The Church of England welcomed the illustrious convert with delight.

His popularity was great, and became greater when it was known that royal solicitations and promises had been vainly employed to seduce him back to the superstition which he had abjured.

The character of the young Earl did not however develop itself in a manner quite satisfactory to those who had borne the chief part in his conversion.

His morals by no means escaped the contagion of fashionable libertinism.

In truth the shock which had overturned his early prejudices had at the same time unfixed all his opinions, and left him to the unchecked guidance of his feelings.