Yet, in spite of mortifications and humiliations, they both clung to office with the gripe of drowning men.

Both attempted to propitiate the King by affecting a willingness to be reconciled to his Church.

But there was a point at which Rochester was determined to stop.

He went to the verge of apostasy: but there he recoiled: and the world, in consideration of the firmness with which he refused to take the final step, granted him a liberal amnesty for all former compliances.

Sunderland, less scrupulous and less sensible of shame, resolved to atone for his late moderation, and to recover the royal confidence, by an act which, to a mind impressed with the importance of religious truth, must have appeared to be one of the most flagitious of crimes, and which even men of the world regard as the last excess of baseness.