The events which had taken place during the recess, and especially the disasters of the campaign in Ireland, had furnished his persecutors with fresh means of annoyance.
His administration had not been successful; and, though his failure was partly to be ascribed to causes against which no human wisdom could have contended, it was also partly to be ascribed to the peculiarities of his temper and of his intellect.

It was certain that a large party in the Commons would attempt to remove him; and he could no longer depend on the protection of his master.

It was natural that a prince who was emphatically a man of action should become weary of a minister who was a man of speculation.

Charles, who went to Council as he went to the play, solely to be amused, was delighted with an adviser who had a hundred pleasant and ingenious things to say on both sides of every question.
But William had no taste for disquisitions and disputations, however lively and subtle, which occupied much time and led to no conclusion.

It was reported, and is not improbable, that on one occasion he could not refrain from expressing in sharp terms at the council board his impatience at what seemed to him a morbid habit of indecision, [517] Halifax, mortified by his mischances in public life, dejected by domestic calamities, disturbed by apprehensions of an impeachment, and no longer supported by royal favour, became sick of public life, and began to pine for the silence and solitude of his seat in Nottinghamshire, an old Cistercian Abbey buried deep among woods.