He had persecuted innocent Papists and innocent Protestants.

He had been the patron of Oates and the tool of Petre.

His name was associated with seditious violence which was remembered with regret and shame by all respectable Whigs, and with freaks of despotism abhorred by all respectable Tories.
How men live under such infamy it is not easy to understand: but even such infamy was not enough for Williams.

He was not ashamed to attack the fallen master to whom he had hired himself out for work which no honest man in the Inns of Court would undertake, and from whom he had, within six months, accepted a baronetcy as the reward of servility.
Only three members ventured to oppose themselves to what was evidently the general sense of the assembly.

Sir Christopher Musgrave, a Tory gentleman of great weight and ability, hinted some doubts.