"Do you take it so lightly, my lord?" he asked uneasily. "All London shouting for these disloyal prelates—the city against me?"
Lord Sunderland replied, his peculiarly soothing tones lowered to a kind of caressing gentleness, while he kept his eyes fixed on the King.
"Not the city, sir. Your Majesty heareth but the mobile—the handful that will always rejoice at a set given to authority. The people love Your Majesty and applaud your measures."
"But I am not popular as my brother was," said the King, but half satisfied, and with an angry look towards London.
The Earl was ready with his softly worded reassurances.
"His late Majesty never put his popularity to the test—I think he could not have done what you have, sir—is not the true Faith"—here my lord crossed himself—"predominant in England—hath Your Majesty any Protestant left in office—have you not an Ambassador at the Vatican, is not a holy Jesuit father on the Council board, Mass heard publicly in Whitehall—the papal Nuncio openly received?—and hath not Your Majesty done these great things in three short years?"
A glow overspread the King's sombre face; he muttered a few words of a Latin prayer, and bent his head.
"I have done a little," he said—"a little——"
Sunderland lowered his eyes.
"Seeing this is a Protestant nation, Your Majesty hath done a deal."