We find that it was concerted and signed with the privity alone of four Popish counsellors of the king's; Arlington, Arundel, Clifford, and Sir Richard-Bealing.

The secret was kept from Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale.

In order to engage them to take part in it, a very refined and a very mean artifice was fallen upon by the king.

After the secret conclusion and signature of the treaty, the king pretended to these three ministers that for smaller matters,[*] and the ordinary occurrences of life nor had he application enough to carry his view to distant consequences, or to digest and adjust any plan of political operations.
* Duke of Buckingham's character of King Charles II.
As he scarcely ever thought twice on any one subject, every appearance of advantage was apt to seduce him; and when he found his way obstructed by unlooked-for difficulties, he readily turned aside into the first path, where he expected more to gratify the natural indolence of his disposition.

To this versatility or pliancy of genius he himself was inclined to trust; and he thought that, after trying an experiment for enlarging his authority, and altering the national religion, he could easily, if it failed, return into the ordinary channel of government.
But the suspicions of the people, though they burst not forth at once, were by this attempt rendered altogether incurable; and the more they reflected on the circumstances attending it, the more resentment and jealousy were they apt to entertain.