In the cause of hereditary monarchy he shrank from no sacrifice and from no danger.

It was about him that William uttered those memorable words: "He has set his heart on being a martyr; and I have set my mind on disappointing him." But James was more cruel to friends than William to foes.

Dodwell was a Protestant: he had some property in Connaught: these crimes were sufficient; and he was set down in the long roll of those who were doomed to the gallows and the quartering block, [232] That James would give his assent to a bill which took from him the power of pardoning, seemed to many persons impossible.

He had, four years before, quarrelled with the most loyal of parliaments rather than cede a prerogative which did not belong to him.

It might, therefore, well be expected that he would now have struggled hard to retain a precious prerogative which had been enjoyed by his predecessors ever since the origin of the monarchy, and which had never been questioned by the Whigs.