"
"It seems too good to be true."
"It does, indeed, Charlie. They will be delighted across the water.
I don't think my father counted, at all, upon our finding
Nicholson, or of our getting him to confess; but I think he had
hoped that the duke would interest himself to get an order, that no
further proceedings should be taken in the matter of the alleged
plot. That would have permitted them to return to England. He spoke
to me, several times, of his knowledge of the duke when he was a
young man; but Churchill, he said, was a time server, and has
certainly changed his politics several times; and, if a man is
fickle in politics, he may be so in his friendships. It was a great
many years since they had met, and Marlborough might not have been
inclined to acknowledge one charged with so serious a crime.
"But, as he said to me before I started, matters have changed since
the death of William. Marlborough stands far higher, with Anne,
than he did with William. His leanings have certainly been, all
along, Jacobite, and, now that he and the Tories are in power, and
the Whigs are out of favour, Marlborough could, if he chose, do
very much for us. It is no longer a crime to be a Jacobite, and
indeed, they say that the Tories are intending to upset the act of
succession, and bring in a fresh one, making James Stuart the
successor to Anne.
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