One of the most zealous among them, a gentleman named Bulkeley, who had formerly been on terms of intimacy with Godolphin, undertook to see what could be done.

He called at the Treasury, and tried to draw the First Lord into political talk.

This was no easy matter; for Godolphin was not a man to put himself lightly into the power of others.

His reserve was proverbial; and he was especially renowned for the dexterity with which he, through life, turned conversation away from matters of state to a main of cocks or the pedigree of a racehorse.

The visit ended without his uttering a word indicating that he remembered the existence of King James.
Bulkeley, however, was not to be so repulsed.