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INTRODUCTION.
January 6th, 1698.

"I make the more haste to acknowledge the honour of your Grace's letter of the 25th, because I would not delay acquainting you that my Lord Sunderland would not stop to be addressed from Courts and therefore last night he delivered up his key and staff. He was with the King about a quarter of an hour before the Cabinet sate; and when he

    the haste he was in to put himself out of this danger. Lord Hardwicke told me that in a conversation he had with the Duke of Somerset about this Earl of Sunderland, the Duke said that, upon the apprehension of this attack in the House of Commons, the Earl desired the Duke and Lord Chief Justice Holt, both of them his most particular friends, to give him a meeting, to consult with them what he should do upon the occasion, either to retire, or to stand to it. The appointment was for the evening before the day, as he was told, (after the appointment) the attempt was to be made, and the address to be moved for, and they came accordingly, but found the Earl was gone to the King at Kensington, He left word, however, that he begged them to stay, for he would be bade very soon, and he was so. When they met, the Earl fell into other discourse with them, and, whilst he was talking, Holt observed he had not the key upon his coat, and, interrupting, said, 'My Lord, where is your key?' 'At Kensington,' said the Earl. 'Why so quick, my Lord,' replied the Chief Justice, 'you might have stayed till to-morrow.' 'To-morrow, my lord,' said the Earl, 'to-morrow would have ruined me, to night has saved me,' and so told them what he heard was the design, and that he knew the King must have submitted to it"—Note of Lord Dartmouth, Burnet's Hist., iv., 369.