[429] When fortune changed, Middleton adhered to the cause of hereditary monarchy with a stedfastness which was the more respectable because he would have had no difficulty in making his peace with the new government.

His sentiments were so well known that, when the kingdom was agitated by apprehensions of an invasion and an insurrection, he was arrested and sent to the Tower; but no evidence on which he could be convicted of treason was discovered; and, when the dangerous crisis was past, he was set at liberty.

It should seem indeed that, during the three years which followed the Revolution, he was by no means an active plotter.

He saw that a Restoration could be effected only with the general assent of the nation, and that the nation would never assent to a Restoration without securities against Popery and arbitrary power.

He therefore conceived that, while his banished master obstinately refused to give such securities, it would be worse than idle to conspire against the existing government.
Such was the man whom James, in consequence of strong representations from Versailles, now invited to join him in France.