prince with one thing which nobody did yet know; which was the making the Duke King of the Romans, it being the only thing that was likely to settle all Europe; the particulars we resolved to discuss at large.
his thoughts whether it was best for his affairs to prorogue the parliament, or dissolve it, and call another at that time, and desired their lordships' opinions upon it.
"I observed a general surprise at the Board, which made me begin to doubt the King had spoke of it to few or none but the Chancellor before he came in: but it soon appeared that he had not done so much as that, for, after a long pause, he was the first that rose up, and spoke long and violently against the dissolution, and was followed by Lord Shaftesbury in the amplest manner and most tragical terms. Lord Anglesey followed them by urging all the fatal consequences that could be; the same still was followed by the Lord Chamberlain [Lord Arlington], and agreed to by the Marquis of Worcester, and pursued from the top to the bottom of the table by every man there, and at a very full council, except the three lords who spoke for the dissolution, but neither with half the length or force of argument they intended to have done, leaving that part, as I supposed, to me, who was, I confess, well enough instructed in the case to have said more upon the argument, but I was spited from the first that I heard of my Lord Chancellor's speech, and still more and more as every man spoke, at the consequences happened by such a negligence of my friends, who had been perpetually about the King, and might have so easily effected what was agreed upon and thought so necessary,"—Temple's Works, ii. 511-12.
