Nothing could be easier than for the Lords who assembled there to step aside into some adjoining room and to hold a consultation.

But unexpected difficulties arose.

Halifax became first cold and then adverse.

It was his nature to discover objections to everything; and on this occasion his sagacity was quickened by rivalry.
The scheme, which he had approved while he regarded it as his own, began to displease him as soon as he found that it was also the scheme of Rochester, by whom he had been long thwarted and at length supplanted, and whom he disliked as much as it was in his easy nature to dislike anybody.

Nottingham was at that time much under the influence of Halifax.