Coke declared that if one of the King's ministers held up a hat in the House of Commons and said that it was a green bag the majority of the members would solemnly vote that it was a green bag.

The bribery which brought this blind obedience of Toryism filled Coke with fury.

In youth he had been taught never to trust a Tory and he could say "I never have and, by God, I never will." One of his children asked their mother whether Tories were born wicked or after birth became wicked.

The uncompromising answer was: "They are born wicked and they grow up worse." There is, of course, in much of this something of the malignance of party.

In an age when one reverend theologian, Toplady, called another theologian, John Wesley, "a low and puny tadpole in Divinity" we must expect harsh epithets.