Read it through once

Many circumstances contributed to outweigh the scruples which must have harassed a man of his excellent nature, when he considered the obligations of filial duty and gratitude, and when he reflected that the particular relation in which he stood to the king rendered a conduct, which in any other subject would have been meritorious, doubtful, if not extremely culpable in him. Among these, not the least was the declared enmity which subsisted between him and his uncle, the Duke of York. The Earl of Mulgrave, afterwards Duke of Buckinghamshire, boasted in his "Memoirs," that this enmity was originally owing to his contrivances; and while he is relating a conduct, upon which the only doubt can be, whether the object or the means were the most infamous, seems to applaud himself as if he had achieved some notable exploit. While, on the one hand, a prospect of his uncle's succession to the crown was intolerable to him, as involving in it a certain destruction of even the most reasonable and limited views of ambition which he might entertain, he was easily led to believe, on the other hand, that no harm, but the reverse, was intended towards his royal father, whose reign and life might become precarious if he obstinately persevered in supporting his brother; whereas, on the contrary, if he could be persuaded, or even forced, to yield to the wishes of his subjects, he might long reign a powerful, happy, and popular prince.