Dutch to escape. The duke, when the question was discussed some months later, disavowed the order, and dismissed Brouncker, but employed him subsequently in most disgraceful services (Pepys, iii. 474, cf. iv. 117, 389, 486, v. 62–4; Life, i. 422–30, ii. 408–20; Clarendon, Life, ii. 384–8; Campbell, Naval Hist. of Great Britain, 1813, ii. 146–52; Burnet, i. 397–9; and cf. Denham, ‘Directions to a Painter,’ 1667, in State Poems, p. 26).
The Duke of York was voted 120,000l. by the House of Commons. But Coventry's counsel prevailed (Pepys, iii. 180–1), and he had no share in the following battles. In 1665 he had been sent to York to prevent an expected republican rising (Life, i. 422; Clarendon, Life, ii. 454–60; Memoirs of Grammont, p. 280). In 1666 he joined the king in his endeavours to arrest the great fire of London (Life, i. 424; cf. Pepys, iv. 67, 70). The brothers were still on bad terms (ib. iii. 284–285, 308). Charles was vexed by the report of the duke's passion for Miss Stewart (ib. iii. 308), while about the same time James began his amour with Arabella Churchill [q. v.] (Memoirs of Grammont, p. 274). His mistress, Lady Denham [see under Denham, Sir John, (1615–1669)], died on 6 Jan. 1667 (Pepys, iv. 201). The duke's license and the duchess's extravagance brought their household into such disorder that a commission of audit, appointed by James himself, certified that his estate showed an annual deficit of 20,000l. (ib. pp. 389–90, and cf. p. 142).
James still exercised a real authority over his office (ib. pp. 223, 246). In November 1666 Pepys submitted to him a report ‘laying open the ill condition of the navy’ (ib. pp. 160, 242). In March 1667, in prospect of a Dutch blockade of the Thames, he obtained half a million, and made some attempt to strengthen Sheerness and Portsmouth (ib. pp. 260–1, 268, 287). He even (Life, i. 425) advocated the sending out of a fleet to sea. When De Ruyter was in the river, the duke ran ‘up and down all the day here and there,’ giving orders, and superintending defensive measures (Pepys, iv. 367–8; Evelyn, ii. 219); but he showed no capacity for averting disgrace, nor even any becoming sense of it (Pepys, iv. 389–90, 394). When the war was over, Pett served as the momentary scapegoat (ib. v. 319, 333, 335, 380), and letters drawn up by Pepys, and signed by the duke, admonishing his subordinates, were read to the navy board, 29 Aug. and November 1668 (ib. v. 343–7, 362, 380, 395; cf. Wheatley, pp. 139–42). The prevalent indignation, however, was concentrated on Clarendon. The duke, though never on cordial terms with Clarendon, spoke in the House of Lords against his banishment (Clarendon, Life iii. 293–4, 308–9; cf. Life, i. 433–4). Clarendon and James were both reported to have plotted with the king for overthrowing parliamentary government by means of an army (Pepys, iv. 423, 441, 447, 452). A fresh estrangement ensued between the brothers (ib. v. 18, 20), and the duke's authority sank. Coventry was dismissed from his service (Clarendon, Life, iii. 293). In the midst of the transactions connected with the fall of Clarendon, James had a slight attack of small-pox (ib. iii. 320; Pepys, v. 37–8, 114).
The birth of a son to the Duke of York (14 Sept.; an elder son had died in the previous June) suspended the rumours of the king's intention to legitimatise Monmouth; but though the brothers embraced over the bottle, the coolness continued (ib. v. 29, 93). Charles was beginning, behind the backs of his ministers, the policy of a French alliance. James, who really loved France, and whose interest it was at any cost to enter into his brother's most secret political designs, had a special motive for taking the same line. It is not known at what date he began to turn towards the church of Rome. He had been thought rather to favour the presbyterians (Reresby, pp. 81–2; and cf. Life, i. 431; Sidney, Diary, ed. Blencowe, i. 3–4, and notes). But when in the winter of 1668–9 Charles expressed to James his resolution to be reconciled to the church of Rome (Macpherson, i. 50), James inquired of the jesuit Symond whether he could obtain a papal dispensation for remaining outwardly a protestant after joining the church of Rome. Symond said that he could not, and was confirmed in his reply by Pope Clement IX. The agreement with France, formulated in the secret treaty of Dover (20 May 1670), included the restoration of England to the catholic church. James's adversaries proclaimed him a ‘partner’ to the secret treaty when it was brought to light (see e.g. ‘An Account of the Private League,’ &c., in State Tracts, 1705, i. 37–44; cf. Secret History of Whitehall, letter xix.), and connected his subsequent conversion with its conclusion (Reresby). But, however that may have been, of the Anglo-French alliance he undoubtedly fully approved.
In the summer of this year (1670) James was seriously ill (Life, i. 451). The death of his duchess (31 March 1671), as a professed catholic, naturally hastened his own conversion, which probably took place before the outbreak of the third Dutch war (March 1672) (cf. ib. i. 455). James eagerly threw himself into the war when once declared, and hoped to redeem the reputation of the
