relieve the Roman catholics from the operation of the penal laws, it was Williams who argued away James's conscientious objections to confirm by his signature the articles in which this promise was embodied (Gardiner, Hist. of England, v. 66). Williams, however, stood in the way of a proposal of the Spanish ambassadors that the king should restrain the judges from allowing the institution of proceedings against Roman catholics, urging that though he could dispense with the execution of the law, he could not order it to be permanently disregarded. He so far prevailed as to get the question postponed, and, though the pardon and dispensation were got ready, the ambassadors were told that they could not be made public till after the marriage had taken place. Williams's object in inducing the king to sign the articles, and in subsequently inducing him not to give effect to them at once, was probably merely to get the prince home from Spain, with the question of performance still open.
No such scheming could avail Williams when, after the prince's return, his vote as a commissioner for Spanish affairs was given against a war with Spain, thereby pleasing the king, but offending Buckingham and Charles. The vote, however, was one which, whether politic or not, must have been a conscientious one. Williams had no more wish to promote war abroad than he had to promote quarrels at home. It did not follow that Williams would let any chance escape him of regaining Buckingham's favour. On 23 March 1624 James having at the instance of a new parliament declared the treaties with Spain at an end, the Spanish ambassadors did all in their power to draw him back from the path on which he was entering. They induced him to give a private audience on 1 April to Carondelet, the archdeacon of Cambrai, who assured James that he was now a mere tool in Buckingham's hands. Williams saw his opportunity, and informed the prince of Carondelet's audience, of which he had obtained knowledge through Carondelet's mistress, who acted as one of his spies. ‘In my studies of divinity,’ he told Charles, ‘I have gleaned up this maxim, it is lawful to make use of the sin of another. Though the devil make her a sinner, I may make good use of her sin.’ ‘Yea,’ answered Charles, ‘do you deal in such ware?’ ‘In good faith,’ replied the bishop, ‘I never saw her face.’ Further information was derived from Carondelet himself. Williams ordered the arrest of a priest in whom Carondelet was interested, and the archdeacon, coming to him to beg for his release, blurted out his belief, derived from James himself, that parliament would soon be dissolved. Williams was thus able to supply Buckingham with a complete story of the intrigue.
With the king Williams had ever been a persona grata, and it was from the hands of the episcopal lord keeper that on 24 March 1625 James received the communion on his deathbed. With the new king Williams was not likely to remain long in favour. Charles was unable to appreciate his merits as a councillor of moderation, while Williams's defects of character were certain to revolt him. On 10 July he advised the king against the adjournment of parliament to Oxford, having no belief that the project of driving the House of Commons to grant a supply which they had practically refused already would meet with anything but failure. To argue thus was to offend not only Charles but Buckingham, who wanted supply to enable him to send the fleet to Cadiz. ‘Public necessity,’ said the duke, ‘must sway more than one man's jealousy.’ Later on, when a dissolution had been resolved on, he gave fresh offence to Charles by arguing against it. Williams, in short, had played the part of a candid critic, and neither Buckingham nor Charles was inclined to put up with an adviser who refused to accept their projects for more than they were really worth. If it be true that the lord keeper boasted of his own popularity as enabling him to hold his own against the favourite, there was more than enough in his conduct to exasperate Buckingham. The only question which remained was how he was to be got rid of. In the end some one remembered that James had assigned him three years of probation in the lord keeper's office. The three years were more than expired, and, without any further explanation, Williams ceased to be lord keeper on 25 Oct. With him the last chance of a compromise between king and parliament disappeared from the counsels of Charles.
Williams is next heard of in public life, when at the opening of the parliament of 1628 he, together with four other members of the House of Lords, was found absent from his place, doubtless by the king's orders, but was recalled to his seat by the determination of the house to which he belonged. In the dispute which ensued over the ‘petition of right’ he characteristically played a mediatory part. On 22 April he pronounced against the king's claim to imprison without showing cause; but on 16 May, when the petition itself was before the lords, he proposed to amend it by a new clause ‘that no freeman be—for not
