On grounds of policy and morality alike the act was quite indefensible; but it is perhaps some palliation of his perjury that it was committed to satisfy the last urgent wish of a dying man, and that he alone remained true to the nine days' queen when the others who had with him signed Edward's device deserted her.
If he refrained from actual invective, he accomplished his purpose, according to Guizot, by "omission, palliation and dissimulation."