The Chancellor had already an unquestionable title to the royal favour.

He had brought into use a little steel thumbscrew which gave such exquisite torment that it had wrung confessions even out of men on whom His Majesty's favourite boot had been tried in vain.

[124] But it was well known that even barbarity was not so sure a way to the heart of James as apostasy.

To apostasy, therefore, Perth and Melfort resorted with a certain audacious baseness which no English statesman could hope to emulate.

They declared that the papers found in the strong box of Charles the Second had converted them both to the true faith; and they began to confess and to hear mass.