It is surprising that the Catholics did not all perish in the rage which naturally succeeds to such popular panics.
While every one, from principle, interest, or animosity, turned his back on the unhappy king, who had abandoned his own cause, the unwelcome news arrived, that he had been seized by the populace at Feversham, as he was making his escape in disguise; that he had been much abused, till he was known; but that the gentry had then interposed and protected him, though they still refused to consent to his escape.

This intelligence threw all parties into confusion.

The prince sent Zuylestein with orders that the king should approach no nearer than Rochester; but the message came too late.

He was already arrived in London, where the populace, moved by compassion for his unhappy fate, and actuated by their own levity, had received him with shouts and acclamations.
During the king's abode at Whitehall, little attention was paid to him by the nobility or any persons of distinction.

They had all of them been previously disgusted on account of his blind partiality to the Catholics; and they knew that they were now become criminal in his eyes by their late public applications to the prince of Orange.