Unhappily Shaftesbury was contemplating a very different course. Ever since William had set aside his proposals in 1674, and above all since his marriage with the Duke's daughter, Shaftesbury had looked on the Prince of Orange as a mere adherent of the royal house and a supporter of the royal plans. He saw, too, that firm as was William's Protestantism he was as jealous as Charles himself of any weakening of the royal power or invasion of the royal prerogative. Shaftesbury's keen wit was already looking forward to the changes which a few years were to bring about; and his motive for setting aside William's claims is probably to be found in the maxim ascribed to him, that "a bad title makes a good king." Whatever were his motives however he had resolved not only to set aside the claims of the Duke and the Duke's children, Mary and Anne, as well as William's own claim as grandson of Charles I., but to place the Duke of Monmouth on the throne. Monmouth, reputed to be the eldest of the king's bastards, a weak and worthless profligate in temper, was popular through his personal beauty and his reputation for bravery. The tale was set about of a secret marriage between the king and his mother which would have made him lawful heir to the throne, and Shaftesbury brought him into public notice by inducing the king to put him at the head of the troops sent to repress a rising of the extreme Covenanters which broke out at this moment in the western counties of Scotland. Monmouth showed courage in routing the insurgents at Bothwell Brig on the Clyde as well as judgement in the mercy he extended to them after their defeat; and on his return Shaftesbury pressed the king to give him the command of the Guards, which would have put the only military force possessed by the Crown in Monmouth's hands.
[Sidenote: Shaftesbury's Second Dismissal.]
Sunderland, Halifax, and Essex, on the other hand--for Temple took less and less part in public affairs--were not only steadily opposed to Shaftesbury's project, but saw themselves marked out for ruin in the event of its success. They had advised the dissolution of the last Parliament; and the Earl's anger had vented itself in threats that the advisers of the dissolution should pay for it with their heads. The danger came home to them when a sudden illness of the king and the absence of James made Monmouth's accession a possible contingency. The three ministers at once induced Charles to recall the Duke of York; and though he withdrew to Scotland on the king's recovery Charles deprived Monmouth of his charge as Captain-General of the Forces and ordered him like James to leave the realm. Left alone in his cause by the opposition of his colleagues, Shaftesbury threw himself more and more on the support of the Plot. The prosecution of its victims was pushed recklessly on. Three Catholics were hanged in London. Eight priests were put to death in the country. Pursuivants and informers spread terror through every Catholic household. He counted on the reassembling of the Parliament to bring all this terror to bear upon the king. But Charles had already marked the breach which the Earl's policy had made in the ranks of the Country party. He saw that Shaftesbury was unsupported by any of his colleagues save Russell. To Temple, Essex, or Halifax, it seemed possible to bring about the succession of Mary without any violent revolution; but to set aside the rights not only of James but of his Protestant children and even of the Prince of Orange was to ensure a civil war. It was with their full support therefore that Charles in October 1679 deprived Shaftesbury of his post of Lord President of the Council.