The history of the period of transition and of the steps by which the change was effected is in a high degree curious and interesting.
The statesman who had the chief share in forming the first English Ministry had once been but too well known, but had long hidden himself from the public gaze, and had but recently emerged from the obscurity in which it had been expected that he would pass the remains of an ignominious and disastrous life.

During that period of general terror and confusion which followed the flight of James, Sunderland had disappeared.

It was high time; for of all the agents of the fallen government he was, with the single exception of Jeffreys, the most odious to the nation.

Few knew that Sunderland's voice had in secret been given against the spoliation of Magdalene College and the prosecution of the Bishops; but all knew that he had signed numerous instruments dispensing with statutes, that he had sate in the High Commission, that he had turned or pretended to turn Papist, that he had, a few days after his apostasy, appeared in Westminster Hall as a witness against the oppressed fathers of the Church.

He had indeed atoned for many crimes by one crime baser than all the rest.