Later, when the excitement grew and rumours ran through town that Monmouth had now a following of twenty thousand men and that the King's forces were falling back before him, and discontent was rife at the commissioning of Catholic lords to levy troops, Wilding again pressed the matter upon Danvers. Surely no moment could be more propitious. But again he received the same answer, that Danvers had lacked time to organize matters sufficiently; that the Duke's coming had taken him by surprise.
Lastly came the news that Monmouth had been crowned at Taunton amid the wildest enthusiasm, and that there were now in England two men each of whom called himself King James the Second. This was the excuse that Danvers needed to be rid of a business he had not the courage to transact to a finish. He swore that he washed his hands of Monmouth's affairs; that the latter had broken faith with him and the promise he had made him in having himself proclaimed King. He protested that Monmouth had done ill, and prophesied that his act would alienate from him the numerous republicans who, like Danvers, had hitherto looked to him for the country's salvation. Wilding himself was appalled at the news for Monmouth was indeed going further than men had been given to understand. Nevertheless, for his own sake, in very self-defence now, if out of no motives of loyalty to the Duke, he must urge forward the fortunes of this man. He had high words with Danvers, and the two might have quarrelled before long but for the sudden arrest of Disney, which threw Danvers into such a panic that he fled incontinently, abandoning in body, as he already appeared to have abandoned in spirit, the Monmouth Cause.
The arrest of Disney struck a chill into Wilding. From his lodging at Covent Garden he had communicated cautiously with Sunderland a few days after his arrival, building upon certain information he had received from the Duke at parting as to Sunderland's attachment to the Cause. He had carefully chosen his moment for making this communication, having a certain innate mistrust of a man who so obviously as Sunderland was running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. He had sent a letter to the Secretary of State when London was agog with the Axminster affair, and the tale—of which Sir Edward Phelips wrote to Colonel Berkeley as “the shamefullest story that you ever heard”—of how Albemarle's forces and the Somerset militia had run before Monmouth in spite of their own overwhelming numbers. This promised ill for James, particularly when it was perceived as perceived it was—that this running away was not all cowardice, not all “the shamefullest story” that Phelips accounted it. It was an expression of good-will towards Monmouth on the part of the militia of the West, and it was confidently expected that the next news would be that these men who had decamped before him would presently be found to have ranged themselves under his banner.
Sunderland had given no sign that he had received Wilding's communication. And Wilding drew his own contemptuous conclusions of the Secretary of State's cautious policy. It was a fortnight later—when London was settling down again from the diversion of excitement created by the news of Argyle's defeat in Scotland—before Mr. Wilding attempted to approach Sunderland again. He awaited a favourable opportunity, and this he had when London was thrown into consternation by the alarming news of the Duke of Somerset's urgent demand for reinforcements. Unless he had them, he declared, the whole country was lost, as he could not get the militia to stand, whilst Lord Stawell's regiment were all fled and mostly gone over to the rebels at Bridgwater.
This was grave news, but it was followed in a few days by graver. The affair at Philips Norton was exaggerated by report into a wholesale defeat of the loyal army, and it was reported—on, apparently, such good authority that it received credence in quarters that might have waited for official news—that the Duke of Albemarle had been slain by the militia which had mutinied and deserted to Monmouth.
It was while this news was going round that Sunderland—in a moment of panic—at last vouchsafed an answer to Mr. Wilding's letters, and he vouchsafed it in person, just as Wilding—particularly since Disney's arrest—was beginning to lose all hope. He came one evening to Mr. Wilding's lodgings in Covent Garden, unattended and closely muffled, and he remained closeted with the Duke's ambassador for nigh upon an hour, at the end of which he entrusted Mr. Wilding with a letter for the Duke, very brief but entirely to the point, which expressed him Monmouth's most devoted servant.
“You may well judge, sir,” he had said at parting, “that this is not such a letter as I should entrust to any man.”
Mr. Wilding had bowed gravely, and gravely he had expressed himself sensible of the exceptional honour his lordship did him by such a trust.
“And I depend upon you, sir, as you are a man of honour, to take such measures as will ensure against its falling into any but the hands for which it is intended.”
“As I am a man of honour, you may depend upon me,” Mr. Wilding solemnly promised. “Will your lordship give me three lines above your signature that will save me from molestation; thus you will facilitate the preservation of this letter.”