The King set himself to canvass them man by man.

He flattered himself that zealous Tories,--and of such, with few exceptions, the House of Commons consisted,--would find it difficult to resist his earnest request, addressed to them, not collectively, but separately, not from the throne, but in the familiarity of conversation.

The members, therefore, who came to pay their duty at Whitehall were taken aside, and honoured with long private interviews.

The King pressed them, as they were loyal gentlemen, to gratify him in the one thing on which his heart was fixed.
The question, he said, touched his personal honour.

The laws enacted in the late reign by factious Parliaments against the Roman Catholics had really been aimed at himself.