[580] P. 383.

[581] Lords' Journals, 23rd and 24th Jan. 1662.

[582] 12th Feb.

[583] 19th March 1663.

[584] 13 Car. 2, c. 12.

[585] Clarendon, in his Life, p. 149, says, that the king "had received the presbyterian ministers with grace; and did believe that he should work upon them by persuasions, having been well acquainted with their common arguments by the conversation he had had in Scotland, and was very able to confute them." This is one of the strange absurdities into which Clarendon's prejudices hurry him in almost every page of his writings, and more especially in this continuation of his Life. Charles, as his minister well knew, could not read a common Latin book (Clarendon State Papers, iii. 567), and had no manner of acquaintance with theological learning, unless the popular argument in favour of popery is so to be called; yet he was very able to confute men who had passed their lives in study, on a subject involving a considerable knowledge of Scripture and the early writers in their original languages.

[586] Clarendon admits that this could not have been done till the former parliament was dissolved. 97. This means, of course, on the supposition that the king's word was to be broken. "The malignity towards the church," he says, "seemed increasing, and to be greater than at the coming in of the king." Pepys, in his Diary, has several sharp remarks on the misconduct and unpopularity of the bishops, though himself an episcopalian even before the restoration. "The clergy are so high that all people I meet with do protest against their practice." August 31, 1660. "I am convinced in my judgment, that the present clergy will never heartily go down with the generality of the commons of England; they have been so used to liberty and freedom, and they are so acquainted with the pride and debauchery of the present clergy. He [Mr. Blackburn, a nonconformist] did give me many stories of the affronts which the clergy receive in all parts of England from the gentry and ordinary persons of the parish." November 9, 1663. The opposite party had recourse to the old weapons of pious fraud. I have a tract containing twenty-seven instances of remarkable judgments, all between June 1660, and April 1661, which befell divers persons for reading the common prayer or reviling godly ministers. This is entitled Annus Mirabilis; and, besides the above twenty-seven, attests so many prodigies, that the name is by no means misapplied. The bishops made large fortunes by filling up leases. Burnet, 260. And Clarendon admits them to have been too rapacious, though he tries to extenuate. P. 48.

[587] The fullest account of this conference, and of all that passed as to the comprehension of the presbyterians, is to be read in Baxter, whom Neal has abridged. Some allowance must, of course, be made for the resentment of Baxter; but his known integrity makes it impossible to discredit the main part of his narration. Nor is it necessary to rest on the evidence of those who may be supposed to have the prejudices of dissenters. For Bishop Burnet admits that all the concern which seemed to employ the prelates' minds, was not only to make an alteration on the presbyterians' account, but to straiten the terms of conformity far more than before the war. Those, however, who would see what can be said by writers of high-church principles, may consult Kennet's History of Charles II. p. 252, or Collier, p. 878. One little anecdote may serve to display the spirit with which the Anglicans came to the conference. Upon Baxter's saying that their proceedings would alienate a great part of the nation, Stearne, Bishop of Carlisle, observed to his associates: "He will not say kingdom, lest he should acknowledge a king." Baxter, p. 338. This was a very malignant reflection on a man who was well known never to have been of the republican party. It is true that Baxter seems to have thought, in 1659, that Richard Cromwell would have served the turn better than Charles Stuart; and, as a presbyterian, he thought very rightly. See p. 207, and part iii. p. 71. But, preaching before the parliament, April 30, 1660, he said it was none of our differences whether we should be loyal to our king; on that all were agreed. P. 217.

[588] Life of Clarendon, 147. He observes that the alterations made did not reduce one of the opposite party to the obedience of the church. Now, in the first place, he could not know this; and, in the next, he conceals from the reader that, on the whole matter, the changes made in the liturgy were more likely to disgust than to conciliate. Thus the puritans having always objected to the number of saints' days, the bishops added a few more; and the former having given very plausible reasons against the apocryphal lessons in the daily service, the others inserted the legend of Bel and the Dragon, for no other purpose than to show contempt of their scruples. The alterations may be seen in Rennet's Register, 585. The most important was the restoration of a rubric inserted in the communion service under Edward VI., but left out by Elizabeth, declaring against any corporal presence in the Lord's supper. This gave offence to some of those who had adopted that opinion, especially the Duke of York, and perhaps tended to complete his alienation from the Anglican church. Burnet, i. 183.

[589] 13 and 14 Car. 2, c. iv. § 3.

[590] Life of Clarendon, 152; Burnet, 256. Morley, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, was engaged just before the restoration in negotiating with the presbyterians. They stuck out for the negative voice of the council of presbyters, and for the validity of their ordinations. Clar. State Papers, 727. He had two schemes to get over the difficulty; one to pass them over sub silentio; the other, a hypothetical re-ordination, on the supposition that something might have been wanting before, as the church of Rome practises about re-baptization. The former is a curious expedient for those who pretended to think presbyterian ordinations really null. Id. 738.

[591] The day fixed upon suggested a comparison which, though severe, was obvious. A modern writer has observed on this, "They were careful not to remember that the same day, and for the same reason, because the tithes were commonly due at Michaelmas, had been appointed for the former ejectment, when four times as many of the loyal clergy were deprived for fidelity to their sovereign." Southey's Hist. of the Church, ii. 467. That the day was chosen in order to deprive the incumbent of a whole year's tithes, Mr. Southey has learned from Burnet; and it aggravates the cruelty of the proceeding—but where has he found his precedent? The Anglican clergy were ejected for refusing the covenant at no one definite period, as, on recollection, Mr. S. would be aware; nor can I find any one parliamentary ordinance in Husband's Collection that mentions St. Bartholomew's day. There was a precedent indeed in that case, which the government of Charles did not choose to follow. One-fifth of the income had been reserved for the dispossessed incumbents.

[592] Journals, April 26. This may perhaps have given rise to a mistake we find in Neal, 624, that the act of uniformity only passed by 186 to 180. There was no division at all upon the bill except that I have mentioned.

[593] The report of the conference (Lords' Journals, 7th May) is altogether rather curious.

[594] Lords' Journals, 25th and 27th July 1663; Ralph, 58.

[595] Neal, 625-636. Baxter told Burnet, as the latter says (p. 185), that not above 300 would have resigned, had the terms of the king's declaration been adhered to. The blame, he goes on, fell chiefly on Sheldon. But Clarendon was charged with entertaining the presbyterians with good words, while he was giving way to the bishops. See also p. 268. Baxter puts the number of the deprived at 1800. Life, 384. And it has generally been reckoned about 2000; though Burnet says it has been much controverted. If indeed we can rely on Calamy's account of the ejected ministers, abridged by Palmer under the title of The Nonconformist's Memorial, the number must have been full 2400. Kennet, however (Register, 807), notices great mistakes of Calamy in respect only to one diocese, that of Peterborough. Probably both in this collection, and in that of Walker on the other side, as in all martyrologies, there are abundant errors; but enough will remain to afford memorable examples of conscientious suffering; and we cannot read without indignation Rennet's endeavours, in the conclusion of this volume, to extenuate the praise of the deprived presbyterians by captious and unfair arguments.

[596] See Clarendon's feeble attempt to vindicate the king from the charge of breach of faith. 157.

[597] A list of these, published in 1660, contains more than 170 names. Neal, 590.

[598] Sir Kenelm Digby was supposed to be deep in a scheme that the catholics, in 1649, should support the commonwealth with all their power, in return for liberty of religion. Carte's Letters, i. 216 et post. We find a letter from him to Cromwell in 1656 (Thurloe, iv. 591) with great protestations of duty.

[599] See Lords' Journals, June and July 1661, or extracts from them in Kennet's Register, 469, etc., 620, etc., and 798, where are several other particulars worthy of notice. Clarendon, 143, explains the failure of this attempt at a partial toleration (for it was only meant as to the exercise of religious rites in private houses) by the persevering opposition of the Jesuits to the oath of allegiance, to which the lay catholics, and generally the secular priests, had long ceased to make objection. The house had voted that the indulgence should not extend to Jesuits, and that they would not alter the oaths of allegiance or supremacy. The Jesuits complained of the distinction taken against them; and asserted, in a printed tract (Kennet, ubi supra), that since 1616 they had been inhibited by their superiors from maintaining the pope's right to depose sovereigns. See also Butler's Mem. of Catholics, ii. 27; iv. 142; and Burnet, i. 194.

[600] The suspicions against Charles were very strong in England before the restoration, so as to alarm his emissaries: "Your master," Mordaunt writes to Ormond, Nov. 10, 1659, "is utterly ruined as to his interest here in whatever party, if this be true." Carte's Letters, ii. 264, and Clar. State Papers, iii. 602. But an anecdote related in Carte's Life of Ormond, ii. 255, and Harris's Lives, v. 54, which has obtained some credit, proves, if true, that he had embraced the Roman catholic religion as early as 1659, so as even to attend mass. This cannot be reckoned out of question; but the tendency of the king's mind before his return to England is to be inferred from all his behaviour. Kennet (Complete Hist. of Eng. iii. 237) plainly insinuates that the project for restoring popery began at the treaty of the Pyrenees; and see his Register, p. 852.

[601] 13 Car. 2, c. 1.

[602] Burnet, i. 179.

[603] Life of Clarendon, 159. He intimates that this begot a coldness in the bishops towards himself, which was never fully removed. Yet he had no reason to complain of them on his trial. See, too, Pepys's Diary, Sept. 3, 1662.

[604] Parl. Hist. 257.

[605] Baxter intimates (429) that some disagreement arose between the presbyterians and independents as to the toleration of popery, or rather, as he puts it, as to the active concurrence of the protestant dissenters in accepting such a toleration as should include popery. The latter, conformably to their general principles, were favourable to it; but the former would not make themselves parties to any relaxation of the penal laws against the church of Rome, leaving the king to act as he thought fit. By this stiffness it is very probable that they provoked a good deal of persecution from the court, which they might have avoided by falling into its views of a general indulgence.

[606] Parl. Hist. 260. An adjournment had been moved, and lost by 161 to 119. Journals, 25 Feb.

[607] 19 Feb. Baxter, p. 429.

[608] Journals, 17 and 28 March 1663; Parl. Hist. 264. Burnet, 274, says the declaration of indulgence was usually ascribed to Bristol, but in fact proceeded from the king, and that the opposition to it in the house was chiefly made by the friends of Clarendon. The latter tells us in his Life, 189, that the king was displeased at the insolence of the Romish party, and gave the judges general orders to convict recusants. The minister and historian either was, or pretended to be, his master's dupe; and, if he had any suspicions of what was meant as to religion (as he must surely have had), is far too loyal to hint them. Yet the one circumstance he mentions soon after, that the Countess of Castlemaine suddenly declared herself a catholic, was enough to open his eyes and those of the world.

The Romish partisans assumed the tone of high loyalty, as exclusively characteristic of their religion; but affected, at this time, to use great civility towards the church of England. A book, entitled Philanax Anglicus, published under the name of Bellamy, the second edition of which is in 1663, after a most flattering dedication to Sheldon, launches into virulent abuse of the presbyterians and of the reformation in general, as founded on principles adverse to monarchy. This indeed was common with the ultra or high-church party; but the work in question, though it purports to be written by a clergyman, is manifestly a shaft from the concealed bow of the Roman Apollo.

[609] See proofs of this in Ralph, 53; Rapin, p. 78. There was in 1663 a trifling insurrection in Yorkshire, which the government wished to have been more serious, so as to afford a better pretext for strong measures; as may be collected from a passage in a letter of Bennet to the Duke of Ormond, where he says, "The country was in a greater readiness to prevent the disorders than perhaps were to be wished; but it being the effect of their own care, rather than his majesty's commands, it is the less to be censured." Clarendon, 218, speaks of this as an important and extensive conspiracy; and the king dwelt on it in his next speech to the parliament. Parl. Hist. 289.

[610] 16 Car. 2, c. 4. A similar bill had passed the Commons in July 1663, but hung some time in the upper house, and was much debated; the Commons sent up a message (an irregular practice of those times) to request their lordships would expedite this and some other bills. The king seems to have been displeased at this delay; for he told them at their prorogation, that he had expected some bills against conventicles and distempers in religion, as well as the growth of popery, and should himself present some at their next meeting. Parl. Hist. 288. Burnet observes, that to empower a justice of peace to convict without a jury, was thought a great breach on the principles of the English constitution. 285.

[611] P. 221.

[612] 17 Car. 2, c. 2.

[613] Burnet; Baxter, Part III. p. 2; Neal, p. 652.

[614] Burnet: Baxter.

[615] Mr. Locke, in the "Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country," printed in 1675 (see it in his works, or in Parliamentary History, vol. iv. Appendix, No. 5), says it was lost by three votes, and mentions the persons. But the numbers in the Journals, October 27, 1665, appear to be 57 to 51. Probably he meant that those persons might have been expected to vote the other way.

[616] A pamphlet, with Baxter's name subscribed, called "Fair Warning, or XXV Reasons against Toleration and Indulgence of Popery," 1663, is a pleasant specimen of this argumentum ab inferno. "Being there is but one safe way to salvation, do you think that the protestant way is that way, or is it not? If it be not, why do you live in it? If it be, how can you find in your heart to give your subjects liberty to go another way? Can you, in your conscience, give them leave to go on in that course in which, in your conscience, you think you could not be saved?" Baxter, however, does not mention this little book in his life; nor does he there speak violently about the toleration of Romanists.

[617] The clergy had petitioned the House of Commons in 1664, inter alia, "That for the better observation of the Lord's day, and for the promoting of conformity, you would be pleased to advance the pecuniary mulct of twelve pence for each absence from divine service, in proportion to the degree, quality, and ability of the delinquent; that so the penalty may be of force sufficient to conquer the obstinacy of the nonconformists." Wilkin's Concilia, iv. 580. Letters from Sheldon to the commissary of the diocese of Canterbury, in 1669 and 1670, occur in the same collection (pp. 588, 589) directing him to inquire about conventicles; and if they cannot be restrained by ecclesiastical authority, to apply to the next justice of peace in order to put them down. A proclamation appears also from the king, enjoining magistrates to do this. In 1673, the archbishop writes a circular to his suffragans, directing them to proceed against such as keep schools without licence. P. 593.

See in the Somers Tracts, vii. 586, a "true and faithful narrative" of the severities practised against nonconformists about this time. Baxter's Life is also full of proofs of persecution; but the most complete register is in Calamy's account of the ejected clergy.

[618] Pepys observes, 12 July 1667, "how everybody nowadays reflect upon Oliver and commend him, what brave things he did, and made all the neighbour princes fear him."

[619] The Mémoires de Grammont are known to everybody; and are almost unique in their kind, not only for the grace of their style and the vivacity of their pictures, but for the happy ignorance in which the author seems to have lived, that any one of his readers could imagine that there are such things as virtue and principle in the world. In the delirium of thoughtless voluptuousness they resemble some of the memoirs about the end of Louis XV.'s reign, and somewhat later; though I think, even in these, there is generally some effort, here and there, at moral censure, or some affectation of sensibility. They, indeed, have always an awful moral; and in the light portraits of the court of Versailles (such, sometimes, as we might otherwise almost blush to peruse) we have before us the handwriting on the wall, the winter whirlwind hushed in its grim repose, and expecting its prey, the vengeance of an oppressed people and long-forbearing Deity. No such retribution fell on the courtiers of Charles II.; but they earned in their own age, what has descended to posterity, though possibly very indifferent to themselves, the disgust and aversion of all that was respectable among mankind.

[620] This was carried on a division by 172 to 102. Journals, 25 November 1665. It was to be raised "in a regulated subsidiary way, reducing the same to a certainty in all counties, so as no person, for his real or personal estate, be exempted." They seem to have had some difficulty in raising this enormous subsidy. Parliamentary History, 305.

[621] 17 Car. II. c. 1. The same clause is repeated next year, and has become regular.

[622] Life of Clarendon, p. 315; Hatsell's Precedents, iii. 80.

[623] Life of Clarendon, p. 368. Burnet observes it was looked upon at the time as a great innovation. P. 335.

[624] Pepys's Diary has lately furnished some things worthy to be extracted. "Mr. W. and I by water to Whitehall, and there at Sir George Carteret's lodgings Sir William Coventry met; and we did debate the whole business of our accounts to the parliament; where it appears to us that the charge of the war from Sept. 1, 1664, to this Michaelmas will have been but £3,200,000, and we have paid in that time somewhat about £2,200,000, so that we owe about £900,000; but our method of accounting, though it cannot, I believe, be far wide from the mark, yet will not abide a strict examination, if the parliament should be troublesome. Here happened a pretty question of Sir William Coventry, whether this account of ours will not put my lord treasurer to a difficulty to tell what is become of all the money the parliament have given in this time for the war, which hath amounted to about £4,000,000, which nobody there could answer; but I perceive they did doubt what his answer could be." Sept. 23, 1666.—The money granted the king for the war he afterwards (Oct. 10) reckons at £5,590,000, and the debt £900,000. The charge stated only at £3,200,000. "So what is become of all this sum, £2,390,000!" He mentions afterwards (Oct. 8) the proviso in the poll-tax bill, that there shall be a committee of nine persons to have the inspection on oath of all the accounts of the money given and spent for the war, "which makes the king and court mad; the king having given order to my lord chamberlain to send to the play-houses and brothels, to bid all the parliament men that were there to go to the parliament presently; but it was carried against the court by thirty or forty voices." It was thought, he says (Dec. 12) that above £400,000 had gone into the privy purse since the war.

[625] Life of Clarendon, p. 392.

[626] 19 and 20 Car. II. c. 1. Burnet, p. 374. They reported unaccounted balances of £1,509,161, besides much that was questionable in the payments. But, according to Ralph, p. 177, the commissioners had acted with more technical rigour than equity, surcharging the accountants for all sums not expended since the war began, though actually expended for the purposes of preparation.

[627] Burnet, p. 130. Southampton left all the business of the treasury, according to Burnet, p. 131, in the hands of Sir Philip Warwick, "a weak but incorrupt man." The king, he says, chose to put up with his contradiction rather than make him popular by dismissing him. But in fact, as we see by Clarendon's instance, the king retained his ministers long after he was displeased with them. Southampton's remissness and slowness, notwithstanding his integrity, Pepys says, was the cause of undoing the nation as much as anything; "yet, if I knew all the difficulties he has lain under, and his instrument Sir Philip Warwick, I might be of another mind." May 16, 1667.—He was willing to have done something, Clarendon tells us (p. 415) to gratify the presbyterians; on which account, the bishops thought him not enough affected to the church. His friend endeavours to extenuate this heinous sin of tolerant principles.

[628] The behaviour of Lord Clarendon on this occasion was so extraordinary, that no credit could have been given to any other account than his own. The Duke of York, he says, informed the king of the affection and friendship that had long been between him and the young lady; that they had been long contracted, and that she was with child; and therefore requested his majesty's leave that he might publicly marry her. The Marquis of Ormond by the king's order communicated this to the chancellor, who "broke out into an immoderate passion against the wickedness of his daughter; and said, with all imaginable earnestness, that as soon as he came home, he would turn her out of his house as a strumpet to shift for herself, and would never see her again. They told him that his passion was too violent to administer good counsel to him; that they thought that the duke was married to his daughter, and that there were other measures to be taken than those which the disorder he was in had suggested to him. Whereupon he fell into new commotions; and said, If that were true, he was well prepared to advise what was to be done; that he had much rather his daughter should be the duke's whore than his wife: in the former case, nobody could blame him for the resolution he had taken, for he was not obliged to keep a whore for the greatest prince alive; and the indignity to himself he would submit to the good pleasure of God. But, if there were any reason to suspect the other, he was ready to give a positive judgment, in which he hoped their lordships would concur with him, that the king should immediately cause the woman to be sent to the Tower and cast into a dungeon, under so strict a guard that no person living should be admitted to come to her; and then that an act of parliament should be immediately passed for cutting off her head, to which he would not only give his consent, but would very willingly be the first man that should propose it. And whoever knew the man, will believe that he said all this very heartily." Lord Southampton, he proceeds to inform us, on the king's entering the room at the time, said very naturally, that the chancellor was mad, and had proposed such extravagant things that he was no more to be consulted with. This, however, did not bring him to his senses; for he repeated his strange proposal of "sending her presently to the Tower, and the rest;" imploring the king to take this course, as the only expedient that could free him from the evils that this business would otherwise bring upon him.

That any man of sane intellects should fall into such an extravagance of passion, is sufficiently wonderful; that he should sit down in cool blood several years afterwards to relate it, is still more so; and perhaps we shall carry our candour to an excess, if we do not set down the whole scene to overacted hypocrisy. Charles II., we may be very sure, could see it in no other light. And here I must take notice, by the way, of the singular observation the worthy editor of Burnet has made: "King Charles's conduct in this business was excellent throughout; that of Clarendon worthy an ancient Roman." We have indeed a Roman precedent for subduing the sentiments of nature rather than permitting a daughter to incur disgrace through the passions of the great; but I think Virginius would not quite have understood the feelings of Clarendon. Such virtue was more like what Montesquieu calls "l'héroïsme de l'esclavage," and was just fit for the court of Gondar. But with all this violence that he records of himself, he deviates greatly from the truth: "The king (he says) afterwards spoke every day about it, and told the chancellor that he must behave himself wisely, for that the thing was remediless, and that his majesty knew that they were married; which would quickly appear to all men who knew that nothing could be done upon it. In this time the chancellor had conferred with his daughter, without anything of indulgence, and not only discovered that they were unquestionably married, but by whom, and who were present at it, who would be ready to avow it; which pleased him not, though it diverted him from using some of that rigour which he intended. And he saw no other remedy could be applied but that which he had proposed to the king, who thought of nothing like it." Life of Clarendon, 29 et post.

Every one would conclude from this, that a marriage had been solemnised if not before their arrival in England, yet before the chancellor had this conference with his daughter. It appears, however, from the Duke of York's declaration in the books of the privy council, quoted by Ralph, p. 40, that he was contracted to Ann Hyde on the 24th of November 1659, at Breda; and after that time lived with her as his wife, though very secretly; he married her 3rd Sept. 1660, according to the English ritual, Lord Ossory giving her away. The first child was born Oct. 22, 1660. Now whether the contract were sufficient to constitute a valid marriage, will depend on two things; first, upon the law existing at Breda; secondly, upon the applicability of what is commonly called the rule of the lex loci, to a marriage between such persons according to the received notions of English lawyers in that age. But, even admitting all this, it is still manifest that Clarendon's expressions point to an actual celebration, and are consequently intended to mislead the reader. Certain it is, that at the time the contract seems to have been reckoned only an honorary obligation. James tells us himself (Macpherson's Extracts, p. 17) that he promised to marry her; and "though when he asked the king for his leave, he refused and dissuaded him from it, yet at last he opposed it no more, and the duke married her privately, and owned it some time after." His biographer, writing from his own manuscript, adds, "it may well be supposed that my lord chancellor did his part, but with great caution and circumspection, to soften the king in that matter which in every respect seemed so much for his own advantage." Life of James, 387. And Pepys inserts in his diary, Feb. 23, 1661, "Mr. H. told me how my lord chancellor had lately got the Duke of York and duchess, and her woman, my Lord Ossory and a doctor, to make oath before most of the judges of the kingdom, concerning all the circumstances of their marriage. And, in fine, it is confessed that they were not fully married till about a month or two before she was brought to bed; but that they were contracted long before, and [were married] time enough for the child to be legitimate. But I do not hear that it was put to the judges to determine so or not." He had said before that Lord Sandwich told him (17th Oct. 1660) "the king wanted him [the duke] to marry her, but he would not." This seems at first sight inconsistent with what James says himself. But at this time, though the private marriage had really taken place, he had been persuaded by a most infamous conspiracy of some profligate courtiers that the lady was of a licentious character, and that Berkeley, afterwards Lord Falmouth, had enjoyed her favours. Life of Clarendon, 33. It must be presumed that those men knew only of a contract which they thought he could break. Hamilton, in the Memoirs of Grammont, speaks of this transaction with his usual levity, though the parties showed themselves as destitute of spirit as of honour and humanity. Clarendon, we must believe (and the most favourable hypothesis for him is to give up his veracity), would not permit his daughter to be made the victim of a few perjured debauchees, and of her husband's fickleness or credulity.

[629] Hamilton mentions this as the current rumour of the court, and Burnet has done the same. But Clarendon himself denies that he had any concern in it, or any acquaintance with the parties. He wrote in too humble a strain to the king on the subject. Life of Clar. p. 454.

[630] Burnet says that Southampton had come into a scheme of obtaining £2,000,000 as the annual revenue; which was prevented by Clarendon, lest it should put the king out of need of parliaments. This the king found out, and hated him mortally for it. P. 223. It is the fashion to discredit all Burnet says. But observe what we may read in Pepys: "Sir W. Coventry did tell me it as the wisest thing that was ever said to the king by any statesman of his time; and it was by my lord treasurer that is dead, whom, I find, he takes for a very great statesman, that when the king did show himself forward for passing the act of indemnity, he did advise the king that he would hold his hand in doing it, till he had got his power restored that had been diminished by the late times, and his revenue settled in such a manner as he might depend upon himself without resting upon parliaments, and then pass it. But my lord chancellor, who thought he could have the command of parliaments for ever, because for the king's sake they were awhile willing to grant all the king desired, did press for its being done; and so it was, and the king from that time able to do nothing with the parliament almost." March 20, 1669. Rari quippe boni! Neither Southampton nor Coventry make the figure in this extract we should wish to find; yet who were their superiors for integrity and patriotism under Charles II.? Perhaps Pepys, like most gossiping men, was not always correct.

[631] Macpherson's Extracts from Life of James, 17, 18. Compare Innes's Life of James, published by Clarke, i. 391, 393. In the former work it is said that Clarendon, upon Venner's insurrection, advised that the guards should not be disbanded. But this seems to be a mistake in copying: for Clarendon read the Duke of York. Pepys, however, who heard all the gossip of the town, mentions the year after, that the chancellor thought of raising an army, with the duke as general. Dec. 22, 1661.

[632] Ibid.

[633] The Earl of Bristol, with all his constitutional precipitancy, made a violent attack on Clarendon, by exhibiting articles of treason against him in the House of Lords in 1663; believing, no doubt, that the schemes of the intriguers were more mature, and the king more alienated, than was really the case; and thus disgraced himself at court instead of his enemy. Parl. Hist. 276; Life of Clar. 209. Before this time Pepys had heard that the chancellor had lost the king's favour, and that Bristol, with Buckingham and two or three more, ruled him. May 15, 1663.

[634] A motion to refer the heads of charge against Clarendon to a committee was lost by 194 to 128; Seymour and Osborne telling the noes, Birch and Clarges the ayes. Commons' Journals, Nov. 6, 1667. These names show how parties ran, Seymour and Osborne being high-flying cavaliers, and Birch a presbyterian. A motion that he be impeached for treason on the first article was lost by 172 to 103, the two former tellers for the ayes: Nov. 9. In the Harleian MS. 881, we have a copious account of the debates on this occasion, and a transcript in No. 1218. Sir Heneage Finch spoke much against the charge of treason; Maynard seems to have done the same. A charge of secret correspondence with Cromwell was introduced merely ad invidiam, the prosecutors admitting that it was pardoned by the act of indemnity, but wishing to make the chancellor plead that: Maynard and Hampden opposed it, and it was given up out of shame without a vote. Vaughan, afterwards chief justice, argued that counselling the king to govern by a standing army was treason at common law, and seems to dispute what Finch laid down most broadly, that there can be no such thing as a common law treason; relying on a passage in Glanvill, where "seductio domini regis" is said to be treason. Maynard stood up for the opposite doctrine. Waller and Vaughan argued that the sale of Dunkirk was treason, but the article passed without declaring it to be so; nor would the word have appeared probably in the impeachment, if a young Lord Vaughan had not asserted that he could prove Clarendon to have betrayed the king's councils, on which an article to that effect was carried by 161 to 89. Garraway and Littleton were forward against the chancellor; but Coventry seems to have taken no great part. See Pepys's Diary, Dec. 3rd and 6th, 1667. Baxter also says that the presbyterians were by no means strenuous against Clarendon, but rather the contrary, fearing that worse might come for the country, as giving him credit for having kept off military government. Baxter's Life, part iii. 21. This is very highly to the honour of that party whom he had so much oppressed, if not betrayed. "It was a notable providence of God, he says, that this man, who had been the great instrument of state, and done almost all, and had dealt so cruelly with the nonconformists should thus by his own friends be cast out and banished; while those that he had persecuted were the most moderate in his cause, and many for him. And it was a great ease that befel the good people throughout the land by his dejection. For his way was to decoy men into conspiracies or to pretend plots, and upon the rumour of a plot the innocent people of many countries were laid in prison, so that no man knew when he was safe. Whereas since then, though laws have been made more and more severe, yet a man knoweth a little better what he is to expect, when it is by a law that he is to be tried." Sham plots there seem to have been; but it is not reasonable to charge Clarendon with inventing them. Ralph, 122.

[635] In his wrath against the proviso inserted by Sir George Downing, as above mentioned, in the bill of supply, Clarendon told him, as he confesses, that the king could never be well served, while fellows of his condition were admitted to speak as much as they had a mind; and that in the best times such presumptions had been punished with imprisonment by the lords of the council, without the king's taking notice of it. 321. The king was naturally displeased at this insolent language towards one of his servants, a man who has filled an eminent station, and done services, for a suggestion intended to benefit the revenue. And it was a still more flagrant affront to the House of Commons, of which Downing was a member, and where he had proposed this clause, and induced the house to adopt it.

Coventry told Pepys "many things about the chancellor's dismissal, not fit to be spoken; and yet not any unfaithfulness to the king, but instar omnium, that he was so great at the council-board and in the administration of matters there was no room for anybody to propose any remedy for what was amiss, or to compass anything, though never so good for the kingdom, unless approved of by the chancellor; he managing all things with that greatness which now will be removed, that the king may have the benefit of others' advice." Sept. 2, 1667. His own memoirs are full of proofs of this haughtiness and intemperance. He set himself against Sir William Coventry, and speaks of a man as able and virtuous as himself with marked aversion. See too Life of James, 398. Coventry, according to this writer (431), was the chief actor in Clarendon's impeachment, but this seems to be a mistake; though he was certainly desirous of getting him out of place.

The king, Clarendon tells us (438), pretended that the anger of parliament was such, and their power too, as it was not in his power to save him. The fallen minister desired him not to fear the power of parliament, "which was more or less, or nothing, as he pleased to make it." So preposterous as well as unconstitutional a way of talking could not but aggravate his unpopularity with that great body he pretended to contemn.

[636] State Trials, vi. 318; Parl. Hist.

[637] Ludlow, iii. 118, 165 et post; Clarendon's Life, 290; Burnet, 226; Œuvres de Louis XIV. ii. 204.

[638] Harris's Lives, v. 28; Biogr. Brit. art. Harrington; Life of James, 396; Somers Tracts, vii. 530, 534.

[639] See Kennet's Register, 757; Ralph, 78 et post; Harris's Lives, v. 182, for proofs of this.

[640] Mem. of Hutchinson, 303. It seems, however, that he was suspected of some concern with an intended rising in 1663, though nothing was proved against him. Miscellanea Aulica, 319.

[641] Life of Clarendon, 424. Pepys says, the parliament was called together "against the Duke of York's mind flatly, who did rather advise the king to raise money as he pleased; and against the chancellor, who told the king that Queen Elizabeth did do all her business in 1588 without calling a parliament, and so might he do for anything he saw." June 25, 1667. He probably got this from his friend Sir W. Coventry.

[642] Ralph, 78, etc. The overture came from Clarendon, the French having no expectation of it. The worst was that, just before, he had dwelt in a speech to parliament on the importance of Dunkirk. This was on May 19, 1662. It appears by Louis XIV.'s own account, which certainly does not tally with some other authorities, that Dunkirk had been so great an object with Cromwell, that it was the stipulated price of the English alliance. Louis, however, was vexed at this, and determined to recover it at any price: il est certain que je ne pouvois trop donner pour racheter Dunkerque. He sent d'Estrades accordingly to England in 1661, directing him to make this his great object. Charles told the ambassador that Spain had made him great offers, but he would rather treat with France. Louis was delighted at this; and though the sum asked was considerable, 5,000,000 livres, he would not break off, but finally concluded the treaty for 4,000,000, payable in three years; nay, saved 500,000 without its being found out by the English, for a banker having offered them prompt payment at this discount, they gladly accepted it; but this banker was a person employed by Louis himself, who had the money ready. He had the greatest anxiety about this affair; for the city of London deputed the lord mayor to offer any sum so that Dunkirk might not be alienated. Œuvres de Louis XIV. i. 167. If this be altogether correct, the King of France did not fancy he had made so bad a bargain; and indeed, with his projects, if he had the money to spare, he could not think so. Compare the Mémoires d'Estrades, and the supplement to the third volume of Clarendon State Papers. The historians are of no value, except as they copy from some of these original testimonies.

[643] Life of Clar. 78; Life of James, 393.

[644] See Supplement to third volume of Clarendon State Papers, for abundant evidence of the close connection between the courts of France and England. The former offered bribes to Lord Clarendon so frequently and unceremoniously, that one is disposed to think he did not show so much indignation at the first overture as he ought to have done. See pp. 1, 4, 13. The aim of Louis was to effect the match with Catharine. Spain would have given a great portion with any protestant princess, in order to break it. Clarendon asked, on his master's account, for £50,000, to avoid application to parliament. P. 4. The French offered a secret loan, or subsidy perhaps, of 2,000,000 livres for the succour of Portugal. This was accepted by Clarendon (p. 15); but I do not find anything more about it.

[645] As no one, who regards with attachment the present system of the English constitution, can look upon Lord Clarendon as an excellent minister, or a friend to the soundest principles of civil and religious liberty; so no man whatever can avoid considering his incessant deviations from the great duties of an historian as a moral blemish in his character. He dares very frequently to say what is not true, and what he must have known to be otherwise; he does not dare to say what is true. And it is almost an aggravation of this reproach, that he aimed to deceive posterity, and poisoned at the fountain a stream from which another generation was to drink. No defence has ever been set up for the fidelity of Clarendon's history; nor can men, who have sifted the authentic materials, entertain much difference of judgment in this respect; though, as a monument of powerful ability and impressive eloquence, it will always be read with that delight which we receive from many great historians, especially the ancient, independent of any confidence in their veracity.

One more instance, before we quit Lord Clarendon for ever, may here be mentioned of his disregard for truth. The strange tale of a fruitless search after the restoration for the body of Charles I. is well known. Lord Southampton and Lindsey, he tells us, who had assisted at their master's obsequies in St. George's chapel at Windsor, were so overcome with grief, that they could not recognise the place of interment; and, after several vain attempts, the search was abandoned in despair. Hist. of Rebellion, vi. 244. Whatever motive the noble historian may have had for this story, it is absolutely incredible that any such ineffectual search was ever made. Nothing could have been more easy than to have taken up the pavement of the choir. But this was unnecessary. Some at least of the workmen employed must have remembered the place of the vault. Nor did it depend on them; for Sir Thomas Herbert, who was present, had made at the time a note of the spot, "just opposite the eleventh stall on the king's side." Herbert's Memoirs, 142. And we find from Pepys's Diary, Feb. 26, 1666, that "he was shown, at Windsor, where the late king was buried, and King Henry VIII. and my Lady Seymour." In which spot, as is well known, the royal body has twice been found, once in the reign of Anne, and again in 1813.

[646] The tenor of Clarendon's life and writings almost forbids any surmise of pecuniary corruption. Yet this is insinuated by Pepys, on the authority of Evelyn, April 27 and May 16, 1667. But the one was gossiping, though shrewd; and the other feeble, though accomplished. Lord Dartmouth, who lived in the next age, and whose splenetic humour makes him no good witness against anybody, charges him with receiving bribes from the main instruments and promoters of the late troubles, and those who had plundered the royalists, which enabled him to build his great mansion in Piccadilly; asserting that it was full of pictures belonging to families who had been despoiled of them. "And whoever had a mind to see what great families had been plundered during the civil war, might find some remains either at Clarendon House or at Cornbury." Note on Burnet, 88.

The character of Clarendon, as a minister, is fairly and judiciously drawn by Macpherson, Hist. of England, 98; a work by no means so full of a tory spirit as has been supposed.

[647] Parl. Hist. 347.

[648] The Lords refused to commit the Earl of Clarendon on a general impeachment of high treason; and in a conference with the lower house, denied the authority of the precedent in Strafford's case, which was pressed upon them. It is remarkable that the managers of this conference for the Commons vindicated the first proceedings of the long parliament, which shows a considerable change in their tone since 1661. They do not, however, seem to have urged, what is an apparent distinction between the two precedents, that the commitment of Strafford was on a verbal request of Pym in the name of the Commons, without alleging any special matter of treason, and consequently irregular and illegal; while the 16th article of Clarendon's impeachment charges him with betraying the king's counsels to his enemies; which, however untrue, evidently amounted to treason within the statute of Edward III.; so that the objection of the Lords extended to committing any one for treason upon impeachment, without all the particularity required in an indictment. This showed a very commendable regard to the liberty of the subject; and from this time we do not find the vague and unintelligible accusations, whether of treason or misdemeanour, so usual in former proceedings of parliament. Parl. Hist. 387. A protest was signed by Buckingham, Albemarle, Bristol, Arlington, and others of their party, including three bishops (Cosins, Croft, and another), against the refusal of their house to commit Clarendon upon the general charge. A few, on the other hand, of whom Hollis is the only remarkable name, protested against the bill of banishment.

"The most fatal blow (says James) the king gave himself to his power and prerogative, was when he sought aid from the House of Commons to destroy the Earl of Clarendon: by that he put that house again in mind of their impeaching privilege, which had been wrested out of their hands by the restoration; and when ministers found they were like to be left to the censure of the parliament, it made them have a greater attention to court an interest there than to pursue that of their princes, from whom they hoped not for so sure a support." Life of James, 593.

The king, it is said, came rather slowly into the measure of impeachment; but became afterwards so eager, as to give the attorney-general, Finch, positive orders to be active in it, observing him to be silent. Carte's Ormond, ii. 353. Buckingham had made the king great promises of what the Commons would do, in case he would sacrifice Clarendon.

[649] Kennet, 293, 300. Burnet; Baxter, 23. The design was to act on the principle of the declaration of 1660, so that presbyterian ordinations should pass sub modo. Tillotson and Stillingfleet were concerned in it. The king was at this time exasperated against the bishops for their support of Clarendon. Burnet, ibid.; Pepys's Diary, 21st Dec. 1667. And he had also deeper motives.

[650] Parl. Hist. 421; Ralph, 170; Carte's Life of Ormond, ii. 362. Sir Thomas Littleton spoke in favour of the comprehension, as did Seymour and Waller; all of them enemies of Clarendon, and probably connected with the Buckingham faction: but the church party was much too strong for them. Pepys says the Commons were furious against the project; it was said that whoever proposed new laws about religion must do it with a rope about his neck. Jan. 10, 1668. This is the first instance of a triumph obtained by the church over the Crown in the House of Commons. Ralph observes upon it, "It is not for nought that the words church and state are so often coupled together, and that the first has so insolently usurped the precedency of the last."

[651] Parl. Hist. 422.

[652] France retained Lille, Tournay, Douay, Charleroi, and other places by the treaty. The allies were surprised, and not pleased at the choice Spain made of yielding these towns in order to save Franche Comté. Temple's Letters, 97. In fact, they were not on good terms with that power; she had even a project, out of spite to Holland, of giving up the Netherlands entirely to France, in exchange for Rousillon, but thought better of it on cooler reflection.

[653] Dalrymple, ii. 5 et post. Temple was not treated very favourably by most of the ministers on his return from concluding the triple alliance: Clifford said to a friend, "Well, for all this noise, we must yet have another war with the Dutch before it be long." Temple's Letters, 123.

[654] Dalrymple, ii. 12.

[655] Burnet.

[656] Life of Clarendon, 357.

[657] Life of Clarendon, 355.

[658] State Trials, vi. 807. One of the oddest things connected with this fire was, that some persons of the fanatic party had been hanged, in April, for a conspiracy to surprise the Tower, murder the Duke of Albemarle and others, and then declare for an equal division of lands, etc. In order to effect this, the city was to be fired, and the guards secured in their quarters and for this the 3rd of September following was fixed upon as a lucky day. This is undoubtedly to be read in the London Gazette for April 30, 1666; and it is equally certain that the city was in flames on the 3rd of September. But, though the coincidence is curious, it would be very weak to think it more than a coincidence, for the same reason as applies to the suspicion which the catholics incurred; that the mere destruction of the city could not have been the object of any party, and that nothing was attempted to manifest any further design.

[659] Macpherson's Extracts, 38, 49; Life of James, 426.

[660] He tells us himself that it began by his reading a book written by a learned bishop of the church of England to clear her from schism in leaving the Roman communion, which had a contrary effect on him; especially when, at the said bishop's desire, he read an answer to it. This made him inquisitive about the grounds and manner of the reformation. After his return, Heylin's History of the Reformation, and the preface to Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, thoroughly convinced him that neither the church of England, nor Calvin, nor any of the reformers, had power to do what they did; and he was confident, he said, that whosoever reads those two books with attention and without prejudice, would be of the same opinion. Life of James, i. 629. The Duchess of York embraced the same creed as her husband, and, as he tells us, without knowledge of his sentiments, but one year before her death in 1670. She left a paper at her death containing the reasons for her change. See it in Kennet, 320. It is plain that she, as well as the duke, had been influenced by the Romanising tendency of some Anglican divines.

[661] Macpherson, 50; Life of James, 441.

[662] De Witt was apprised of the intrigue between France and England as early as April 1669, through a Swedish agent at Paris. Temple, 179. Temple himself, in the course of that year, became convinced that the king's views were not those of his people, and reflects severely on his conduct in a letter, December 24, 1669. P. 206. In September 1670, on his sudden recall from the Hague, De Witt told him his suspicions of a clandestine treaty. 241. He was received on his return coldly by Arlington, and almost with rudeness by Clifford. 244. They knew he would never concur in the new projects. But in 1682, during one of the intervals when Charles was playing false with his brother Louis, the latter, in revenge, let an Abbé Primi, in a history of the Dutch war, publish an account of the whole secret treaty, under the name of the Count de St. Majolo. This book was immediately suppressed at the instance of the English ambassador; and Primi was sent for a short time to the Bastile. But a pamphlet, published in London just after the Revolution, contains extracts from it. Dalrymple, ii. 80; Somers Tracts, viii. 13; Harl. Misc. ii. 387; Œuvres de Louis XIV. vi. 476. It is singular that Hume should have slighted so well authenticated a fact, even before Dalrymple's publication of the treaty; but I suppose he had never heard of Primi's book. The original treaty has lately been published by Dr. Lingard, from Lord Clifford's cabinet.

[663] Dalrymple, ii. 22.

[664] Id. 23; Life of James, 442.

[665] The tenor of the article leads me to conclude, that these troops were to be landed in England at all events, in order to secure the public tranquillity without waiting for any disturbance.

[666] P. 49.

[667] Bolingbroke has a remarkable passage as to this in his Letters on History (Letter VII.): it may be also alluded to by others. The full details, however, as well as more authentic proofs, were reserved, as I believe, for the publication of Œuvres de Louis XIV., where they will be found in vol. ii. 403. The proposal of Louis to the emperor, in 1667, was, that France should have the Pays Bas, Franche Comté, Milan, Naples, the ports of Tuscany, Navarre, and the Philippine Islands; Leopold taking all the rest. The obvious drift of this was, that France should put herself in possession of an enormous increase of power and territory, leaving Leopold to fight as he could for Spain and America, which were not likely to submit peaceably. The Austrian cabinet understood this; and proposed that they should exchange their shares. Finally, however, it was concluded on the king's terms, except that he was to take Sicily instead of Milan. One article of this treaty was, that Louis should keep what he had conquered in Flanders; in other words, the terms of the treaty of Aix la Chapelle. The ratifications were exchanged 29th Feb. 1668. Louis represents himself as more induced by this prospect than by any fear of the triple alliance, of which he speaks slightingly, to conclude the peace of Aix la Chapelle. He thought that he should acquire a character for moderation which might be serviceable to him, "dans les grands accroissemens que ma fortune pourroit recevoir." Vol. ii. p. 369.

[668] Dalrymple, 31-57. James gives a different account of this; and intimates that Henrietta, whose visit to Dover he had for this reason been much against, prevailed on the king to change his resolution, and to begin with the war. He gained over Arlington and Clifford. The duke told them it would quite defeat the catholic design, because the king must run in debt, and be at the mercy of his parliament. They answered that, if the war succeeded, it was not much matter what people suspected. P. 450. This shows that they looked on force as necessary to compass the design, and that the noble resistance of the Dutch, under the Prince of Orange, was that which frustrated the whole conspiracy. "The duke," it is again said (p. 453), "was in his own judgment against entering into this war before his majesty's power and authority in England had been better fixed and less precarious, as it would have been, if the private treaty first agreed on had not been altered." The French court, however, was evidently right in thinking that, till the conquest of Holland should be achieved, the declaration of the king's religion would only weaken him at home. It is gratifying to find the heroic character of our glorious deliverer displaying itself among these foul conspiracies. The Prince of Orange came over to England in 1670. He was then very young; and his uncle, who was really attached to him, would have gladly associated him in the design; indeed it had been agreed that he was to possess part of the United Provinces in sovereignty. But Colbert writes that the king had found him so zealous a Dutchman and protestant, that he could not trust him with any part of the secret. He let him know, however, as we learn from Burnet, 382, that he had himself embraced the Romish faith.

[669] Dalrymple, 57.

[670] P. 68; Life of James, 444. In this work it is said that even the Duchess of Orleans had no knowledge of the real treaty; and that the other originated with Buckingham. But Dalrymple's authority seems far better in this instance.

[671] P. 84, etc.

[672] P. 23.

[673] P. 52. The reluctance to let the Duke of Buckingham into the secret seems to prove that more was meant than a toleration of the Roman catholic religion, towards which he had always been disposed, and which was hardly a secret at court.

[674] Pp. 62, 84.

[675] P. 81.

[676] P. 33.

[677] "The generality of the church of England men was not at that time very averse to the catholic religion; many that went under that name had their religion to choose, and went to church for company's sake." Life of James, p. 442.

[678] Life of James, ibid.

[679] Macpherson's Extracts, p. 51.

[680] 22 Car. 2, c. 1; Kennet, p. 306. The zeal in the Commons against popery tended to aggravate this persecution of the dissenters. They had been led by some rascally clergymen to believe the absurdity that there was a good understanding between the two parties.

[681] Burnet, p. 272.