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 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 RESPECTING 
 
 THE CHARACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 EDWARD HYDE, EARL OF CLARENDON, 
 
 LORD CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 HON. GEORGE AGAR ELLIS. 
 
 Ornne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se 
 Crimen habet, quanto major, qui peccat, habetur. 
 
 Juvenal. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXVII. 
 

 {THE LIBRARY 
 OF CONGRESS 
 J 
 
 IWASHINGTOS 
 
 
 L H I) N : 
 
 ) i;Y C. ROWOtTH, BI LI Y A I'. D, 
 
 ! h V. I ! t 13 AH. 
 
m 
 
 TO 
 
 HENRY WELBORE, 
 V I S C O U N T C L I F D E N, 
 
 THE VARIETY AND ACCURACY OF WHOSE 
 
 HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 HAVE BEEN EVER THE SUBJECT OF 
 
 THE AUTHOR'S ADMIRATION, 
 
 THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED 
 
 WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF 
 
 AFFECTIONATE REGARD 
 
 AND 
 
 FILIAL RESPECT. 
 
HISTORICAL INQUIRIES, 
 
 SfC. 8fC. 
 
 The observations, with which Lord 
 Orford commences his " Historic Doubts 
 on the Life and Reign of King Richard 
 III.," explain so well the difficulties a 
 writer has to encounter, who attempts to 
 detect errors in generally-received points 
 of history, that I cannot forbear tran- 
 scribing them, as a sort of preface to the 
 historical inquiries, which I am about to 
 introduce to the notice of the literary 
 public. " There is a kind of literary 
 1 superstition," observes Lord Orford, 
 
 B 
 
2 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 " which men are apt to contract from 
 habit, and which makes them look on 
 any attempt towards shaking their belief 
 in established characters, no matter 
 whether good or bad, as a sort of profa- 
 nation. They are determined to adhere 
 to their first impressions, and are equally 
 offended at any innovation, whether the 
 person, whose character is to be raised 
 or depressed, were patriot or tyrant, 
 saint or sinner. No indulgence is 
 granted to those who would ascertain 
 the truth. The more testimonies on 
 either side have been multiplied, the 
 stronger is the conviction ; though it 
 generally happens that the original evi- 
 dence is wondrous slender, and that the 
 number of writers have but copied one 
 another ; or, what is worse, have only 
 added to the original, without any new 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. *5 
 
 authority. Attachment so groundless 
 is not to be regarded; and in mere 
 matters of curiosity, it were ridiculous 
 to pay any deference to it. If time 
 brings new materials to light, if facts 
 and dates confute historians, what does 
 it signify that we have been two or three 
 hundred years under an error? Does 
 antiquity consecrate darkness ? Does a 
 lie become venerable from its age ?" a 
 
 The difference between the task Lord 
 Orford undertook, and the one which I 
 am at present commencing, consists in 
 this, that his discoveries all tended to 
 show the individual, who was the sub- 
 ject of his inquiries, in a more favourable 
 light ; while the remarks and extracts 
 which I shall have to bring forward, are 
 
 a Works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, 
 vol. ii. 
 
 b2 
 
4 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 of a nature to detract from the supposed 
 merits of the conspicuous person treated 
 of. Lord Orford's was doubtless the 
 more agreeable labour of the two ; but 
 both, in my opinion, contribute equally 
 to historical justice and accuracy. 
 
 Perhaps these sort of researches into 
 the characters of historical personages 
 are the most impartial that can be 
 entered into, because personal feelings 
 are out of the question. Nothing is to 
 be hoped or feared from the dead ; and 
 with regard to the dead who died a 
 century and a half ago, there cannot 
 even be the slight bias of partiality for 
 or against them, which may sometimes 
 exist in more modern cases, from the 
 circumstance of our having been ac- 
 quainted with persons who had been 
 formerly the friends or the opponents 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. O 
 
 of the individuals in question in their 
 journey through life. Nor are such 
 researches, besides being both curious 
 and interesting, without their import- 
 ance; conferring as they sometimes do a 
 tardy reward upon merit oppressed by 
 calumny, while, on the other hand, they 
 occasionally reduce to their proper level 
 characters which, either by the party 
 writers of their own day, or by some 
 adventitious circumstances, have been 
 unfairly exalted. 
 
 I would wish here only further to 
 observe, that these preparatory remarks 
 upon historical researches are made in 
 a general way, as explanatory of the 
 motives and uses of such things. Every 
 individual case of inquiry must, I am 
 well aware, stand or fall by its own 
 merits. 
 
() HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 I am certainly not vain enough to 
 imagine that I am about to make disco- 
 veries — all that I lay claim to is, the 
 comparing and analysing of evidence, - 
 and then drawing from it the conclusions 
 which it may fairly seem to warrant. 
 As this is my object, I shall generally 
 prefer giving extracts of the authors 
 referred to, and only troubling the reader 
 with so much of my own composition as 
 is necessary to connect the various au- 
 thorities into one continued narrative. 
 
 There is no character to which history 
 has been more indulgent than to that of 
 Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, b Lord 
 
 b Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chan- 
 cellor of England, was the third son of Henry Hyde, 
 and was born at Dinton, in Wiltshire, on the 18th of 
 February, 1608. He was descended from a small, 
 but ancient gentleman's family of Cheshire. In 1622 
 he was sent to Oxford, and entered of Magdalen 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 7 
 
 Chancellor of England. Annalists and 
 writers of memoirs, following one an- 
 
 Hall. In 1625 he became B. A. After which, fail- 
 ing of a Fellowship of Exeter College, he entered of 
 the Middle Temple, and commenced the study of the 
 law. In the Parliament which commenced April 
 10th, 1640, he was chosen Member for Wootton 
 Basset ; — and in the Long Parliament, which com- 
 menced November 3d of that same year, for Saltash. 
 He distinguished himself as a frequent and able 
 speaker, and soon espoused the cause of the King 
 very warmly. In 1642, having withdrawn with the 
 King to York, he was knighted, made a Privy Coun- 
 cillor, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. — In 1643, 
 he sat in the Parliament assembled by Charles at 
 Oxford. — In 1644, he was one of the King's Com- 
 missioners at Uxbridge. — The same year he accom- 
 panied Charles II. into the West. — In 1645, the 
 King's affairs becoming desperate, he fled with 
 Charles II. to Scilly, and from thence to Jersey, 
 where he continued till May, 1648 — and employed 
 himself in writing his celebrated History of the 
 Rebellion. — In 1648, he went to the continent and 
 joined the new King, by whom he was continued in 
 his post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and shortly 
 afterwards sent Ambassador to Spain. — In 1657, he 
 was made Lord Chancellor. — Upon the Restoration in 
 
8 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 other implicitly, have described him as 
 the greatest, the most honest, and the 
 
 1660, he was chosen Chancellor of the University of 
 Oxford — the same year he was created Baron Hyde 
 of Hindon, in Wiltshire — and in 1661, Viscount 
 Cornbury, of Cornbury in Oxfordshire — and Earl 
 of Clarendon, of Clarendon in Wiltshire. — For some 
 years his power was almost unlimited. In 1663, 
 George Digby, Earl of Bristol, impeached him of 
 high treason in the House of Lords, but the charge 
 came to nothing, — In 1665, his favour with the King 
 began to decline. — In August, 1667, the seals were 
 taken from him ; and in November of the same 
 year he was impeached by the House of Commons, 
 to avoid the consequences of which he, in the follow- 
 ing month, fled to France. — Immediately after his 
 departure an Act of banishment was passed against 
 him. — He first resided in Normandy — afterw r ards at 
 Montpelier, and at Moulins — and finally at Rouen, 
 where he died December 9th, 1673, worn out by 
 disease and vexation. — He was twice married, first, 
 in 1628, to Anne, daughter of Sir George AylifFe, 
 who died without issue in 1629 ; — and secondly, in 
 1632, to Frances, daughter and heiress of Sir Tho- 
 mas Aylesbury, Bart., by whom he had four sons 
 and two daughters. The eldest daughter was the 
 well-known Anne Hyde, married to James, Duke of 
 York, afterwards James II. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 9 
 
 most ill-used of ministers. Hume of 
 course praises him : Macdiarmid, taking 
 principally as an authority the Chancel- 
 lor s Memoirs of Himself, eulogizes his 
 integrity : and even the caustic Burnet 
 extols him to the skies. Public opinion 
 has naturally gone along with the testi- 
 mony of history ; and we have been all 
 taught from our childhood upwards to 
 revere " the Chancellor of human nature" 
 as one of the brightest ornaments that 
 dignify our annals. For myself I can 
 truly say that this was for many years 
 my case, and it was only by degrees, as 
 I read on, more particularly since the 
 publication of the Evelyn and Pepys' 
 Papers, and Lord Dartmouth's Notes 
 upon Burnet's History, that I began to 
 think I might have been wrong in the 
 estimate I had formed of his character. 
 There is no doubt that Clarendon was 
 
10 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 a better man than the Shaftesburys, c 
 
 c Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftes- 
 bury, was the son of Sir John Cooper, of Rockborn 
 in Hampshire, by the heiress of Sir Anthony Ashley, 
 of Wimborn St. Giles's in the county of Dorset, and 
 was born July 22d, 1621. — He was early distin- 
 guished by his talents and his want of principle ; 
 and having alternately served and betrayed all sides 
 during the civil wars and after the Restoration, he 
 was finally, in 1 672, created Earl of Shaftesbury, and 
 raised to the office of Lord Chancellor. He was 
 compelled the following year to resign the Seals ; 
 and was subsequently, for a short time, made Presi- 
 dent of the Council. — In 1681, he was indicted for 
 high treason, but the grand jury ignored the bill. — 
 In 1682, having made attempts to excite seditions in 
 the city, and fearing the consequences, he fled to 
 Amsterdam, where he died January 22d, 1683, in 
 the sixty-second year of his age. — He was the prin- 
 cipal adviser in 1672, being then Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, of the disgraceful measure of shutting 
 up the Exchequer. He perhaps had the pre-emi- 
 nence of talent over his contemporaries — he certainly 
 had that of wickedness — though they were most of 
 them no mean proficients in crime. — Horace Walpole 
 says of him, that " he canted tyranny under Crom- 
 well, practised it under Charles II., and disgraced 
 the cause of liberty, by being the busiest instrument 
 for it, when every other party had rejected him." 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 11 
 
 the Buckinghams, d the Danbys/ the 
 Arlingtons/ and all the tribe of dissolute 
 
 d George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham of 
 that name, was the eldest son of the minion of James 
 and the favourite of Charles, and was born at Wal- 
 lingford House (now the Admiralty) January 30th, 
 1627. His mother was Catherine Manners, daughter 
 of Francis, sixth Earl of Rutland. He attended 
 Charles II. at the battle of Worcester in 1651, and 
 afterwards joined him on the continent, upon which 
 occasion the King gave him the Garter. His vast 
 estates, which had come to the Villiers family from 
 the Rutlands, had been confiscated and granted to 
 Thomas Lord Fairfax ; but, in 1657, he curiously 
 enough again became the possessor of them by a mar- 
 riage with Mary, the daughter and heiress of that 
 lord. At the Restoration he was made a Lord of the 
 King's Bed Chamber — a Privy Councillor — Lord- 
 Lieutenant of Yorkshire — and Master of the Horse. 
 In his court life he passed through many vicissitudes 
 — filled many offices — was a principal actor in various 
 seditions and disgraceful adventures — instigated 
 Blood in his attempt to murder the Duke of Ormonde 
 — evaded in the most cowardly manner a duel with 
 his son, Lord Ossory — and finally, towards the end 
 of the reign of Charles II., retired from court to his 
 
1 2 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 men and profligate ministers who fol- 
 lowed him, and who succeeded in ren- 
 
 seat of Helmsley* in Yorkshire. He died April 
 lGth, 1688, at a tenant's house at Kirby Moorside, 
 having caught cold by sitting on the ground after fox 
 hunting. " As he had lived a profligate, he died a 
 beggar ; and as he had raised no friend in his life 
 he found none to lament him after his death. "f — 
 Butler, the author of Hudibras, says of him, " the 
 Duke of Bucks is one that has studied the whole 
 body of vice." — " The portrait of this duke," observes 
 Walpole, " has been drawn by four masterly hands : 
 Burnet has hewn it out with his rough chissel ; Count 
 Hamilton touches it with that slight delicacy that 
 finishes while it seems but to sketch ; Dryden catched 
 the living likeness ; Pope completed the historical 
 resemblance." 
 
 e Sir Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby, and after- 
 wards Duke of Leeds, was great-grandson of Edward 
 Osborne, an apprentice to a cloth-worker in the reign 
 
 * Now belonging to the Duncombes, and called Duncombe 
 Park ; whose acquisition of it is immortalized by Pope in the 
 
 well-known lines, 
 
 " While Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight, 
 Slides to a Scrivener and a city Knight.'* 
 
 t Reed, Biog. Dram. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 13 
 
 dering the reign of Charles II. the most 
 disgraceful period of English history. 
 
 of Henry VIII., who first saved from drowning, and 
 then, as a reward for so doing, married his master's 
 daughter; for an account of this anecdote, see Pennant's 
 London. " Sir Thomas Osborne was," says Burnet, "a 
 gentleman of Yorkshire, whose estate was much sunk. 
 He was a very plausible speaker, but too copious, and 
 could not easily make an end of his discourse. He 
 gave himself great liberties in discourse, and did not 
 seem to have any regard to truth, or so much as to 
 the appearances of it ; and was an implacable enemy." 
 To this must be added, that he appears to have been 
 one of the most corrupt men that ever lived, — and so 
 exactly suited his master Charles in this particular, 
 that he was more in his confidence than any of his 
 ministers had ever been. He was " one of those 
 secondary characters who, having been first minister, 
 submitted afterwards to act a subordinate part in an 
 administration."* — His only good public act, with 
 which we are acquainted, was his hearty endeavour 
 to bring about the Revolution — of which he lived to 
 declare publicly in the House of Lords, he repented. 
 He was made Treasurer of the Navy in 1671 ; and, 
 on the fall of Thomas Lord Clifford in 1673, Lord 
 High Treasurer. — The same year he was made 
 
 * Walpole. 
 
14 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 There is no doubt that he was more re- 
 ligious, more decent, and more estimable 
 
 Baron Osborne, of Kiveton, and Viscount Latimer, 
 also Viscount Dumblaine, in Scotland — Earl of 
 Danby, in 1674— Knight of the Garter, 1G77. On 
 the accession of King William he was made Presi- 
 dent of the Council, and Lord Lieutenant of the 
 West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1689, he was created 
 Marquis of Carmarthen, and in 1694, Duke of 
 Leeds. He died in 1712, at the age of eighty, at 
 Easton Neston in Northamptonshire, the seat of 
 his grandson, Thomas, second Lord Lempster. 
 
 f Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, was born in 
 1618. He was descended from a little gentleman's 
 family at Harlington in Middlesex. In the begin- 
 ning of the civil war he was under secretary to 
 George Lord Digby, secretary of state. He fought 
 on the royal side, and received several severe wounds ; 
 among others, a cut over his nose, which obliged 
 him always to wear a black patch across it. He 
 followed Charles II. to the continent, and was made 
 secretary to the Duke of York. In 1658 he was 
 knighted and sent ambassador to Spain — at the Re- 
 storation he was made Keeper of the Privy Purse — 
 and in 1662, Secretary of State, in the room of Sir 
 Edward Nicholas. In 1664 he was created Lord 
 Arlington, which circumstance is thus alluded to by 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 15 
 
 than these men ; but he may have been 
 all this, and yet by no means the perfect 
 
 Clarendon : " Because he had no mind to retain his 
 own name, which was no good one, his first warrant 
 was to be created Cheney, which was an ancient ba- 
 rony expired, and to which family he had not the 
 least relation ; and for some days, upon the signing 
 of the warrant, he was called Lord Cheney, until a 
 gentleman of the best quality in Bucks, who, though 
 he had no title to the barony, was yet of the same 
 family, and inherited most part of the estate, which 
 was very considerable, and was married to a daugh- 
 ter of the Duke of Newcastle, heard of it, and made 
 haste to stop it. The patent being not yet prepared, 
 he was contented to take the title of a little farm 
 that had belonged to his father, and was sold by 
 him, and now in the possession of another private 
 person; and so was created Lord Arlington, the 
 proper and true name of the place being Harlington, 
 a little village between London and Uxbridge."* 
 In 1670, he was one of the famous Cabal, composed 
 of Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and 
 Lauderdale, and, as one of them, received large bribes 
 from France. He also concurred in the measure 
 of shutting up the Exchequer. In 1672, he was 
 created Viscount Thetford and Earl of Arlington 
 
 * Clarendon's Life. 
 
1G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 person he is generally represented to be. 
 I am not certain that his being so much 
 
 (with remainder to his only daughter, afterwards 
 married to Henry Fitz-Roy, first Duke of Grafton, 
 and her heirs general). In 1673, he was impeached 
 by the House of Commons for favouring Popery, for 
 corruption, and for betraying the country ; but with- 
 out effect : for in the following year he was made 
 Lord Chamberlain, which office he retained till his 
 death, in 1685, though his favour had much dimi- 
 nished at Court from the time of the Earl of 
 Danby's rise. Burnet says, " He was a proud and 
 insolent man," — in allusion to which the Duke of 
 Ormonde one day observed, " that Lord Arlington 
 was as arrogant as if he had been born with a blue 
 ribbon about his neck, but that he ought to re- 
 member, that Harry Bennet was once a very little 
 companion." " He was little calculated for bold 
 measures, on account of his natural timidity ; and 
 that defect created an opinion of his moderation 
 that was ascribed to virtue. His facility to adopt 
 new measures was forgotten in his readiness to ac- 
 knowledge the errors of the old. The deficiency of 
 his integrity was forgiven in the decency of his dis- 
 honesty. Too weak not to be superstitious, yet pos- 
 sessing too much sense to own his adherence to the 
 Church of Rome, he lived a Protestant in his out- 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 17 
 
 better than those who came after him 
 ought not to make us more sceptical 
 respecting his extreme excellence; for 
 there can be no doubt that this circum- 
 stance has tended to render all men 
 more favourably disposed towards him 
 than they would otherwise have been : 
 that the darkness of the other side of 
 the picture has helped to throw his cha- 
 racter and merits into a greater blaze of 
 light. It is also probable, that the re- 
 verses and misfortunes which he met 
 
 • 
 
 with at the latter part of his life, have, 
 
 ward profession, but he died a Catholic. Timidity 
 was the chief characteristic of his mind ; and that 
 being known, he was even commanded by cowards. 
 He was the man of the least genius of the party ; 
 but lie had the most experience in that slow and 
 cautious current of business, which, perhaps, suits 
 affairs of state better than the violent exertions of 
 men of great parts. "* 
 
 * Macpherson. 
 
18 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 by exciting pity and commiseration, 
 rendered posterity less impartial judges 
 of his personal qualities, than it was 
 their bounden duty to be. To this we 
 must add, that he was a man of very 
 great abilities, and a supporter of legiti- 
 macy and prerogative — the former of 
 which circumstances has ensured a pre- 
 disposition to favour in all mankind, and 
 the latter, in a great portion of the 
 higher classes. 
 
 To his talents all must, indeed, be 
 willing to bow with deference. The 
 eternal monument which he has be- 
 queathed to us in his most able, though 
 party history, can leave no doubt upon 
 the mind of any man of his vast and 
 extraordinary powers. But the justness 
 of the high reputation he has acquired 
 on the score of virtue and probity is a 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 19 
 
 very different question. I own I am 
 inclined to think he was, as a minister, 
 by no means free from the charge, or at 
 least from a heavy suspicion, of rapacity 
 and corruption, as well as of cruelty 
 and tyranny. How far my opinion is 
 grounded in truth, it will be for the 
 reader to judge, when he has read my 
 arguments and weighed my authorities, 
 to which I shall now without further 
 preface proceed. 
 
 First, with regard to the disposition to 
 rapacious and corrupt practices in the 
 Chancellor, we find the following testi- 
 monies. 
 
 I shall commence with that of Pepys, g 
 
 g Samuel Pepys, who has latterly become so well 
 known by the publication of his very curious Diary, 
 was born February 23, 1632. He was educated at St. 
 Paul's School, and at Magdalen College, Cambridge, 
 
 c 2 
 
20 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 which I consider a very important one, 
 inasmuch as it consists of extracts from 
 his Diary, a work which he certainly 
 never imagined would be read or under- 
 stood by any one but himself, as he 
 
 to which Institution he subsequently bequeathed his 
 valuable collections of books and prints. Having 
 attached himself early in life to the fortunes of his 
 cousin, Edward Montagu, afterwards created Earl of 
 Sandwich, he was, by his interest, on the Restora- 
 tion, made Clerk of the Acts of the Navy. In 1664, 
 he became Secretary to the Commissioners for ma- 
 naging the affairs of Tangier, and Surveyor-General 
 of the Victualling department. In 1673, he became 
 a Member of the House of Commons, and in the 
 same year was made Secretary of the Admiralty, 
 when that department of the Government was new 
 modelled and placed under the peculiar direction of 
 the King. In 10 79, he was sent to the Tower, on 
 the accusation of one Scott, for betraying the secrets 
 of the Navy to the French government, and for being 
 a Roman Catholic, neither of which circumstances 
 appear to have been founded in fact. From 1680 to 
 1683 Pepys was out of office. In 1683, he accom- 
 panied Lord Dartmouth in the expedition for the 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 21 
 
 wrote it in a cipher of his own inven- 
 tion. It is, therefore, not to be classed 
 with so many works of the same kind, 
 which have been written, if not avow- 
 edly, at least secretly, with the inten- 
 tion of publication, and to give the world 
 
 destruction of Tangier, and on his return in 1684, 
 he was again made Secretary of the Navy, which 
 situation he retained till the abdication of James II. 
 In 1684 and 1685 he was President of the Royal 
 Society. From the Revolution to the time of his 
 death, which occurred May the 26th, 1703, he con- 
 tinued in retirement, and occupied himself in literary 
 pursuits. He appears to have possessed considerable 
 acquirements, and great knowledge of business ; and 
 is said to have done more than any one in improving 
 the state of the navy. His honesty, also, and anxiety 
 to serve the Public well, are evident from his Diary, 
 as well as from other testimonies. That he was a 
 man of frivolous habits and somewhat loose morals 
 must be conceded; nor can we deny or justify the 
 servility he invariably manifested to his superiors ; 
 which, however, was perhaps, in a great measure, to 
 be ascribed to the customs and manners of the age he 
 lived in. 
 
22 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 a favourable opinion of the writer's views 
 or talents. The Diary of Pepys was 
 the intimate communion of a man with 
 himself, in which he relates his own feel- 
 ings and convictions without disguise of 
 any kind, — and, therefore, the testimony 
 contained in it is peculiarly valuable, 
 and deserving of credit. It should be 
 added, that Pepys was himself, though 
 in some points a frivolous character, an 
 excellent man of business, of an acute 
 mind, and, for the age he lived in, of 
 great honesty. 
 
 In the first quotation I shall make 
 from Pepys, he records the opinion of 
 Evelyn, h himself a man whose judg- 
 
 b John Evelyn, the well-known author of Sylva, 
 and of his own Diary, was descended from a good and 
 ancient gentleman's family in Surrey. He was born 
 October the 31st, 1620, and died February the 27th, 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 23 
 
 ment should carry considerable weight 
 — especially in the present case, as he 
 
 170G, at the age of eighty-five. The offices he held 
 at different times were as follows : — In 1662, he was 
 a Commissioner for repairing the buildings, ways, 
 and streets, and regulating hackney-coaches in Lon- 
 don. The same year he sat as a Commissioner on an 
 inquiry into the conduct of the Lord-Mayor concern- 
 ing Sir Thomas Gresham's charities. In 1664, he 
 was a Commissioner for regulating the Mint, and 
 also, for the care of the sick and wounded in the 
 Dutch war. He was one of the Commissioners for 
 the repair of St. Paul's Cathedral, shortly before it 
 was burnt in 1666. In 1666, he was in a Com- 
 mission for regulating the farming and making of 
 Saltpetre. In 1671, he was made a Commissioner of 
 Plantations, to which, in 1672, the Council of Trade 
 was added. In 1685, he was one of the Commis- 
 sioners of the Privy Seal, and in 1695 he was a 
 Commissioner for the building of Greenwich Hos- 
 pital. In 1696, he laid the first stone of that edifice 
 — and was made the Treasurer of the Establishment. 
 He was a man of considerable talents, much know- 
 ledge, and great taste ; and in private life appears to 
 have been religious, highly respectable, (a rare virtue 
 in those times,) and much beloved. In his public 
 capacity he was, probably, rather what is called a 
 
24 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 was certainly personally friendly to the 
 Chancellor. 
 
 " By the way he (Evelyn) tells me, 
 that of all the great men of England, 
 there is none that endeavours more to 
 raise those that he takes into favour 
 than my Lord Arlington; and that on 
 that score he is much more to be made 
 one's patron than my Lord Chancellor, 
 who never did nor will do any thing, but 
 for money." i 
 
 In confirmation of this passage, it may 
 be worth while to give one from Eve- 
 lyn's own Diary, which, though not so 
 
 time-server — always the humble servant of those in 
 power — and always going to Court, even when he 
 most disapproved of the scenes he witnessed there. 
 Still, however, the numerous amiable and praise- 
 worthy points in his character will always far out- 
 weigh its few occasional blemishes. 
 | Pepys's Diary, vol. ii. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 25 
 
 plain-spoken as his conversation with 
 Pepys, evidently points at the same 
 thing. 
 
 " Visited the Lord Chancellor, to whom 
 his Majesty had sent for the Seales a 
 few days before ; I found him in his 
 bed-chamber, very sad. The Parlia- 
 ment had accused him, and he had ene- 
 mies at court, especially the buffoons 
 and ladys of pleasure, because he 
 thwarted them, and stood in their way ; 
 I could name some of the chiefe. The 
 truth is, he made few friends during his 
 grandeur among the royal sufferers, but 
 advanced the old rebels} He was, how- 
 
 k Had Clarendon been the pure and virtuous mi- 
 nister, which some think him, would the Country 
 have followed the example of the Court, in deserting 
 him; and would the former have allowed the latter 
 to persecute him so relentlessly as they did, and even 
 encouraged them in it ? I own I think not. 
 
20 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 ever, though no considerable lawyer, 
 one who kept up the forme and sub- 
 stance of things in the nation with more 
 solemnity than some would have had. 
 He was my particular kind friend on all 
 occasions." 1 
 
 Here we find Evelyn acknowledging 
 his friendship for Lord Clarendon, and 
 yet blaming his conduct. It should be 
 observed, that it is evident from the 
 Chancellor's writings, that no one ever 
 hated " the old rebels," as they are here 
 called, more than he did. Why, then, 
 did he advance them ? — the answer ap- 
 pears to me, I own, (supported as it is 
 by other evidence,) to be obvious ; they 
 were rich, and the " royal sufferers," 
 who were just returned from their ba- 
 nishment, were poor. The first could 
 
 1 Evelyn's Diary, vol. i. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 27 
 
 pay for their places, the latter could 
 not. 
 
 In support of the fact of the Chan- 
 cellor's having favoured " the old re- 
 bels," and of the opinion just expressed 
 as to his motive for such conduct, I 
 shall now proceed to extract, from the 
 Oxford Edition of Burnet's History of 
 his Own Times," a note of Lord Dart- 
 mouth's. I will only preface it by ob- 
 serving, that Lord Dartmouth 111 was a 
 Tory, and, therefore, should naturally 
 have been disposed to be favourable to 
 Clarendon — and that he was, in his own 
 person, in the words of a most able con- 
 
 m William Legge, second Lord and first Earl of 
 Dartmouth, was born October the 14th, 1672. He 
 was appointed Secretary of State in 1710, and in the 
 following year was created Earl of Dartmouth and 
 Viscount Lewisham. He died December the 15th, 
 1750. 
 
28 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 temporary, " a man of letters, full of 
 good sense, good nature and honour, of 
 strict virtue and regularity in his life." 11 
 
 " The Earl of Clarendon, upon the 
 Restoration, made it his business to de- 
 press every body's merits to advance his 
 own, and (the King having gratified his 
 vanity with high titles) found it necessary 
 towards making a fortune in proportion, 
 to apply himself to other means than 
 what the Crown could afford ; (though 
 he had as much as the King could well 
 grant :) and the people who had suffered 
 most in the civil war were in no condi- 
 tion to purchase his favour. He there- 
 fore undertook the protection of those 
 who had plundered and sequestered the 
 others, which he very artfully contrived, 
 by making the King believe it was ne- 
 
 n Swift, in the Examiner. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 29 
 
 cessary for his own ease and quiet to 
 make his enemies his friends ; upon 
 which he brought in most of those who 
 had been the main instruments and pro- 
 moters of the late troubles, who were 
 not wanting in their acknowledgements 
 in the manner he expected, which pro- 
 duced the great house in the Piccadille, 
 furnished chiefly with Cavaliers' goods, 
 brought thither for peace-offerings, which 
 the right owners durst not claim when 
 they were in his possession. In my 
 own remembrance Earl Paulett was an 
 humble petitioner to his sons, p for leave 
 to take a copy of his grandfather and 
 grandmother's pictures (whole lengths, 
 drawn by Vandike) that had been plun- 
 
 ° For the Account of Clarendon House, see p. 102. 
 p Henry Earl of Clarendon, and Laurence Earl 
 of Rochester. 
 
30 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 dered from Hinton St. George ; q which 
 was obtained with great difficulty, be- 
 cause it was thought that copies might 
 lessen the value of the originals. 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. ,5r s 
 The first part of the foregoing note so 
 completely explains the previous extract 
 from Evelyn, and is at the same time so 
 conclusive upon the two points, first, of 
 the Chancellor's having advanced " the 
 old rebels," and secondly, of the reason 
 
 q The seat of the Lords Paulett, in Somersetshire. 
 
 r The Chancellor's country-house, in Oxfordshire, 
 on the borders of Wychwood Forest. Both Wych- 
 wood Forest and Cornbury Park were grants to the 
 Chancellor from Charles II. 
 
 fc Burnet's History of his Own Times, Oxford Edi- 
 tion, vol. i. 
 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 31 
 
 why he did so, that I shall add nothing 
 to such clear and explicit testimony. 
 
 But the latter part of the note con- 
 tains, as will have been observed, a 
 separate charge — namely, of his having 
 received as bribes from " the old rebels" 
 the furniture and pictures which had 
 been plundered from the houses of 
 " the Royal Sufferers." This charge, as 
 far as documentary evidence goes, rests 
 entirely, at least as far as I have been 
 able to discover, upon the authority of 
 Lord Dartmouth. It is, however, as I 
 shall now proceed to relate, curiously 
 confirmed by circumstantial evidence. 
 
 The furniture which the Chancellor, 
 according to Lord Dartmouth, received, 
 has of course, in the lapse of one hun- 
 dred and fifty years, disappeared. Not 
 so the pictures ; which can be traced 
 
32 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 accurately down to the present day, and 
 afford in my opinion in themselves, in 
 conjunction with Lord Dartmouth's 
 statement, a very important evidence of 
 the probability at least of Clarendon's 
 rapacious inclinations. 
 
 The numerous and very valuable col- 
 lection of portraits (for they are all por- 
 traits,) which belonged to the Lord Chan- 
 cellor Clarendon, descended to his eldest 
 son Henry, second Earl of Clarendon ;* 
 
 1 Henry Hyde, second Earl of Clarendon, was the 
 eldest son of the Chancellor, and succeeded him in 
 his honours and estates. He died October 22d, 
 1709, aged seventy, having been Chamberlain to the 
 Queen during the reign of Charles ; and Privy Seal 
 and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland during that of James. 
 His Diary, which has been published, shows the 
 infinite littleness and narrowness of his understanding. 
 Burnet says of him, ;c that he was a sincere, a friendly, 
 and a good-natured man, but of a bad temper ; that 
 he never paid his debts — and was very tedious in his 
 conversation." 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 33 
 
 and from him to his only son Edward/ 
 third Earl of Clarendon ; who dying 
 without issue male, his succession and 
 titles devolved upon his cousin Henry x 
 Earl of Rochester, eldest son of Lau- 
 rence Earl of Rochester/ who was the 
 second son of the Chancellor. Henry 
 
 u Edward Hyde, third Earl of Clarendon, the 
 only son of Henry, second Earl of Clarendon, was a 
 man of not much note. He was, at different periods 
 of his life, Master of the Horse to Prince George of 
 Denmark. Governor of New York in America, and 
 Envoy to the Court of Hanover. He died March 
 31st, 1723. 
 
 x Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, 
 succeeded his father in the earldom of Rochester in 
 1711, and his cousin in that of Clarendon in 1723. 
 He was possessed of the lucrative office of Joint 
 Vice -Treasurer of Ireland. As, upon his death, in 
 1753, he left no male issue, his titles became extinct. 
 
 y Laurence Hyde, first Earl of Rochester, was the 
 second son of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon. He 
 held the following offices : Master of the Robes to 
 Charles II. — one of the Plenipotentiaries for con- 
 cluding the Treaty of Nimeguen. — President of the 
 
 D 
 
34 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, had 
 one son and three daughters. The son, 
 Henry Viscount Cornbury, 2 died during 
 
 Council, and Lord Treasurer, in the reign of James II. 
 — Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and President of the 
 Council, in the reign of King William. — Created 
 Baron Hyde of Wotton Basset and Viscount Hyde of 
 Ke nil worth in 1681, and Earl of Rochester, and a 
 Knight of the Garter, in 1682. He died in 1711. 
 Burnet observes of him, " he is a man of far greater 
 parts than his brother. He has a very good pen, 
 but speaks not gracefully. When he came into 
 business, and rose to high posts, he grew violent and 
 insolent, but was thought an incorrupt man. He has 
 high notions of government, and thinks it must be 
 maintained w T ith great severity." Lord Dartmouth 
 says, " he never knew a man who was so soon put 
 into a passion, and that was so long before he could 
 bring himself out of it, in which he would say things 
 that were never forgot by any body but himself; 
 therefore, he had always more enemies than he 
 thought; though he had as many professedly so as 
 any man of his time." 
 
 z Henry Hyde, Viscount Cornbury, only son of 
 Henry Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, was a man 
 of some talent and great amiability of character. 
 Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, in his poems, calls 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 35 
 
 his father's life. The eldest daughter 
 
 him " Gentle Cornbury" — Swift says, " he is a 
 young nobleman of learning and morals" — and Pope 
 pays him the high compliment of advising others to 
 " disdain whatever Cornbury disdained." Lord 
 Or ford thus draws his character : " He was upright, 
 calm, steady ; his virtues were of the gentlest com- 
 plexion, yet of the firmest texture ; vice could not 
 bend him, nor party warp him ; even his own talents 
 could not mislead him. Though a master of elo- 
 quence, he preferred justice, and the love of his 
 country to all the applause, which the violence of the 
 times in which he lived was so prodigal of bestowing 
 on orators who distinguish themselves in any faction ; 
 but the tinsel of popularity and the intrinsic of cor- 
 ruption were equally his contempt. He spoke, nor 
 wrote, nor acted, for fame." He was the author of 
 several pamphlets published without his name — of 
 some tragedies still in manuscript — of a comedy 
 called " The Mistakes, or the Happy Resentment," 
 printed at Strawberry Hill, in 1758 —and of an admi- 
 rable " Letter to David Mallet, on the intended pub- 
 lication of Lord Bolingbrokc's manuscripts." He is 
 believed to have died by suicide at Paris, on the 
 28th of May, 1753, though the complaisant peerages 
 say that his death was occasioned by a fall from his 
 horse. 
 
 1)2 
 
3G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 married William, third Earl of Essex ; a 
 the second married Charles Duke of 
 Queensberry and Dover ; b and the third 
 
 a William Capel, third Earl of Essex, was the son 
 of Algernon, the second Earl, and his wife, Mary 
 Bentinck, daughter of the first Earl of Portland. 
 He was born in 1G97, and died in 1743, having filled 
 the offices of Lord of the Bed-chamber to George II., 
 both before and after his accession — of Ambassador 
 to the Court of Turin — and of Captain of the Yeomen 
 of the Guard. He was made a Knight of the 
 Thistle in 1725, and of the Garter in 1732. His first 
 wife was Jane Hyde, — his second, from whom de- 
 scends the present Lord Essex, was Elizabeth Russell, 
 daughter of Wriothesly second Duke of Bedford. 
 
 b Charles Douglas, Duke of Queensberry and 
 Dover, was the second son of William Duke of 
 Queensberry and Dover, the principal promoter and 
 manager of the Union of Scotland and England. 
 His eldest brother James, Earl of Drumlanrig, was 
 an ideot, of whom the following anecdote is related. 
 On the day when his father went to proclaim the 
 Union of the two kingdoms, he was left at home ; and 
 the whole household being gone to see the proces- 
 sion, he got out of his apartment, and going into the 
 kitchen found only a lad there, employed in turning 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 37 
 
 died unmarried. The collection of pic- 
 tures upon the extinction of the male 
 Hydes was divided between Lady 
 Essex's two daughters (Lady Essex 
 herself being dead), and the Duchess of 
 Queensberry, and they received each a 
 
 the spit. He seized the poor boy, spitted him, and 
 was found in the act of roasting him, when his father 
 returned from the ceremony. The Scotch, who 
 hated the Union, said it was a judgment upon the 
 duke for having favoured it. Charles Douglas was 
 created Earl of Solvvay in 1707, and, on the death of 
 his father, succeeded to the titles of Duke of 
 Queensberry and Dover. He was a Lord of the 
 Bed-chamber to George I. — Vice-admiral of Scot- 
 land during part of the reign of George II. — and 
 afterwards Lord of the Bed-chamber to Frederick 
 Prince of Wales ; and in the beginning of the late 
 King's reign, he was made Keeper of the Signet in 
 Scotland, and Lord Justice General. He died in 
 1778, leaving no issue. 
 
 c Lady Charlotte Hyde, youngest daughter of 
 Henry Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, died 
 unmarried in 1740. According to a portrait of her, 
 which is preserved at Lord Essex's seat at Cassis- 
 bury, she must have been very beautiful — much more 
 so than either of her sisters. 
 
38 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 third portion. The eldest of the two 
 daughters and co-heiresses of Lady- 
 Essex was married to the Honourable 
 Thomas Villiers/ (second son of Wil- 
 liam, second Earl of Jersey,) who was 
 created Earl of Clarendon, and whose 
 sons were the late and present earls of 
 that name. The second married Admiral 
 the Honourable John Forbes, e (second 
 
 d The Honourable Thomas Villiers was long Minister 
 Plenipotentiary from Great Britain to the Court of 
 Prussia. He was created Baron Hyde of Hindon in 
 1756 — upon which occasion the Duchess of Queens- 
 berry is reported to have said, " if the Coxcomb is 
 to be powdered, why must it be with the honours of 
 my ancestors ?" — He was made Earl of Clarendon in 
 1776, and a Count of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1782, 
 and died December 11th, 1787. He married Char- 
 lotte Capel, eldest daughter of William, third Earl 
 of Essex, March 30th, 1752. 
 
 e Admiral the Honourable John Forbes was 
 Admiral of the Fleet, and General of the Marines. 
 He married August 26th, 1758, Mary Capel, second 
 daughter of William third Earl of Essex, and died 
 March 10th, 1796. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 39 
 
 son of George, third Earl of Granard,) 
 and had issue two daughters ; the eldest 
 married to William Lord Maryborough 
 — the second to the present Earl of 
 Clarendon. These two co-heiress gave 
 up to the late Lord Clarendon their por- 
 tion of the collection ; and the whole of 
 the two thirds, which formed the in- 
 heritance of the daughters of Lady- 
 Essex, are consequently now united at 
 the Grove, the seat of Lord Clarendon, 
 in Hertfordshire. 
 
 The Duchess of QueensberryV two 
 
 f Catherine Hyde, Duchess of Queensberry, was 
 the second daughter of Henry Earl of Clarendon 
 ai/. 1 . Rochester, and was married in 1719 to Charles 
 Duke of Queensberry and Dover. Her talents, her 
 beauty, her eccentricities, are too well known to 
 be here dwelt upon. She was the affectionate friend 
 and patroness of Gay, and has been celebrated in 
 verse by him, by Pope, by Swift, by Walpole, and 
 by Whitehead. When she was forbid the court of 
 
40 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 sons dying during the life-time of their 
 father, she bequeathed her third of the 
 
 George II., in consequence of her having warmly 
 espoused the cause of her protege Gay, whose con- 
 tinuation of the Beggar's Opera, called " Polly," liad 
 been forbid by the Lord Chamberlain (the Duke of 
 Grafton) to be acted, she sent the following indignant 
 message to the King. — " The Duchess of Queens- 
 berry is surprized and well pleased that the King 
 hath given her so agreeable a command as to stay 
 away from court, where she never came for diversion, 
 but to bestow a great civility upon the King and 
 Queen. She hopes by such an unprecedented order 
 as this, that the King will see as few as he wishes at 
 his court; particularly such as dare to think or speak 
 truth. I dare not do otherwise ; and ought not, nor 
 could have imagined, that it would not have been the 
 very highest compliment I could possibly pay the 
 King, to endeavour to support Truth and Innocence 
 in his House. 
 
 C. QUEENSBERRY. 
 
 Particularly when the King and Queen had both told 
 me, that they had not read Mr. Gay's play ; I have 
 certainly done right, then, to stand by my own word, 
 rather than His Grace of Grafton's, who hath neither 
 made use of Truth, Judgment, or Honour, through 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 41 
 
 Clarendon portraits to the Earl of March, 5 
 who succeeded her husband as Duke of 
 Queensberry, and was the last Duke of 
 that name. He, upon his decease, left 
 
 this whole affair, either for himself or his friends." 
 The Duchess of Queensberry died at great old age 
 in 1777. Her two sons died during the life-time of 
 their parents. The eldest of the two, called Henry 
 Marquis of Drumlanrig, shot himself at an inn at 
 Doncaster, coming up with his father from Scotland, 
 October 19th, 1754. The second, called Charles 
 Marquis of Drumlanrig, died at Lisbon, whither he 
 had gone for the recovery of his health, in October, 
 17J6. 
 
 g William Douglas, fourth Duke of Queensberry, 
 was descended from William Douglas, second son of 
 William, first Duke of Queensberry, who was created 
 Earl of March. He became Duke of Queensberry 
 in 1778, upon the demise of his cousin Charles 
 Duke of Queensberry and Dover. He died Decem- 
 ber 23d, 1810, aged eighty-six, when his titles and 
 estates were variously divided between the Duke of 
 Buccleugh, Lord Douglas of Douglas, the present 
 Marquis of Queensberry, and the Earl of Wemyss. 
 
42 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 them to the present Lord Douglas 11 of 
 Douglas, in whose house of Bothwell, 
 in Scotland, they at present remain. 
 
 Nothing can, I trust and believe, be 
 much more accurate than this pedigree 
 of the Clarendon pictures ; and I have 
 been the more anxious, even at the risk 
 
 t 
 
 h Archibald Douglas, created Lord Douglas of 
 Douglas Castle, in 1790, still alive, is the very indi- 
 vidual, the legitimacy of whose birth was contested in 
 what is generally called the great Douglas cause. 
 That cause was decided in his favour, mainly by the 
 influence of Lord Mansfield, and he in consequence 
 became possessed of all the estates of Archibald, last 
 Duke of Douglas, and was held to be the legitimate 
 offspring of Sir John Stewart and Lady Jane Douglas, 
 his wife, sister and heiress of the said Duke of 
 Douglas. Public opinion has run somewhat counter 
 to that decision ; which, however, as the decision 
 was final, and without appeal, is of little importance. 
 Those who are anxious for information upon the sub- 
 ject, are referred to the curious and able series of 
 letters written by Andrew Stewart, and addressed to 
 Lord Mansfield. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 43 
 
 of being tedious, to make it so, in order 
 to show thai the collection remains as it 
 teas. Now every one who sees the col- 
 lections of portraits at the Grove and at 
 Bothwell Castle must, I think, at once 
 acknowledge the probable correctness 
 of Lord Dartmouth's account of the 
 manner in which the Chancellor acquired 
 them — for they will find that they com- 
 prize the most extraordinary assemblage 
 of persons of different races that can well 
 be conceived — more especially the por- 
 traits of the different members of almost 
 all the conspicuous families on the 
 Kingfs side in the civil wars. Amon? 
 them are the Stanleys, the Cavendishes, 
 the Villiers's, the Hamiltons, the Co- 
 ventrys, &c. kc. &c. — families with 
 whom the newly elevated Hydes had cer- 
 tainly no connexion of blood — and who, 
 
44 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 or their descendants at the Restoration, 
 undoubtedly bore no kindly feeling to the 
 Chancellor, and therefore were by no 
 means likely to have given these, their 
 household gods, to him. Besides, who 
 ever gives their family portraits away to 
 a stranger ? and that they were become 
 in point of age, by the time of the Resto- 
 ration, family portraits, is evident; as 
 they are almost all painted by either 
 Vandyck 1 or Cornelius Jansen, k and 
 
 * The celebrated painter, Anthony Vandyck, was 
 born at Antwerp in 1599, and died in London in 
 1641. He studied painting under Henry Van Balen 
 and Rubens. He painted much in England ; but, 
 in consequence of being too much hurried, from 
 having more commissions than he could execute, his 
 pictures painted in this country are for the most 
 part very inferior to those which he executed in 
 Flanders, Holland, and Italy. He was knighted by 
 Charles I. in 1G32. He married the daughter of the 
 Honourable Patrick Ruthven, an eminent physician, 
 brother of John, third Earl of Gowrie in Scotland 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 45 
 
 therefore must have been in existence 
 before the civil wars began. Neither is 
 it probable that the Chancellor could 
 have bought these pictures, for had they 
 ever been on sale, there can be no doubt 
 the families to which they originally 
 belonged, would have managed to pur- 
 chase them. 
 
 In all other collections of portraits in 
 England, it is for the most part easy to 
 discover how each portrait came into 
 the family, by tracing its relationship 
 and connexions ; but here there is 
 
 (who is said by some historians to have conspired 
 treasonably against James I., together with his 
 brother, Alexander Ruthven). 
 
 k Cornelius Jansen. This eminent painter of por- 
 traits was born at Amsterdam about the year 1590. 
 He came to England in 1618, and continued there 
 till 1618, when he returned to his own country, 
 where he died in 1665. He was much patronized 
 by James I., whose portrait he frequently painted. 
 
46 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 hardly a single instance in which such a 
 connexion, even of friendship, can be 
 made out. Under all these circum- 
 stances of strong collateral evidence, I 
 feel myself bound to say, that I fully and 
 entirely believe in Lord Dartmouth's 
 explanation (as indeed it is the only rea- 
 sonable one that can be given) of the 
 manner in which the Chancellor Cla- 
 rendon became possessed of his collec- 
 tion of portraits. 
 
 I shall now return to the testimonies 
 of Pepys with regard to the Chancellor's 
 general reputation for rapacity, and will 
 afterwards quote some passages relative 
 to a particular transaction, in which 
 Pepys was himself engaged with him. 
 
 " Sept. 9th, 1665. I was forced to 
 get a bed at Captain Cocke's, where I 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 47 
 
 find Sir W. DOyly, 1 and he and Evelyn 
 at supper ; and I with them full of dis- 
 course of the neglect of our masters, the 
 great officers of state, about all business, 
 and especially that of money : having 
 now some thousands prisoners kept to 
 no purpose at a great charge, and no 
 money provided almost for the doing of 
 it. We fell to talk largely of the want 
 of some persons understanding to look 
 after businesses, but all goes to rack. 
 1 For,' says Captain Cocke, • my Lord 
 Treasurer,™ he minds his ease, and lets 
 
 1 Sir William D'Oyly, of Shottisham, Norfolk, 
 knighted, 16 12— created a Baronet, 1663— M, P. for 
 Yarmouth — ob. 1677. He was Commissioner, 
 with Evelyn, for the care of the sick and wounded 
 Seamen and Prisoners of War. 
 
 m Thomas Wriothesley, fourth and last Earl of 
 Southampton, Lord High Treasurer of England 
 from 1660 to 1667. He died May 16th, 1667. 
 He left behind him the character of an incorrupt 
 
48 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 things go how they will : if he can have 
 his £8000 per annum, and his game at 
 
 minister : but lie had the fault of leaving the business 
 of the Treasury wholly in the hands of underlings, 
 and taking no charge of it himself, which Burnet 
 attributes to his disgust at the King's proceedings. 
 Burnet says of him, that " he was a man of great 
 virtue and very good parts. He had a lively 
 apprehension and a good judgment." Clarendon is 
 still more flattering in his character of him, and says, 
 " he was indeed a great man in all respects." Pepys 
 gives the following account of his death : — " Great 
 talk of the good end that my Lord Treasurer made ; 
 closing his own eyes, and wetting his mouth, and 
 bidding adieu with the greatest content and freedom 
 in the world : and is said to die with the cleanest 
 hands that ever any lord treasurer did." The same 
 author tells an anecdote, upon the authority of Sir 
 William Coventry, which, if true, is a decided blot 
 upon the character of Southampton as a constitutional 
 minister ; namely, that he advised Charles II. to get 
 a fixed revenue, and so make himself independent of 
 parliaments, from which step he was dissuaded by 
 Clarendon. — " Sir William Coventry did tell me, 
 that when the King did show himself forward for 
 passing the act of indemnity, he (Lord Southampton) 
 did advise the King that he would hold his hand in 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 49 
 
 lombre, he is well. My Lord Chancel- 
 lor, he minds getting of money, and nothing 
 else ; and my Lord Ashley 11 will rob the 
 devil and the altar, but he will get money 
 if it be to be got."° 
 " Oct. 13th, 1667. Met Sir H. Cholmly,* 
 
 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 on 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/' 
 
 n Anthony Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury : 
 for his character see Note at page 10. 
 
 ° Pepys's Diary, vol. i. 
 
 p Sir Hugh Cholmly, Bart., of Whitby in York- 
 shire, was one of the Commissioners, with Pepys 
 and others, for managing the affairs relating to Tan- 
 gier. He was also employed in constructing the 
 mole at that place, and resided there in consequence 
 some years. He died in 1G88. 
 
50 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 who walked with me, and told me most 
 of the news I heard last night of the par- 
 liament ; and thinks they will do all 
 things very well, only they will be re- 
 venged of my Lord Chancellor; and 
 says, however, that he thinks there will 
 be but two things proved on him ; and 
 one is, that he may have said to the 
 King and to others words to breed in the 
 King an ill-opinion of the parliament — 
 that they were factious, and that it was 
 better to dissolve them : and this he 
 thinks they will be able to prove ; but 
 what this will amount to he knows not. 
 And next, that he hath taken money for 
 several bargains that have been made with 
 the crown ; and did instance one that is 
 already complained of: but there are so 
 many more involved in it, that should 
 they unravel things of this sort, every 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 51 
 
 body almost will be more or less con- 
 cerned. But these are the two great 
 points which he thinks they will insist 
 upon, and prove against him." q 
 
 It will be seen by the first part of the 
 foregoing extract, that the Chancellor 
 had spoken to the King against the par- 
 liament. That his dislike to parliaments 
 was general is evident from the following 
 passage, also extracted from Pepys. 
 
 " June 25th, 1667.— Sir H. Cholmly 
 tells me great news ; that this day in 
 council the King hath declared, that he 
 will call his parliament in thirty days : 
 which is the best news I have heard a 
 great while, and will, if anything, save 
 the kingdom. How the King came to 
 be advised to this, I know not ; but he 
 tells me that it was against the Duke of 
 
 ' Pepys's Diary, vol. ii. 
 E 2 
 
52 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 York's mind flatly, who did rather 
 advise the King to raise money as he 
 pleased, and against the Chancellors, who 
 told the King that Queen Elizabeth did do 
 all her business in 88 without calling a 
 parliament, and so might he do for any 
 thing he saw." r 
 
 Andrew Marvell 3 also in his state 
 
 7 Pepys's Diary, vol. ii. 
 
 s Andrew Marvell was born at Hull in 1G20. 
 His father was a clergyman and schoolmaster in 
 that town. He was sent at the age of thirteen to 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, where, cultivating assi- 
 duously the good abilities he had received from 
 nature, he became an excellent scholar, and, accord- 
 ing to Aubrey, the best writer of Latin verses of his 
 time. He was first brought into public life in the 
 capacity of Assistant to Milton, who was then Latin 
 Secretary to the Protector. This happened in 1 657. 
 In 1660 he was chosen Member for Hull, and again 
 in 1661. Aubrey says, " his native town of Hulle 
 loved him so well, that they elected him for their 
 representative in parliament, and gave him an honor- 
 able pension to maintain him." He was the last 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 53 
 
 poems thus describes Clarendon's horror 
 of parliaments. 
 
 " Blither than hare that hath escap'd the hounds, 
 The House prorogued, the Chancellor rebounds. 
 Not so decrepid iEson, hash'd and stew'd 
 With magic herbs rose from the pot renew'd, 
 And with fresh age felt his glad limbs unite, 
 His gout (yet still he curs'd) had left him quite. 
 What frosts to fruits, what arsenick to the rat, 
 What to fair Denham* mortal chocolate, 
 What an account to Carteret, that and more, 
 A parliament is to the Chancellor ! 
 So the sad tree shrinks from the morning's eye, 
 But blooms all night, and shoots its branches high. 
 So at the sun's recess, again returns 
 The comet dread, and earth and heaven burns." u 
 
 man who received a gratuity from his constituents. 
 He seldom spoke in parliament, but had great in- 
 fluence with the members of both houses ; as well on 
 account of his talents, as of his great and just reputa- 
 tion for integrity. He was so much consulted upon 
 political subjects by Prince Rupert, that the opposite 
 party were accustomed to call him " The Prince's 
 Tutor." The court frequently made him very 
 advantageous offers, which he invariably rejected 
 
« 
 
 54 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 That these quotations induce a strong- 
 suspicion that the Chancellor was by no 
 
 with disdain. He wrote several political and con- 
 troversial tracts, and a considerable number of sati- 
 rical poems, of which, though the rhythm is apt to be 
 rugged, the humour is considerable. They are, 
 however, now but little read. Burnet calls him, 
 " the liveliest droll of the age, who wrote in a bur- 
 lesque strain, but with so peculiar and entertaining a 
 conduct, that from the king down to the tradesman, 
 his books were read with great pleas ure.' , Marvell 
 died in 1678, aged fifty-seven; and the Jesuits are 
 suspected of having poisoned him. Aubrey says, 
 " he was in his conversation modest, and of very few 
 words." To Marvell's character generally we may 
 truly apply, with reference to the age he lived in, the 
 words of Lord Orford, when speaking of the Chan- 
 cellor Somers — " He was one of those divine men, 
 who, like a chapel in a palace, remains unprofaned, 
 while all the rest is tyranny, corruption, and folly." 
 
 1 For the account of the beautiful Lady Denham, 
 of her intrigue with the Duke o*f York, of her hus- 
 band's jealousy, and of her subsequent death, sup- 
 posed to have been caused by poison, see " Memoires 
 de Grammont." 
 
 " The Works of Andrew Marvell, Esq. vol. ii. 
 Edit. 1772. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 55 
 
 means a very constitutional minister, 
 cannot be contested ; especially when 
 they are supported by the sentiment ut- 
 tered by him to the Earls of Glencairn v 
 and Rothes/ who came to court to com- 
 plain of some proceedings of the Earl of 
 
 v William Cunningham, ninth Earl of Glencairn, 
 was, says Burnet, " a grave and sober man." He 
 was, notwithstanding, a member of the infamous and 
 dissolute ministry, who, headed by the Earl of Mid- 
 dleton, exercised such horrible tyranny in Scotland 
 in the early part of the reign of Charles II. He was 
 made Chancellor of Scotland in 1G60, and died in 
 1664. His death is said to have been occasioned by 
 vexation in consequence of Archbishop Sharp's hav- 
 ing obtained a letter from the King to the Privy 
 Council, giving the Primate precedence over the 
 Chancellor — a circumstance, which, if true, does not 
 give a high idea of his wisdom. It should be men- 
 tioned to his credit, that he was the enemy of Laud- 
 erdale and of Archbishop Sharp. 
 
 x John Leslie, fifth Earl of Rothes, " was a man," 
 observes Burnet, " of no education, all in him was 
 mere nature. But it was nature very much de- 
 praved ; for he seemed to have freed himself from 
 
56 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 Lauderdale/ whose character is too 
 notorious to render any comment at pre- 
 sent necessary. " They (Glencairn and 
 
 all impressions of virtue or religion, of honour or 
 good nature. He delivered himself, without either 
 restraint or decency, to all the pleasures of wine and 
 women. He had but one maxim, to which he ad- 
 hered firmly, that he was to do every thing, and 
 deny himself in nothing, that might maintain his 
 greatness, or gratify his appetites." When this 
 course of life was censured, it was only answered, 
 " That the King's Commissioner ought to represent 
 his person" To such men did Charles intrust the 
 government of his native kingdom. He was made 
 President of the Council in 1660. — King's Commis- 
 sioner in 1663 — Lord Treasurer in 1664 — and Lord 
 Chancellor, per interim — all which offices he held 
 together till 1667, when he was made Lord Chan- 
 cellor, but turned out of his other places, by the 
 management of Lauderdale. He was created Duke 
 of Rothes and Marquis of Ballinbreich in 1680, and 
 died in 1682. 
 
 y John Maitland, second Earl of Lauderdale, 
 created, in 1672, Duke of Lauderdale and Marquis 
 of March, in Scotland; in 1674, Earl of Guildford 
 and Baron Petersham, in England ; made a Knight 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 57 
 
 Rothes,)*' says Burnet/ " were ordered 
 to proceed in their charging of him, as 
 
 of the Garter in 1672. He was one of the worst 
 characters of the many bad ones that disgraced the 
 age of the second Charles. He had originally been 
 a covenanter, but afterwards fought for the King at 
 Worcester, where he was taken prisoner. He was a 
 man of some talent, though the Duke of Buckingham 
 said he had " a blundering understanding." " He 
 was haughty beyond expression; abject to those he 
 saw he must stoop to, but imperious to all others. 
 He had a violence of passion that carried him often 
 to fits like madness. He was the coldest friend, and 
 the violentest enemy. He at first seemed to despise 
 wealth ; but he delivered himself up afterwards to 
 luxury and sensuality : and by that means he run 
 into a vast expense, and stuck at nothing that was 
 necessary to support it. In his long imprisonment 
 (after the battle of Worcester) he had great impres- 
 sions of religion on his mind : but he wore them out 
 so entirely, that hardly any trace of them was left. 
 His great experience in affairs, his ready compliance 
 with every thing that he thought would please the 
 King, and his bold offering at the most desperate 
 counsels, gained him such an interest in the King, that 
 no attempt against him, nor complaint of him, could 
 ever shake it, till a decay of strength and under- 
 
58 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 the Earl of Clarendon should direct 
 them. But lie told them the assaulting of a 
 
 standing forced him to let go his hold. He was in 
 his principles much against Popery and arbitrary 
 government: and yet, by a fatal train of passions and 
 interests, he made way for the former, and had 
 almost established the latter. And, whereas, some 
 by a smooth deportment made the first beginnings of 
 tyranny less discernible and unacceptable, he, by the 
 fury of his behaviour, heightened the severity of his 
 ministry, which was liker the cruelty of an inquisi- 
 tion than the legality of justice. With all this he 
 was a Presbyterian, and retained his aversion to 
 Charles I. and his party to his death." The same 
 historian (Burnet) thus describes his appearance and 
 manner : " He made a very ill appearance : he was 
 very big : his hair red, hanging oddly about him : his 
 tongue was too big for his mouth, which made him 
 bedew all he talked to : and his whole manner was 
 rough and boisterous, and very unfit for a court." 
 Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart, a woman of 
 infamous character — corrupt, violent, cruel, and dis- 
 solute, but " of great beauty, and greater parts," who 
 first lived with Lauderdale, and afterwards married 
 him, was supposed by her intemperate counsels to 
 have led him into many of his crimes. She was the 
 daughter of William Murray, who having been Page 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 59 
 
 minister, as long as he had an interest with 
 the King, teas a practice that never could 
 be approved : it was one of the uneasy things 
 
 and Whipping-boy to Charles I. was by him created 
 Earl of Dysart. Lauderdale was made Secretary of 
 State in Scotland in 1G60, and from the time of the 
 disgrace of the Earl of Middle ton, in 1663, till his 
 own death, in 1682, was the uncontrolled ruler of 
 that unhappy country. 
 
 z Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, and author 
 of the valuable History of his Own Times — of the 
 History of the Reformation — of the History of the 
 House of Hamilton, and of other works, was born at 
 Edinburgh, September the 18th, 1643 — Preacher of 
 the Rolls, 1675— Bishop of Salisbury, 1689— Died, 
 1 71 .5. His character has been very variously repre- 
 sented, both by contempary writers, and by poste- 
 rity ; which was certain to be the case, as he was not 
 only a strong party man, but a strong party writer. 
 Judged impartially, he would appear to have been a 
 man of considerable abilities, though uncultivated, 
 and of great natural shrewdness, and acute judgment, 
 though the first is occasionally clouded in his works 
 by a sort of awkward way of writing; and the last by 
 party prejudices. He was apparently honest, con- 
 scientious, and religious, though his fate and the 
 circumstances of the times threw him more into the 
 current of worldly politics than befits a churchman. 
 
60 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 that a House of Commons of England some- 
 times ventured on, which ivas ungrateful to 
 
 He was also a man of liberal principles and feelings, 
 a great and rare merit in a Bishop. His talents ap- 
 pear to have been allowed even by his enemies, for 
 a political lampoon against him entitled " Sarum's 
 Dirge," which has been attributed to Swift, thus de- 
 scribes him : — 
 
 1. 
 Here Sarum lies, was once as wise 
 And learn'd as Tom Aquinas ; 
 Lawn sleeves he wore, yet was no more 
 A Christian than Socinus. 
 
 2. 
 Oaths pro and con he swallowed down, 
 
 And gold like any layman ; 
 Wrote, preach'd, and pray'd, and yet betray 'd 
 
 God's holy church for Mammon. 
 
 3. 
 Of every vice he had a spice, 
 
 Although a reverend prelate : 
 He liv'd and died, if not belied, 
 
 A true dissenting zealot. 
 
 4. 
 If such a soul to Heaven has stole, 
 
 And slipt old Satan's clutches, 
 You'll then presume there may be room 
 
 For Marlborough and his duchess. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. Gl 
 
 the Court"* Here we have, certainly, a 
 confirmation and extension of Lord Cla- 
 rendon's unconstitutional views ; and, at 
 the same time, an elucidation of the 
 reason why he had so rooted an aversion 
 to Parliaments. They sometimes as- 
 saulted a minister; and, if one minister, 
 why not another? As, indeed, the 
 Chancellor afterwards found to his cost. 
 These quotations have been brought in 
 at the present moment, instead of being 
 reserved for the tyrannical part of the 
 Chancellor's character, to which they in 
 some respects more appropriately be- 
 long, because, though they do not prove 
 corruption, they undoubtedly, joined 
 with other collateral circumstances, very 
 much favour the notion of it. It is to 
 
 a Burnet's History of his Own Times, vol. i. Ox- 
 ford Edition. 
 
62 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 be remembered, that a corrupt minister 
 is always the one who has the greatest 
 fear and dislike of Parliaments; nor 
 should it be forgotten in the present 
 instance, that when the House of Com- 
 mons did impeach the Chancellor, out of 
 seventeen articles of impeachment eight 
 were for corrupt practices. This latter 
 circumstances is only mentioned, as 
 helping to fill up a link in the chain of 
 corroborative evidence, with regard to 
 Clarendon's general reputation in all 
 transactions relating to money. Stand- 
 ing alone, it would have proved nothing, 
 but joined with other testimony, it has, 
 and ought to have, its weight. 
 
 "We shall now proceed to notice 
 Anthony A' Wood's 5 accusations against 
 Lord Clarendon.' 
 
 b Anthony A' Wood, the celebrated Antiquary and 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. G3 
 
 In his Life of Judge Glynne/ in the 
 Athens Oxonienses, Anthony A' Wood 
 
 Historiographer of the University of Oxford, was 
 born at Oxford, December 17th, 1632. He was 
 educated partly at New College School, in Oxford, 
 and partly at the Free School, at Thame. He was 
 admitted of Merton College, in 1647 — became Ba- 
 chelor of Arts, in 1652, and Master of Arts, in 1655. 
 In 1674, he published his " Historia et Antiquitates 
 Universitatis Oxoniensis." In 1691, he published 
 his more important work, entitled " Athens Ox- 
 onienses," " being an exact History of all the Writers 
 and Bishops, who have had their education in the 
 most ancient and famous University of Oxford, from 
 the fifteenth year of King Henry VII. A.D. 1500." 
 He died at Oxford, November 29th, 1695. Since 
 his death his Diary, written by himself, has been 
 published, which is very curious, both from the 
 anecdotes contained in it, and the quaint and peculiar 
 manner in which they are related. Anthony A' Wood 
 appears to have been a man of great research and 
 industry — of considerable abilities — of a singular 
 simplicity of mind — strictly honest in his opinions, 
 but much prejudiced in favour of the High Church 
 party. 
 
 c John Glynne, the third son of William Glynne, 
 Esq. of an ancient Welsh family, was born in 1603. 
 
G4 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 says, " After the restoration of King 
 Charles II. he was made his eldest Ser- 
 jeant at law, by the corrupt dealing of the 
 then Chancellor T A Again, in speaking 
 
 He was a supporter of the Parliament side in the 
 civil wars, and, according to Wood, " a zealous co- 
 venanter." He was made High Steward of West- 
 minster — Recorder of London — and was a member 
 of the Long Parliament. In 1655 he was sent into 
 the West to arraign Colonel Penruddock, and other 
 Cavaliers, taken at South Molton; in allusion to 
 which expedition he is brought by Butler into Hu- 
 dibras : 
 
 " Did not the learned Glynne and Maynard, 
 To make good subjects traitors strain hard V 
 
 In the same year he was made by Cromwell Lord 
 Chief Justice of the Upper Bench, and a member of 
 the Protector's House of Lords. In April, 16G0, he 
 was chosen to represent Carnarvonshire in Parlia- 
 ment; and after the Restoration was made the King's 
 eldest Serjeant at Law, by the means related in the 
 text, and subsequently knighted. He died Novem- 
 ber 15th, 1666. 
 
 d Wood's Athenae Oxonienses, vol. ii. Folio Edi- 
 tion. This is exactly a case in point, corroborative 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 65 
 
 of David Jenkyns, e he observes, u After 
 the restoration of King Charles II. it 
 was expected by all, that he should be 
 made one of the Judges in Westminster 
 Hall ; and so he might have been, would 
 he have given money to the then Lord 
 
 of what we have previously seen stated by Evelyn and 
 Lord Dartmouth (pages 26, 27), respecting Lord 
 Clarendon's advancement of " the old rebels," and 
 the reasons why he did so. And the subsequent 
 anecdote concerning David Jenkyns is equally con- 
 firmatory of his neglecting " the royal sufferers," 
 who either could not or would not bribe him. 
 
 e David Jenkyns was a Welshman, educated at 
 Oxford, and one of the Judges for South Wales, 
 V where he distinguished himself by his learning and 
 eminence in his profession, and by his steady ad- 
 herence to the cause of Charles I." In a letter of 
 Sir Peter Pett's, he is called, " that Glorious Con- 
 fessor of Loyalty, Judge Jenkyns." In 1645, he was 
 taken prisoner by the Parliament forces at Hereford 
 — imprisoned in Newgate — impeached for treason be- 
 fore the Mouse of Commons — when, denying their au- 
 thority, and refusing to kneel, lie was fined £1,000 — 
 
OG HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 Chancellor ; but he scorned such an act 
 after all his sufferings. " f 
 
 Here, again, are distinct charges of 
 corruption brought against Clarendon — 
 and by whom? By the High Church 
 Anthony A' Wood, who was about as 
 
 recommitted to prison, and afterwards transferred to 
 Wallingford Castle. In 1650, an Act was passed for 
 his trial before the High Court of Justice. " He now," 
 says Wood, " thought of nothing but hanging, and 
 resolved, if it should come to pass, to suffer with the 
 Bible under one arm and Magna Charta (of which he 
 was the zealous defender) under the other. " He 
 was, however, spared, it is said at the intercession of 
 Harry Marten, and sent to Windsor Castle, where 
 he remained till 1656, when he was released. He 
 retired after the Restoration into Glamorganshire, 
 and died there in 1667. Wood calls him " a person 
 of great abilities in his profession;" and Sir Peter 
 Pett says, " he was a very acute man," and that " it 
 was a scandal to the age, that he was not made a 
 judge in Westminster Hall." Sir Peter adds, " Old 
 Clarendon had then as much power as ever premier 
 minister had." 
 
 f Wood's Athenae Oxonienses, vol. ii. folio edition. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. G7 
 
 great an enemy to Presbyterians as the 
 Chancellor himself; and whose preju- 
 dices, and they were very strong ones, 
 must all have run naturally in his favour. 
 This certainly gives the greater value to 
 his statements; for had not the evidence 
 against Clarendon been in his opinion, 
 peculiarly strong, and clear, and uncon- 
 trovertible, he certainly would never 
 have censured him. 
 
 It is remarkable, also, that all those 
 who testify of Clarendon's corrupt prac- 
 tices, with the exception of Pepys and 
 Marvell — I mean Dartmouth, Wood, and 
 Evelyn, were men of the same political 
 opinions with himself, High Churchmen 
 and High Tories, and the last was a 
 personal friend — circumstances which, 
 without doubt, add very considerably to 
 the weight of their testimonies. 
 F 2 
 
68 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 What happened to Wood, in conse- 
 quence of the passages in the Athenae 
 just quoted, must now be related. Henry 
 Earl of Clarendon, the son of the Chan- 
 cellor, " a man," says Burnet, g " who 
 was peevish and splenetic, and whose 
 judgment was not to be depended on, 
 for he was much carried by vulgar pre- 
 judices and false notions," 11 excited the 
 University of Oxford to persecute Wood 
 for what he had said of his father. The 
 University was at that time almost idol- 
 atrous of the name of the Chancellor 
 Clarendon, who, in addition to his High 
 Church and High Tory principles, had 
 been also their Chancellor ; and was, as 
 is well known, in an especial manner the 
 
 g Burnet's History of his Own Times. Oxford 
 Edition, vol. i. 
 
 h For a further account of this Lord Clarendon, 
 see note concerning him, page 32. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. () ( J 
 
 patron of Churchmen and the persecu- 
 tor of Dissenters. They therefore forth- 
 with pronounced against Wood/ " That 
 he should be banished, and deprived of 
 all privileges belonging to a member of 
 the University, until he should make a 
 proper recantation. That the book should 
 be burnt ; and that he should pay the 
 costs of the suit, which amounted to 
 thirty-four -pounds. " k That this vin- 
 dictive proceeding against Wood 1 rather 
 
 1 Life of Mr. Anthony A v Wood. Oxon, 1772. 
 
 k DatedJuly 29, 1G93. 
 
 1 Wood thought himself very harshly treated upon 
 this occasion, and in his Life details his reasons for 
 this opinion. He also complains that " he has been 
 made a tool to recover the credit of a person that 
 hath been banished twenty-eight years, and dead 
 twenty." Subsequently, Wood, in a conversation he 
 held with Lord Clarendon, told him, that " he had 
 gotten from him more money than he could get 
 again in five or six years, for he earned but 2d. per 
 diem." 
 
70 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 strengthens than otherwise the belief in 
 the truth of his accusations, or at least 
 does not weaken them, can hardly be 
 doubted. Punishments of this sort, in- 
 flicted at the instigation of filial par- 
 tiality by a prejudiced tribunal, can 
 never disprove asserted facts." 1 
 
 Among those of his contemporaries 
 who seem to have thought the worst of 
 the Chancellor, Andrew Marvell must 
 
 m In 1693, Sir Peter Pett, writing to Anthony 
 A v Wood on the subject of the attack upon him by 
 Henry Lord Clarendon, says, " If ever you come to 
 spend any time in this town, (London,) you may fish 
 facts enow of incontestable truth about old Clarendon 
 in the Journals of the House of Commons, and of 
 the Lords, where, perhaps, I may get you leave to 
 search gratis." See Letters published from the 
 Bodleian, vol. i. What these facts against Claren- 
 don are, to which Sir Peter alludes, we cannot now 
 know. Wood apparently never accepted his invita- 
 tion, and died in less than two years after the date 
 of this letter. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 71 
 
 be mentioned ; who, in his poems, re- 
 peatedly accuses him of bribery, cor- 
 ruption, insolence, and avarice. Marvell, 
 it may be replied, was a satirist, and 
 satirists are undoubtedly a race of men 
 whose statements ought not to be im- 
 plicitly received without deduction. But 
 the way in which he frequently speaks 
 of Clarendon assists at least in favouring 
 the belief, that there was in those days 
 a pretty general opinion that such ble- 
 mishes did attach to his character. Nor 
 should Marvell, who has left behind him 
 one of the brightest characters for fear- 
 less and noble-minded integrity in all 
 history, be confounded with the numer- 
 ous venal writers of libels of the age of 
 Charles II., whose praise or abuse is 
 of course equally without value. In 
 the Poem entitled, " Instructions to a 
 
72 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 Painter, 1667." "Hyde's avarice" is men- 
 tioned as excessive and notorious. The 
 Canary patent, for the granting of which 
 he was charged with having received a 
 sum of money, is also alluded to : 
 
 " Now the Canary patent may 
 
 Be broach'd again for the great holyday." 
 
 Also the sums he was supposed to have 
 received for farming the Customs at a 
 lower rate than they were worth : 
 
 11 The kingdom's farm he lets to them bids least, 
 (Greater the bribe,) and cheats at interest." 
 
 And his insolence is thus noticed : 
 
 " See how he reigns in his new palace culminant, 
 And sits in state divine like Jove the fulminant." 
 
 It would be endless to quote the vi- 
 tuperative passages upon the Chancellor 
 in Marvell's works; but these short ex- 
 tracts are sufficient to show the opinion 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 73 
 
 entertained of Lord Clarendon by a sin- 
 gularly pure and incorrupt contempo- 
 rary; and also to strengthen and confirm 
 the argument with regard to his general 
 reputation. 
 
 I shall now again return to Pepys, and 
 quote from him a transaction, which 
 marks in the character of Lord Claren- 
 don a fondness for money, amounting to 
 something very like rapacity, supported 
 as it is by other and stronger evidence 
 upon the same subject. Pepys's state- 
 ment of it is as follows : 
 
 "February 22, 1664. —Whereas the 
 late King did mortgage Clarendon 11 to 
 somebody for £20,000, and this (King) 
 had given it to the Duke of Albemarle, 
 
 n Clarendon Park, near Salisbury. 
 
 George Monck, descended from a gentleman's 
 family in Devonshire, was born December 6, 1608. 
 Having had the misfortune in a fray to kill a man, 
 
74 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 and he sold it to my Lord Chancellor, 
 whose title of Earldome is fetched from 
 
 he left his home early, and inlisted as a volunteer, in 
 1625, under his kinsman Sir Richard Greenville or 
 Granville, who was just setting out from Plymouth 
 to serve under Lord Wimbledon, in an expedition 
 against Spain. The following year he obtained a 
 pair of colours in the expedition to the Isle of Rhee. 
 From this time his course was various ; he saw much 
 service by land and sea, and on all sides, and rose to 
 considerable eminence in his profession. Having 
 served and betrayed alternately, the King — the Par- 
 liament — Cromwell — Richard Cromwell — the Par- 
 liament again — and Charles II. — he, finally, had 
 the good fortune to be the instrument of restoring 
 the latter to the throne of his ancestors, for which 
 service he received the most ample rewards. He 
 was, upon the Restoration, made Baron Monck of 
 Potheridge, Beauchamp, and Tees, Earl of Torring- 
 ton, Duke of Albemarle ; a Knight of the Garter, 
 a Privy Councillor, Master of the Horse, Gentleman 
 of the Bedchamber, First Lord Commissioner of the 
 Treasury, and was loaded with grants of money and 
 estates, and with pensions. He was afterwards fre- 
 quently employed as a naval commander, but gene- 
 rally did very ill. Subsequently he sunk deservedly 
 low in general estimation, from his total want of ca- 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 75 
 
 thence; the King hath this day sent his 
 order to the Privy Seale for the payment 
 
 pacity, his corruption, and bis general unfitness for 
 the high situations in which he - was placed. He 
 died of dropsy, January 3, 1670. His wife was 
 Ann Clarges, the daughter of a blacksmith in the 
 Savoy. She was first married to Thomas Ratford, a 
 farrier, and herself practised the trade of a barber, 
 and is one of the persons alluded to in the song re- 
 specting " The five women barbers that dwelt in 
 Drury Lane." She left her first husband, after living 
 with him for seventeen years, and afterwards became 
 acquainted with Monck. She proved with child by 
 him, and he was compelled by her family to marry 
 her in 1652. She appears to have been fully wor- 
 thy of her origin. Pepys describes her as " a nasty 
 wife" — " a plain homely dowdy" — " a very ill-looked 
 woman" — and his anecdotes of her vulgarity almost 
 pass belief. She was also exceedingly corrupt — and 
 during her husband's power sold every place she 
 could — and sometimes, it would appear, took money 
 for places, and then did not keep faith with those she 
 received it from. Burnet says, " Monck was raven- 
 ous, as well as his wife, who was a mean contemptible 
 creature. They both asked and sold all that was 
 within their reach, nothing being denied them for 
 some time; till he became so useless, that little per- 
 
1G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 of this £20,000 to my Lord Chancellor, 
 to clear the mortgage." 13 That is to say, 
 the Chancellor bought the estate of Cla- 
 
 sonal regard could be paid him." In Pepys is the 
 following anecdote respecting her. Mr. Cooling 
 tells him ; " My Lord General (Monck) is grown a 
 drunken sot, and drinks with nobody but Trout- 
 becke, whom nobody else will keep company with." 
 Of whom he told me this story ; that once the Duke 
 of Albemarle in his drink taking notice, as of a won- 
 der, that Nan Hide should ever come to be Duchesse 
 of York : — ' Nay/ says Troutbecke, ' never wonder 
 at that ; for, if you will give me another bottle of 
 wine, I will tell you as great, if not greater, a mi- 
 racle. ' And what was that, but ' that our dirty 
 Besse (meaning his Duchesse) should come to be 
 Duchesse of Albemarle.' " Pepys, in another place, 
 calls the Duke " a dull heavy man." Upon the 
 whole he would appear to have been a man of bra- 
 very, a good officer, and possessed of a certain low 
 cunning which led him to take the path that seemed 
 to promise best for his own advancement — but to 
 have been entirely wanting in all great qualities. — 
 Under these circumstances we must allow, that he 
 was one of the most fortunate personages mentioned 
 in history. 
 
 p Pepys's Diary, vol. i. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 77 
 
 rendon of the Duke of Albemarle, sub- 
 ject to a mortgage of twenty thousand 
 pounds, and then made the King give 
 him the money to pay it off. Surely, if 
 this was not a rapacious proceeding, it 
 is difficult to say what comes under that 
 denomination. 
 
 This anecdote respecting Clarendon 
 Park naturally leads us to another, con- 
 nected with the same place, in the rela- 
 tion of which Pepys states very minutely 
 what passed between the Chancellor and 
 himself upon the subject ; and in which 
 the cautious corruption of the former is as 
 evident as possible. It will be necessary 
 to quote at considerable length from 
 Pepys with regard to this transaction, 
 in order to enable the reader properly to 
 understand it. 
 
78 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 " July 4th, 1664. — To my Lord's 
 (Sandwich 01 ). He did begin with a 
 
 q Edward Montagu, descended from a younger 
 branch of the Montagus of Boughton, entered early 
 into the career of arms, and served with distinction 
 in the Parliamentary Armies, at the storming of 
 Lincoln, the battle of Mars ton Moor, the battle of 
 Naseby, and the storming of Bridgwater, on which 
 occasions he commanded a regiment raised by him- 
 self in Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. Subse- 
 quently he commanded a brigade at the storming of 
 Bristol. In 1653 he became a Lord of Cromwell's 
 Treasury, after which he took to the Naval Service, 
 and was joined in the commission with the great 
 Blake; subsequently to whose death he had the sole 
 command of the fleet. In 1659, being then joint 
 admiral with Monck, he entered into correspondence 
 with Charles the Second, and was most instrumental 
 in determining the fleet in favour of the Restoration. 
 He brought Charles over in his own ship from Hol- 
 land, May 25th, 1660, and two days afterwards was 
 made a Knight of the Garter. In July of the same 
 year he was created Baron Montagu of St. Neot's, 
 Viscount Hinchinbroke, and Earl of Sandwich. He 
 was also sworn of the Privy Council ; made Master 
 of the Great Wardrobe ; Admiral of the Narrow 
 Seas ; and Lieutenant-Admiral to the Duke of York, 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 79 
 
 most solemn profession of the same con- 
 fidence in and love for me that,he ever 
 
 Lord High Admiral of England. On the conclusion 
 of the Portugal match, Lord Sandwich was sent to 
 Lisbon, acted as proxy for Charles II. at the mar- 
 riage, and afterwards brought the Infanta Catherine 
 over to England. He subsequently commanded the 
 British fleet upon different occasions with success 
 during the two first Dutch wars. In 16G7 he went 
 Ambassador to Madrid. In 1672, on the breaking 
 out of the third Dutch war, he served as Vice- 
 Admiral* under the Duke of York in the combined 
 fleets of England and France, and was blown up in 
 his ship in Sol bay by a Dutch fire-ship on the 29th 
 of May of that year; the confederate fleets having 
 been surprised by the enemy, in consequence of their 
 neglect of Lord Sandwich's advice. Burnet relates 
 the circumstance of this battle, and the catastrophe 
 of Lord Sandwich. " The sea-fight in Solbay, in 
 which De Ruyter had the glory of surprising the 
 English fleet, when they were thinking less of en- 
 gaging the enemy, than of an extravagant preparation 
 for the usual disorders of the twenty-ninth of May? 
 which he prevented, engaging them on the twenty- 
 eighth, in one of the most obstinate sea-fights that 
 has happened in our age; in which the French took 
 more care of themselves than became gallant men ; 
 
80 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 bad, and then told me what a misfor- 
 tune had fallen upon me and him: in 
 
 but it was believed they had orders to look on, and 
 leave the English and Dutch to fight it out, while 
 they preserved the force of France entire. De 
 Ruyter disabled the ship in which the Duke was, 
 whom some blamed for leaving his ship too soon. 
 Then his personal courage began first to be called in 
 question. The admiral of the blue Squadron was 
 burnt by a fire-ship, after a long engagement with a 
 Dutch ship much inferior to him in strength. In it 
 the Earl of Sandwich perished, with a great many 
 about him, who would not leave him, as he would 
 not leave his ship, by a piece of obstinate courage, 
 to which he was provoked by an indecent reflection 
 the Duke made on an advice he had offered, of 
 drawing nearer the shore, and avoiding an engage- 
 ment, as if in that he took more care of himself than 
 of the King's honour." Some ten days after the 
 fight Lord Sandwich's body was discovered floating 
 near Harwich, being known by the star upon his 
 coat, and was taken up, embalmed, and buried with 
 great honour. Bishop Parker calls Lord Sandwich 
 " A gentleman adorned with all the virtues of Alci- 
 biades, and untainted by any of his vices ; of high 
 birth, capable of any business, full of wisdom, a great 
 commander at sea and land, and also learned and 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 81 
 
 me, by a displeasure which my Lord 
 Chancellor did show to him last night 
 against me, in the highest and most 
 passionate manner that ever any man 
 did speak, even of the not hearing of 
 any thing to be said to him ; but he told 
 me that he did say all that could be said 
 for a man as to my faithfulness and duty 
 to his Lordship, and did me the greatest 
 right imaginable. And what should the 
 business be, but that I should be for- 
 ward to have the trees in Clarendon- 
 Park marked and cut down, which he, 
 it seems, hath bought of my Lord Albe- 
 
 eloquent, affable, liberal and magnificent." And 
 Brandt, the Dutch author, in his Life of De Ruyter, 
 says " Such was the end of this Earl, who was Vice- 
 Admiral of England, valiant, intelligent, prudent, 
 civil, obliging in his words and deeds; who had per- 
 formed great services to his king, not only in war, 
 but also in affairs of state, and in his embassies." 
 
82 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 marie; when, God knows, I am the 
 most innocent man in the world in it, 
 and did nothing of myself, nor know 
 of his concernment therein, but barely 
 my Lord Treasurer's warrant for the 
 doing thereof, And said that I did most 
 ungentlemanlike with him, and had jus- 
 tified the rogues in cutting down a tree 
 of his ; and that I had sent the veriest 
 Fanatique that is in England to mark 
 them, on purpose to nose him. All 
 which I did assure my Lord, was most 
 properly false, and nothing like it true ; 
 and told my Lord the whole passage. 
 My Lord do seem most nearly affected 
 with him ; partly, I believe, for me, and 
 partly for himself. So he advised me to 
 wait presently upon my Lord (Claren- 
 don), and clear myself in the most per- 
 fect manner I could, with all submission 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 83 
 
 and assurance that I am his creature 
 both in this and in all other things; 
 and that I do own that all I have is de- 
 rived through my Lord Sandwich from 
 his Lordship. So, full of horror, I 
 went and found him busy in trials of 
 law, in his great room ; and it being sit- 
 ting day, durst not stay, but went to my 
 Lord, and told him so ; whereupon he 
 directed me to take him after dinner; 
 and so away I home, leaving my Lord 
 mightily concerned for me. So I to my 
 Lord Chancellor's ; and there coming 
 out after dinner I accosted him, telling 
 him that I was the unhappy Pepys that 
 had fallen into his high displeasure, and 
 come to desire him to give me leave to 
 make myself better understood to his 
 Lordship, assuring him of my duty and 
 service. lie answered me very pleas- 
 g 2 
 
84 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 ingly, that he was confident upon the 
 score of my Lord Sandwich's character 
 of me, but that he had reason to think 
 what he did, and desired me to call 
 upon him some evening : I named to 
 night, and he accepted of it. To my 
 Lord Chancellor's, and there heard se- 
 veral trials, wherein I perceive my Lord 
 is a most able and ready man. After all 
 done, he himself called, " come, Mr. 
 Pepys, you and I will take a turn in the 
 garden." So he was led down stairs, 
 having the goute, and there walked with 
 me, 1 think above an hour, talking most 
 friendly, and yet cunningly. I told him 
 clearly how things were ; how ignorant 
 I was of his Lordship's concernment in 
 it; how I did not do nor say one word 
 singly; but what was done was the act of 
 the whole Board. He told me by name 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 85 
 
 that he was more angry with Sir George 
 Carteret 1 " than with me, and also with 
 the whole body of the Board. But 
 thinking who it was of the Board that 
 
 r Sir George Carteret was an ancient loyalist, de- 
 scended from a Norman family settled in Jersey and 
 Guernsey. He supported strenuously the cause of 
 Charles I. in those Islands, and was by that King 
 created a baronet in 1645. When Charles II. in 
 1646, fled to Jersey, he and his companions were 
 received and entertained by Sir George. Upon the 
 execution of Charles I. Sir George Carteret imme- 
 diately proclaimed Charles II. in Jersey. This, and 
 his various intrigues in favour of the royal cause, so 
 incensed Oliver Cromwell, that he sent a force 
 against Elizabeth Castle, the fortress in Jersey, where 
 Sir George was shut up. Sir George, after defend- 
 ing it for some time, was at last obliged to escape to 
 the continent. On the Restoration he was made 
 Vice Chamberlain to the King, Treasurer of the 
 Navy, and a Privy Councillor. He died in 1679, 
 aged seventy-nine. His son Sir Philip Carteret, 
 who had married Lord Sandwich's daughter, was 
 blown up in that nobleman's ship in Solbay. His 
 great grandson was that eminent statesman, John 
 Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl of Granville. 
 
86 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 did know him least, he did place his 
 fear upon me; but he finds that he is 
 indebted to none of his friends there. I 
 think I did thoroughly appease him, till 
 he thanked me for my desire and pains 
 to satisfy him : and upon my desiring to 
 be directed who I should of his servants 
 advise with about this business, he told 
 me nobody, but would be glad to hear 
 from me himself. He told me he would 
 not direct me in any thing, that it might 
 not be said the Lord Chancellor did la- 
 bour to abuse the King; or (as I of- 
 fered) direct the suspending the report 
 of the purveyors : but I see what he 
 means, and will make it my work to do 
 him service in it. But, Lord ! to see 
 how he is incensed against poor Deane, 
 as a fanatick rogue, and I know not 
 what: and what he did was done in 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 87 
 
 spite to his Lordship, among all his 
 friends and tenants. He did plainly 
 say, he would not direct me in any 
 thing, for he would not put himself into 
 the power of any man to say that he did 
 so and so ; but plainly told me as if he 
 would be glad I did something. Lord ! 
 to see how we poor wretches dare not 
 do the King good service for fear of the 
 greatness of these men." 8 
 
 " July 18th, 1664.— Sir George Car- 
 teret and I did talk together in the 
 Parke about my Lord Chancellor's 
 business of the timber ; he telling me 
 freely that my Lord Chancellor was 
 never so angry with him in all his life, 
 as he was for this business, and in a 
 great passion ; and that when he saw 
 
 • Pepys's Diary, vol. i. 
 
88 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES. 
 
 me there he knew what it was about. 
 And plots now with me how we may 
 serve my Lord, which I am mightily glad 
 of; and I hope together we may do it. 
 Thence I to my Lord Chancellor, and 
 discoursed his business with him. I 
 perceive, and he says plainly, that he 
 will not have any man to have it in his 
 power to say that my Lord Chancellor 
 did contrive the wronging the King of 
 his timber; but yet, I perceive, he would 
 be glad to have service done him therein; 
 and told me, Sir George Carteret hath 
 told him, that he and I would look after 
 his business to see it done in the best 
 manner for him." 1 
 " July 20th, 1664.— With Mr. Deane, u 
 
 I Pepys's Diary, vol. i. 
 
 II Deane Anthony was, according to Pepys, an 
 ingenious mechanician. He was Knighted by 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 89 
 
 discoursing upon the business of my 
 Lord Chancellor's timber, in Clarendon 
 Park, and how to make a report therein 
 without offending him ; which at last I 
 drew up, and hope it will please him. 
 But I would to God neither I nor he 
 ever had any thing to have done with 
 it."* 
 
 The plain English of this transaction 
 is this. The timber in Clarendon Park 
 belonged to the King, and Pepys, Sir 
 George Carteret, and the other Commis- 
 sioners of the Admiralty, wished in con- 
 sequence to have it cut down for the 
 use of the navy. But the Chancellor, 
 who had bought the land, wished to have 
 
 Charles II. — held the office of Commissioner of the 
 Navy — and was Member of Parliament for Harwich. 
 ■ Pepys'a Diary, vol. i. 
 
90 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 the trees also ; though without the 
 trouble and expense of buying them. y 
 
 It should be observed, that this was 
 his grateful return to the King for the 
 magnificent present he had made him, 
 only four months before, of twenty thou- 
 sand pounds, to clear off a mortgage on 
 this very estate. And not only did the 
 Chancellor wish to deprive the King of 
 his trees, but he wished to do it without 
 any personal risk to himself, by bullying 
 and threatening the unhappy Commis- 
 sioners of the Admiralty ; to oblige 
 
 y It is evidently to transactions of this kind that 
 Andrew Marvell alludes, in his poem entitled " Cla- 
 rendon's House-warming." 
 
 " His woods would come in at the easier rate, 
 So long as the yards had a deal or a spar ; 
 His friend in the navy would not be ingrate, 
 To grudge him some timber who found him the war." 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 91 
 
 them to make a report in his favour. 
 It is well observed by Pepys (and gives, 
 by the way, a good measure of the state 
 of those times, as well as of the arrogance 
 and power of the Chancellor,) " Lord ! 
 to see how we poor wretches dare not 
 do the King good service for fear of the 
 greatness of these men!" 
 
 This relation altogether is a most 
 curious one, because it is told by the 
 very man himself, who was brought into 
 communication with the Chancellor, ex- 
 pressly for the purpose of serving his 
 rapacious purposes ; and because the 
 simplicity and clearness of the narration 
 must carry conviction of its truth to the 
 mind of every one. To be sure a less 
 creditable transaction to the fame and 
 character of Clarendon can hardly be 
 conceived ; whether we regard the cor- 
 
92 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES. 
 
 ruption, which is its foundation ; the in- 
 gratitude to the King, which forms its 
 superstructure ; or the baseness, which 
 crowns the whole, of obliging, by threats 
 and intimidation, the Admiralty Com- 
 missioners to abandon their duty, for the 
 purpose of furthering his unlawful ends; 
 and of thus shielding his own person and 
 character from any future disgrace that 
 might arise, in consequence of their 
 being gratified. 
 
 Before concluding our inquiries into 
 this part of the character of Lord Chan- 
 cellor Clarendon, it will be necessary to 
 say a few words respecting the sale of 
 Dunkirk to the French, which took 
 place during his administration, in the 
 year 1663. Not only, indeed, did this 
 event happen while Clarendon was in 
 office, but, as Rapin observes, " it is a 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 93 
 
 fact as certain as a fact of this nature 
 can be, that he proposed it, negociated 
 the sale, and concluded it." z In proof 
 of this, it is only necessary to refer to 
 the letters of Estrades, a the French Ple- 
 nipotentiary, upon the subject ; in which 
 he distinctly states, that the Chancellor 
 told him the idea of the sale of Dunkirk 
 came from himself. — " The Chancellor 
 added," says he, in a letter to Lewis 
 XIV., " that the thought of this treaty 
 came from him, and did not conceal, 
 
 z Rapin's History, vol. ii. p. 630. 
 
 a Godfrey Count d'Estrades was born in 1607, and 
 died in 1686. He was employed by Lewis XIII. 
 and XIV. in various embassies and negotiations, in 
 which he conducted himself with considerable ability 
 and dexterity. He was made Governor of Dunkirk 
 1650 — Perpetual Mayor of Bordeaux 1653 — Lieu- 
 tenant General of the Province of Guienne 1663 — 
 Knight of the Holy Ghost I 67 1 —Marshal of France 
 1675 — Governor of the Duke de Chartres (after- 
 wards the Regent Duke of Orleans) 1685. 
 
94 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 that the necessity of the English affairs 
 had inspired him with it. That the 
 King, the Duke of York, and himself, 
 were alone of this opinion, and that 
 Monk, the Lord Treasurer, and the Earl 
 of Sandwich, were still to be managed, 
 who he could not hope to gain, but by 
 the great sums which would accrue to 
 the King : b That having already pro- 
 posed it to them from the urgent occa- 
 sions of the state, they had offered an 
 expedient to preserve the place for the 
 King, and to ease him of this expense." 
 
 b What a scene of corruption in the English 
 government does this open to us, if true — and if not, 
 how disgraceful to the Chancellor thus to calumniate 
 his colleagues. Was the " Virtuous Southampton" 
 (the Lord Treasurer), as here alleged, susceptible of 
 bribery ? or did the Chancellor judge of others by 
 himself, and intend to appropriate the shares of his 
 less venal brethren ? 
 
 c Letlres, Memoires, et Negociations, du Comte 
 d'EstradeSj vol. i. — Letter of August 17th, 1662. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 95 
 
 It should be observed, that at the very 
 moment this disgraceful bargain was 
 going on, and as if to take away every 
 honest excuse for its being completed, 
 the Parliament were ready to take Dun- 
 kirk off the King's hands, and to defray 
 all the expenses incidental to its preser- 
 vation, at the same time leaving to him 
 the rights and privileges he already pos- 
 sessed over it. This is the expedient 
 alluded to in the previous extract, and 
 which is so explained in the continuation 
 of the same despatch. 
 
 Again in another letter Estrades says, 
 that, the Chancellor told him, " as he 
 was not the master, and was highly 
 concerned to take care of himself in so 
 nice an affair, he was obliged to conceal 
 his sentiments, and pretend to adhere to 
 those of others, that he might not be 
 
90 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 taken for the principal author of the 
 treaty. " d These passages are so con- 
 clusive to the point of the Chancellor's 
 having been the inventor, if it may be so 
 termed, of the sale of Dunkirk, that it is 
 surprizing the fact should ever have been 
 doubted by historians. It should be 
 observed though, that those who do 
 doubt it, generally take their opinions 
 from Echard e and Burnet, who both 
 wrote their historical works previously 
 to the publication of these letters of the 
 French Diplomatist. 
 
 d Lettres, &c. d'Estrades, vol. i. — Letter of Aug. 
 21st, 1662. 
 
 e Laurence Echard, a laborious compiler of his- 
 tory, without much talent, was a beneficed clergyman 
 of the church of England. He was born about 
 1671, and died 1730. His principal works are a 
 Roman History, an Ecclesiastical History from the 
 Birth of Christ, a History of England, and a History 
 of the Revolution in 1688. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 97 
 
 It has been the fashion to disbelieve 
 the accusation brought against the 
 Chancellor, of his having been induced 
 by corrupt motives to suggest and urge 
 on the delivering up of this place ; and 
 perhaps, had this transaction stood alone, 
 I might also have been inclined to adopt 
 the same opinion. But after all that 
 has been brought forward in the previous 
 pages respecting the corruption of Cla- 
 rendon, I own it appears to me, that we 
 are justified in coming to an entirely 
 opposite conclusion. 
 
 Dunkirk had been acquired to Great 
 Britain by Cromwell, as the price of his 
 entering into a treaty with France 
 against Spain, from whom it had lately 
 been wrested by the united arms of the 
 two former powers. 
 
 Whether it would really have been of 
 
 Tl 
 
98 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 great advantage to England, had it been 
 preserved, may be doubted ; as though, 
 from its situation, it might have afforded 
 a shelter for our privateers, instead of 
 those of the enemy; a retreat for our 
 fleets, if beaten ; or a safe landing place 
 for our armies ; all these advantages 
 would apparently have been fully ba- 
 lanced by the very large expense attend- 
 ing its preservation/ These, however, 
 are the views which a more enlightened 
 system of policy has taught the world. 
 In the days of Clarendon they were very 
 much unknown. It was then thought 
 that establishments on the Continent of 
 Europe were of the greatest importance 
 to England, and were to be preserved as 
 the most valuable appendages of the 
 
 1 Macdiarmid's Lives of British Statesmen, vol. ii. 
 2<\ edition. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON, 99 
 
 British crown. Hence the despair of 
 Mary at the loss of Calais : hence the 
 anxiety of Cromwell to obtain Dunkirk 
 as an equivalent for that loss : and hence 
 the universal cry of reprobation through 
 the country when the latter place was 
 lost to us for ever. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that Claren- 
 don, though a man undoubtedly of great 
 abilities, was so much before his con- 
 temporaries, and especially before the 
 able and experienced Cromwell, in the 
 science of politics, as to see through the 
 specious reasons for the preservation of 
 Dunkirk. Why, then, did he consent 
 to its abandonment to please a profligate 
 and dissolute court; who, evidently from 
 the first, only thought of the sale in the 
 hope of squandering the money received 
 from it on their unworthy pleasures?— 
 n 2 
 
100 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 Nay, why was he the principal adviser 
 and promoter of the scheme ? Why 
 does he even write to Estrades, " I shall 
 hold myself the most unfortunate man, 
 if this affair be not crowned with suc- 
 cess" ? g Why does he urge on the bar- 
 gain, at the same time that, fully aware 
 of the opinion of the country on the 
 subject, he writes thus to the same 
 negociator ? " They who know any 
 thing of the present temper of this king- 
 dom must believe, that, as the delivery 
 of that place would never be consented 
 to by the parliament, or in truth by the 
 privy council, if it should be referred to 
 their judgment, so the delivering it up 
 by the King's immediate authority will 
 be as ungracious and unpopular an act 
 
 * Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. — Letter of 
 August 28th, 1662. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 101 
 
 to the whole nation as can be put in 
 practice." 11 The only satisfactory or in- 
 telligible explanation, which can be 
 given to his conduct under these cir- 
 cumstances is, that a portion of the 
 money which the sale produced was to 
 fall by agreement to his share. With- 
 out this, the sale of Dunkirk by him 
 is an enigma which wants a key ; and 
 this key it is surely neither unnatural 
 nor uncharitable to apply to it, after all 
 the previous evidence to similar transac- 
 tions we have just been reading. 
 
 When upon the subject of the sale of 
 Dunkirk, it may not be amiss to notice 
 the odium incurred by the Chancellor in 
 consequence of his erection of a palace 
 in Piccadilly, the size and cost of which 
 
 h Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. — Letter of Au- 
 gust 9th, 1(362. 
 
102 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 were entirely unsuited to his private 
 fortune. This magnificent structure, 
 which was begun some time after the 
 sale of Dunkirk, occupied, together with 
 its gardens, the site of Dover Street and 
 Albemarle Street; and the centre of its 
 front exactly answered to the top of 
 St. James's Street, which it commanded. 
 The grant of the ground Clarendon had 
 obtained from the King. After the 
 Chancellor's disgrace it was sold to the 
 Dukes of Albemarle. Christopher 
 Monck, 1 second Duke of that name, sold 
 
 ' Christopher Monck, second Duke of Albemarle, 
 was the only son of George the first duke. He was 
 born in 1653 — succeeded his father in 1670 — was 
 made a Knight of the Garter and a Privy Councillor in 
 1671. Having by his own extravagance entirely ruined 
 his fortune, he became connected, in the hope of 
 retrieving it, with some buccaneers, who had formed 
 a plan for weighing up a vast mass of specie, which 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 103 
 
 it again to a builder, who pulled it down, 
 and erected the before-mentioned streets 
 
 had been sunk in some Spanish galleons near the 
 Island of Jamaica. In order to facilitate their object, 
 they persuaded him to ask for the government of 
 that Island ; to which he was appointed in 1687, and 
 died there the same year. His wife, however, (who 
 was Elizabeth Cavendish, eldest daughter and co- 
 heiress of Henry Cavendish, second and last Duke of 
 Newcastle of that name,) got possession of the 
 money, which had been obtained from the wrecks, 
 and sailed to England with it, having, as it is alleged, 
 cheated the buccaneers of their share. Shortly after 
 this she became insane, and declared her intention of 
 never marrying again, unless she was wooed by the 
 Grand Turk. Ralph Montagu, first Duke of Mon- 
 tagu, (one of the corrupt political intriguers of the 
 school of Charles II.,) paid his addresses to her in 
 that character, and actually married her in the dis- 
 guise of a Turkish dress. He then shut her up in 
 Newcastle House, Clerkenwell ; and with her 
 money built Montagu House, now the British 
 Museum. This Elizabeth Duchess of Albemarle 
 and Montagu lived, always insane, till the 28th of 
 August, 1731, when she died, in the ninety-sixth 
 year of her age. 
 
104 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 on its site. The building cost £50,000, 
 an enormous sum in those days. k 
 
 If we wish to have an idea of its mag- 
 nificence, we must refer to Evelyn, an 
 excellent judge of such matters, who 
 thus speaks of it. 
 
 " I acknowledge to your lordship that 
 I have never seen a nobler pile. It is, 
 without hyperbolies, the best contrived, 
 the most useful, graceful, and magnifi- 
 cent house in England — I except not 
 Audley End ; which, though larger, and 
 full of gaudy and barbarous ornament, 
 does not gratify judicious spectators. 
 As I said, my lord, here is state and 
 use, solidity and beauty, most symetri- 
 
 k Smith's Antiquities of London. — Londina Illus- 
 trata. — Burnet's History of his Own Times, Oxford 
 Edition, vol. i. — Evelyn. — Pennant. — Macdiarmid's 
 Lives of British Statesmen, vol. ii. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 105 
 
 cally combined together. Seriously, 
 there is nothing abroad pleases me 
 better ; nothing at home approaches 
 it." 1 
 
 Marvell, in the poem before adverted 
 to, " Clarendon's House-warming," 
 charges the Chancellor with having re- 
 ceived money and presents from various 
 quarters to enable him to complete his 
 mansion. 
 
 11 He lik'd the advice, and then soon it assay'd, 
 
 And presents crowd headlong to give good ex- 
 ample, 
 So the bribes overlaid her that Rome once betray 'd; 
 The tribes ne'er contributed so to the Temple. 
 
 Straight judges, priests, bishops, true sons of the 
 seal, 
 Sinners, governors, farmers, bankers, patentees, 
 
 1 Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. ii. — Letter to Lord 
 Cornbury. 
 
10G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 Bring in the whole mite of a year at a meal, 
 As the Chedder Club's dairy to th' incorporate 
 cheese. 
 
 By subsidies thus, both cleric and laic, 
 
 And with matter profane cemented with holy ; 
 
 He finish'd at last his palace Mosaic, 
 
 By a model more excellent than Lesly's folly." 
 
 The same author also has left us the 
 following Epigram on Clarendon House. 
 
 11 Here lie the sacred bones 
 Of Paul beguiled of his stones : m 
 Here lie golden bribries, 
 The price of ruin'd families ; 
 The Cavalier's debenter wall, 
 Fix'd on an eccentric basis : 
 Here's Dunkirk Town and Tangier Hall, 
 The Queen's marriage and all 
 The Dutchman's templum pacis." 
 
 The Chancellor called it Clarendon 
 House ; but the malicious public affixed 
 
 m It was built with the stones which had been col- 
 lected for the rebuilding of St. Paul's church. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 107 
 
 the name of Dunkirk House to it, as if it 
 had been built with the money proceed- 
 ing from the sale of that place. 11 Others 
 also called it Holland House, upon the 
 supposition that the Chancellor had re- 
 ceived bribes from the Dutch. Whether 
 Clarendon House was erected with 
 French or Dutch money, or with both, 
 it is impossible for us at this distance of 
 time, with the slender evidence upon 
 the subject we possess, to decide. After, 
 however, all that has been previously 
 brought forward with respect to the 
 corruption of the Chancellor upon the 
 subject of Dunkirk, the question of 
 whether he erected his house with the 
 money so received, is not of much im- 
 portance in any way to either his fame 
 
 ■ MacdiarmkL — Hume. — NeaTs History of the 
 Puritans.— Burnet's History of his Own Times. 
 
108 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 or his character. If he received money 
 from the sale of Dunkirk, (and we have 
 seen very sufficient grounds to believe 
 that such was the case,) it is equally 
 probable he did from the Dutch; and 
 that he employed these means in erect- 
 ing a mansion, which his own finances 
 would not otherwise have allowed him 
 to undertake, is also equally probable. 
 But our belief in this must rest very 
 mainly upon evidence as to his general 
 character ; as the Chancellor himself 
 must necessarily have been the only 
 person who could exactly know from 
 what source the funds were drawn, with 
 which he built his house. 
 
 We now come to the consideration of 
 the second part of the charge to be esta- 
 blished against Clarendon ; namely, 
 that he was a cruel and tyrannical 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 109 
 
 minister. If the arguments and autho- 
 rities I have brought forward with regard 
 to his inclination to rapacity and corrup- 
 tion have been deemed at all conclusive, 
 I shall have little doubt of establishing 
 the facts of his cruelty and tyranny. 
 For the latter qualities are so much more 
 generally acknowledged, as forming part 
 of his character, than the former ones, 
 that even the panegyrists of the Chan- 
 cellor confess them, in some measure at 
 least, at the same time that they deplore 
 them. Rapacious and corrupt proceed- 
 ings are naturally more concealed and 
 secret faults ; but cruelty and tyranny, 
 where they exist in the breast of a man 
 in power, cannot long lie hid from the 
 eyes of the world. The arbitrary nature 
 of Lord Clarendon's principles has been 
 already exemplified in his conversation 
 
1 10 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 with the Earls of Glencairn and Rothes, 
 on the subject of the impeachment of 
 Lauderdale; and in his general aversion 
 to parliaments : but these were only 
 words, his acts and deeds are what best 
 show him in his true light, with regard 
 to the two points of character at present 
 under consideration. 
 
 It is well known that, previous to the 
 Restoration, the Chancellor was the sole 
 minister of Charles, who, from his natu- 
 rally indolent disposition, abandoned 
 himself implicitly to his guidance. He 
 was in consequence the adviser as well 
 as the framer of the celebrated Declara- 
 tion from Breda, by which the King 
 bound himself to afford to the people of 
 England Liberty of Conscience in mat- 
 ters of religion. Nothing can be well 
 
 ° Dated April 4-14th, 1660. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 1 1 1 
 
 stronger than the expressions of this 
 Declaration. It states that, U because 
 the passion and uncharitableness of the 
 times have produced several opinions in 
 religion, by which men are engaged in 
 parties and animosities against each 
 other ; which, when they shall hereafter 
 unite in a freedom of conversation, will 
 be composed, or better understood; we 
 do declare a liberty to tender con- 
 sciences ; and that no man shall be dis- 
 quieted, or called in question, for differ- 
 ences of opinion in matters of religion 
 which do not disturb the peace of the 
 kingdom ; and that we shall be ready 
 to consent to such an act of parliament, 
 as upon mature deliberation, shall be 
 offered to us, for the full granting that 
 indulgence. "r> 
 
 * Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, Oxford 
 Edit. vol. vii. 
 
1 1 2 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 At this time, namely, before the Re- 
 storation, it was very convenient, indeed 
 absolutely necessary, for the views of 
 the Chancellor that the promise of tole- 
 ration given " upon the word of a King" q 
 should be thus explicit; as England was 
 at that time still under the rule of the 
 Presbyterians. But no sooner was it 
 discovered, upon the arrival of Charles 
 in this country, that the nation was so 
 mad with present pleasure, and so reck- 
 less of future consequences, that any 
 thing might be done with them, than the 
 Chancellor changed his tone. The same 
 hand that had framed the declaration of 
 toleration, began to employ itself in 
 framing acts of the most penal nature. 
 Having persuaded the King solemnly to 
 promise liberty of conscience at Breda, 
 Clarendon had now the profligacy (for I 
 
 q See Declaration, 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 113 
 
 can call it by no other name) to per- 
 suade him to break that promise, and 
 to commence a persecution, which for 
 cruel and unrelenting severity has been 
 rarely equalled in history. Undoubtedly 
 Charles's submitting thus to be guided 
 to do evil was most disgraceful to him- 
 self; but the active part of the crime 
 entirely remains with the Chancellor; 
 for it is certain that Charles, who was 
 himself a Papist, was, generally, friendly 
 to toleration, for the sake of his own sect. 
 Neal, r in his History of the Puritans, 
 
 r The Rev. Daniel Neal, the historian of the Pro- 
 ! iters, was born in London, December 
 
 1 1th., 1678, and was educated at Merchant Taylor's 
 School. He wrote several pamphlets and sermons, 
 but his principal work is his History of the Puritans; 
 which is written with considerable ability, and, con- 
 sidering the circumstances of the author, with Bur- 
 prising impartiality. Neal died April 4th, 1743, 
 much regretted ,; by his family and friend.-, by whom 
 
 I 
 
114 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 distinctly says, " the King seemed to be 
 for concessions to the Presbyterians; 
 but the Court Bishops, with Lord Cla- 
 rendon at their head, were absolutely 
 against it: Clarendon was a man of high 
 and arbitrary principles, and gave him- 
 self up to the Bishops, for the service 
 they had done him in reconciling the 
 King to his daughter's clandestine mar- 
 riage with the Duke of York." The 
 rest of the ministry, at the head of whom 
 
 he was highly esteemed as a man of great prohity, 
 piety, and usefulness. Dr. Toulmin, in his account 
 of his Life, says of his religious tenets, that - His 
 doctrinal sentiments were supposed to come nearest ( 
 to those of Calvin; which he looked upon as most 
 agreeable to the Sacred Scriptures, and most adapted 
 to the great ends of religion. But neither were his 
 charity nor his friendships confined to men of his 
 own opinion. The Bible alone was his standard for 
 religious truth; and he was willing and desirous that 
 all others should be at perfect liberty to take and 
 follow it as their own rule." 
 
 • Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 115 
 
 was the respectable Earl of Southamp- 
 ton, were of the King's opinion. 1 They 
 pressed Clarendon to consent to an Act 
 of Toleration; and wished, by conces- 
 sions on both sides, to endeavour to re- 
 concile the Presbyterians, and the High 
 Church Party. But the Chancellor had 
 now thrown off the mask, and was de- 
 termined to make the sectaries, whom 
 he naturally Metested, feel his power. 
 
 1 Macdiarmid's Lives of British Statesmen. 
 
 u In proof of the rancorous hatred borne by Cla- 
 rendon to the Presbyterians, it is only necessary to 
 refer to various passages in his History and in his 
 Life. Such, among others, as the following sweep- 
 ing expressions : — " It is impossible for men who 
 would not be deceived, to depend upon either their 
 ingenuity or their integrity." 
 
 " Their faction is their religion: nor are those 
 combinations ever entered into upon zeal and sub- 
 stantial motives of conscience, how erroneous soever ; 
 but consist of many glutinous materials of will, and 
 humour, and folly, ami knavery, and ambition, and 
 
 malice." 
 
 i 2 
 
11G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 An excuse was soon oftered to him, 
 for commencing his severities against 
 them, in the frantic insurrection of a 
 handful of fanatics, who called them- 
 selves fifth monarchy men. Hume thus 
 relates the circumstance : 
 
 " Venner, a desperate enthusiast, who 
 had often conspired against Cromwell, 
 having, by his zealous lectures, inflamed 
 his own imagination and that of his fol- 
 lowers, issued forth with them into the 
 streets of London. They were, to the 
 number of sixty, completely armed, be- 
 lieved themselves invulnerable and in- 
 vincible, and firmly expected the same 
 fortune which had attended Gideon and 
 
 " They carry always a chagrin about them, which 
 makes them good for nothing." 
 
 " Nothing but a severe execution of the law can 
 ever prevail upon that class of men to conform to 
 government." — Continuation of Life of Edward Earl 
 of Clarendon. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 117 
 
 other heroes of the Old Testament. 
 Every one at first fled before them. One 
 unhappy man, who, being questioned, had 
 said, ' he was for God and King Charles/ 
 they instantly murdered. They went tri- 
 umphantly from street to street, every 
 where proclaiming King Jesus, who, they 
 said, was their invisible leader. At 
 length, the magistrates, having assem- 
 bled some train-bands, made an attack 
 upon them. They defended themselves 
 with great order as well as valour; and 
 after killing many of the assailants, they 
 made a regular retreat into Cane Wood, 
 near Hampstead. Next morning, they 
 were aliased thence by a detachment of 
 the Guards; but they ventured again to 
 invade the city, which was not prepared 
 to receive them. After committing great 
 disorder, and traversing almost every 
 
1 1 8 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 street of that immense capital, they shut 
 up themselves in a house, which to the 
 last extremity they were resolute to de- 
 fend. Being surrounded, and the house 
 untiled, they were fired upon from every 
 side; and they still refused quarter. 
 The people rushed in upon them, and 
 seized the few who were alive. They 
 were tried, condemned, and executed; 
 and to the last they persisted in affirm- 
 ing, that, if they were deceived, it was 
 the Lord that had deceived them." v 
 
 " Clarendon," continues Hume, " and 
 the ministry, took occasion from this 
 insurrection to infer the dangerous spirit 
 of the Presbyterians and of all the sec- 
 taries : but the madness of the attempt 
 sufficiently proved, that it had been un- 
 dertaken by no concert, and never could 
 
 * Hume's History of England, vol. vi. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 119 
 
 have proved dangerous. The well- 
 known hatred too, which prevailed be- 
 twixt the Presbyterians and the other 
 sects, should have removed the former 
 from all suspicion of any concurrence in 
 the enterprize. But, as a pretext was 
 wanted, besides their old demerits, for 
 justifying the intended rigours against 
 them, this reason, however slight, was 
 very greedily laid hold of." x 
 
 Having advanced thus far in the course 
 of premeditated persecution, the Chan- 
 cellor proceeded rapidly to the consum- 
 mation of his wishes ; and commenced 
 the modelling of his penal code. The Pres- 
 byterians-' meanwhile, many of whom 
 foresaw the storm which was about to 
 burst over their heads, were attempted 
 
 x Hume, vol. vi. 
 Neal. — Rennet's Chronicle. — Baxter's Life. 
 
120 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 to be lulled into security by the Con- 
 ference of the Savoy, which took place 
 according to the King's Declaration of 
 October 25th, 1660, between twenty- 
 one of the most eminent Presbyterian 
 divines, and an equal number of those of 
 the Established Church. This confer- 
 ence met nominally to discuss questions 
 regarding the Liturgy of the Church of 
 England, and other disputed points be- 
 tween the two Churches ; but nothing 
 of this kind was ever really meant by 
 Clarendon z to arise from it. He only 
 intended to make use of it, for the pur- 
 pose of blinding the eyes of the Pres- 
 byterians, with regard to the ulterior in- 
 tentions of government; and at the same 
 time to give to the public an appear - 
 
 * Neal. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 121 
 
 ance, as if the ministry had done all in 
 their power to conciliate the sectaries. 
 
 Shortly after the insurrection of Ven- 
 ner, the Chancellor/ in a conference 
 between the two Houses, affirmed posi- 
 tively, that there was a real conspiracy 
 against the peace of the kingdom ; and 
 that though {t was disconcerted in the 
 city, it was carried on in divers counties. 
 A committee was, therefore, appointed to 
 inquire into the truth of the report ; but 
 after all their examinations not one single 
 person was convicted, or so much as 
 prosecuted for it. b " Great pains were 
 taken to fasten some treasonable designs 
 on the Presbyterians. Letters were sent 
 from unknown hands to the chiefs of the 
 party in various parts of the kingdom, 
 
 Veal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 
 b Kennet'a Chron. — Rapin. 
 
122 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 intimating the project of a general in- 
 surrection, in which their friends were 
 concerned, and desiring them to com- 
 municate it to certain persons in their 
 neighbourhood, whom they name in their 
 letters, that they may be ready at time 
 and place. A letter of this kind was 
 directed to the Reverend Mr. Sparry, 
 in Worcestershire, desiring him and 
 Captain Yarrington to be ready with 
 money; and to acquaint Mr. Oatland 
 and Mr. Baxter with the design. This, 
 
 c Baxter Richard, the celebrated Non-conformist 
 divine ; a man who was much admired and much perse- 
 cuted in his lifetime, and has been much praised and 
 much abused since his death. Bishop Burnet seems 
 in a few words to have exactly hit off his character. 
 " He was a man of great piety ; and if he had not 
 meddled in too many things, would have been 
 esteemed one of the learned men of the age : he had 
 a very moving and pathetical way of writing, and was 
 his whole life long a man of great zeal and much 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 123 
 
 with a packet of the same kind, was 
 said to be left under a hedge by a 
 Scotch pedlar; and as soon as they were 
 found, they were carried to Sir J. 
 Packington, who immediately commit- 
 ted Sparry, Oatland, and Yarrington, 
 to prison. The militia of the county 
 was raised, and the city of Worcester 
 put into a posture of defence ; but the 
 sham was so notorious, that the Earl of 
 Bristol/ though a Papist, 6 was ashamed 
 
 simplicity ; but was most unhappily subtle and me- 
 taphysical in every thing." He wrote one hundred 
 and forty-five distinct treatises. When Boswell 
 asked Dr. Johnson which of Baxter's works he 
 should read, the latter answered, " read any of 
 them ; they are all good." The same author called 
 Baxter's reformed Liturgy, which he drew up for 
 the Savoy conference, " one of the finest composi- 
 tion of the ritual kind -he had ever seen." Baxter 
 Was horn November 12th, 1G15, and died December 
 8th, 1691. 
 
 d George Digby, second Earl of Bristol, was the 
 
124 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 of it ; and after some time, the prisoners, 
 for want of evidence, were released." f 
 
 eldest son of Earl John, the opponent of Villiers, 
 first Duke of Buckingham. He was born in Octo- 
 ber, 1612, and died March, 20th, 1676, having 
 passed a conspicuous, restless, and eccentric exist- 
 ence. He attempted to reconvert his cousin, Sir 
 Kenelm Digby, to Protestantism, who had become 
 a Roman Catholic: the issue of which controversy 
 was, that Lord Bristol adopted the religion of Sir 
 Kenelm. His character is thus sketched by Cla- 
 rendon. " The Lord Digby was a man of very ex- 
 traordinary parts by nature and art ; a graceful and 
 beautiful person ; of great eloquence and becoming- 
 ness in his discourse, (save that sometimes he seemed 
 a little affected,) and of so universal a knowledge, 
 that he never wanted subject for a discourse: hew T as 
 equal to a very good part in the greatest affairs, but 
 the unfittest man alive to conduct them, having an 
 ambition and vanity superior to all his other parts, 
 and a confidence peculiar to himself, which some- 
 times intoxicated, and transported, and exposed 
 him." Burnet says of him, " The Earl of Bristol 
 was a man of courage and learning, of a bold temper, 
 and a lively wit, but of no judgment nor steadiness. 
 When he went beyond sea, he turned Papist, but it 
 was after a way of his own : for he loved to magnify 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 125 
 
 Upon these proceedings Burnet also 
 remarks, that, though " many were 
 taken up upon these reports, none were 
 
 the difference between the Church and the Court of 
 Rome. He was esteemed a very good speaker : but 
 he was too copious, and too florid. He was at the 
 head of the Popish party, and was a violent enemy 
 of the Earl of Clarendon." Finally, Walpole de- 
 scribes him to have been " a singular person, whose 
 life was one contradiction. He wrote against Po- 
 pery, and embraced it ; he was a zealous opposer of 
 the Court, and a sacrifice for it ; was conscientiously 
 converted in the midst of his prosecution of Lord 
 Strafford, and was most unconscientiously a prose- 
 cutor of Lord Clarendon. With great parts, he al- 
 hurt himself and his friends ; with romantic 
 bravery, he was always an unsuccessful commander. 
 He spoke for the Test Act, though a Roman Catho- 
 lic, and addicted himself to astrology on the birth- 
 day of true philosophy." 
 
 e The Papists were peculiarly inimical to the Pres- 
 byterians — first, on account of old grudges; and, se- 
 condly, in the hope of turning away the attention and 
 pi Tsecuting propensities of the nation from them- 
 
 1 Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i\ 
 
120 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 ever tried for them." He then adds, 
 that it was supposed these stories of 
 plots " were forged by the direction of 
 some hot spirits, who might think such 
 arts were necessary to give an alarm, 
 and by rendering the party odious, to 
 carry so severe an act against them." 
 The act was the Act of Uniformity. He 
 says Lord Clarendon was charged with 
 having contrived these artifices ; but he 
 was inclined to think they proceeded 
 from " some foul dealing among the 
 fiercer sort." g Locke observes, that 
 " the reports of a general insurrection 
 were spread over the whole nation by 
 the very persons who invented them;" 
 while Rapin distinctly declares it to be 
 his opinion, that Lord Clarendon was 
 
 * Burnet's History of his Own Times, Oxford Edi- 
 tion, vol. i. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 127 
 
 the author of these rumours of plots ; 
 which, he adds, " were absolutely ne- 
 cessary to the High Church party to 
 serve for a foundation to what was in- 
 tended to be done." h He continues, 
 that none, " who are not prejudiced 
 by passion or party, can help thinking 
 this conspiracy" (the one examined into 
 by a Committee of both Houses) " a 
 mere invention to give some colour to 
 the Act of Uniformity. The govern- 
 ment durst not attack the Presbyterians 
 on account of their religion. The De- 
 claration from Breda was too express 
 on that article. But they were to be 
 charged with new crimes, in order to be 
 deprived of the benefit of that declara- 
 tion. They were not even accused of 
 
 11 Rapin, vol. ii. 
 
128 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 attempting to disturb the state, since 
 the Kings restoration ; but the Non- 
 conformists in general were accused, in 
 order to punish the Presbyterians, as if 
 they made but one body with the Inde- 
 pendents, Anabaptists, and Enthusiasts, 
 because to all these sects were given 
 the common name of Non-conformists." 1 
 Whereas, as we have already seen, by 
 the testimony of Hume, the separation 
 and estrangement, which existed be- 
 tween these different religionists, were 
 wide and irreconcileable. 
 
 The first fruit of the Chancellor's 
 sham conspiracies was the Corporation 
 Act, passed in 1661. It was drawn up 
 by him, and ordains, that in all cities, 
 corporations, boroughs, cinque ports, 
 
 1 Rapin, vol. ii. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 129 
 
 and other port towns in England and 
 Wales, every mayor, alderman, com- 
 mon councilman, or any other officer in 
 a corporation, shall be obliged, besides 
 the common oath of Allegiance and 
 Supremacy, and a particular declara- 
 tion against the Solemn League and 
 Covenant, to take an oath, declaring, 
 That it is not lawful, upon any pretence 
 ichatsocver, to take arms against the King ; 
 and that he does abhor that traitorous posi- 
 tion of taking arms by his authority against 
 his person, or against those commissioned 
 by him} It was also enacted by the 
 same act, that no person should here- 
 after be elected or chosen into any of 
 the offices or places aforesaid, that 
 should not have, within one year next 
 
 k Rapin. 
 
130 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 before such election or choice, taken the 
 Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, ac- 
 cording to the rites of the Church of 
 England. 1 Thus, at one blow, were 
 the Non-conformists ejected from all 
 branches of the magistracy, and in fact 
 robbed of their rights as subjects."" 1 
 Echard confesses that this oath seems at 
 once to give up the whole constitution, 
 which is also remarked by Rapin. Ano- 
 ther author says, " one would suppose 
 that the Parliament, who prescribed 
 such an oath, must have been as near- 
 sighted and as stupid as they were 
 servile and corrupt. Such a maxim 
 of non-resistance to the King, on any 
 pretence, was directly subversive of 
 their own consequence, as well as of 
 civil and religious liberty. The extent 
 
 1 Neal. m Ib. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 131 
 
 to which this principle might be carried 
 was put to the proof by James II. but 
 the people of England rent asunder the 
 chains which had been forged for them 
 by their perfidious representatives. 11 
 
 On the subject of this act it is only 
 necessary at present further to observe, 
 that the injustice of Clarendon in pro- 
 curing its enactment was not more con- 
 spicuous than the innate tyranny of his 
 nature, which dictated the oath of non- 
 resistance, or the cruelty with which 
 that and the other clauses were en- 
 forced. 
 
 The next step taken by the Chan- 
 cellor in his course of persecution, and 
 which in fact put the finishing stroke to 
 
 n Secret History of the Court and Reign of Charles 
 II. vol. i. 
 
 °Rapin. — Neah 
 
 K2 
 
132 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 the whole work, was the enactment of 
 the Act of Uniformity, also drawn up, 
 proposed, and carried through by Cla- 
 rendon. This took place in the month 
 of May, 1662, and by it every minister 
 was obliged, on pain of losing all his 
 ecclesiastical preferments, to conform to 
 the worship of the Church of England, 
 according to the new Book of Common 
 Prayer, before the Feast of St. Bartho- 
 lomew 15 next, from whence it was called 
 the Bartholomew Act. q Every minister 
 was also obliged to sign a declaration, 
 affirming his assent and consent to every 
 thing contained in and prescribed by 
 the Book of Common Prayer/ Any 
 minister also, who had not received his 
 
 » The 24th of August. 
 q Rapin, vol. ii. 
 1 lb. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. loo 
 
 ordination at the hands of a bishop, was 
 compelled to be episcopally re-ordained. 
 Every one was commanded to take the 
 oath of canonical obedience — to abjure 
 the solemn League and Covenant — and 
 to deny the lawfulness of taking arms 
 against the King, or any commissioned 
 by him, on any pretence whatsoever. 5 
 
 It was, of course, obvious from the 
 first, that the Presbyterians neither 
 could nor would submit to these provi- 
 sions. Thus, therefore, was the solemn 
 promise given by the King in his De- 
 claration from Breda, that " no man 
 should be disquieted or called in ques- 
 tion for differences of opinion in matters 
 of religion,'" entirely broken and ren- 
 dered of none effect : and thus, at the 
 
 1 Neal'i II the Puritans, vol. iv. 
 
134 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 same time, did Clarendon requite a nu- 
 merous, pious, and loyal body of men, 
 for the eminent services they had ren- 
 dered in restoring the King to the 
 throne of his ancestors. 
 
 Neal, in his History of the Puritans, 
 remarks upon this act, " that the terms 
 of conformity were by it raised higher 
 than before the civil wars ; and the 
 Common Prayer Book more exception- 
 able ; for instead of striking out the 
 Apocryphal lessons, more weire inserted, 
 as the story of Bel and the Dragon : and 
 some new holidays were added, as St. 
 Barnabas, and the Conversion of St. 
 Paul; a few alterations and new col- 
 lects were made by the bishops them- 
 selves, but care was taken, says Burnet, 
 that nothing should be altered as was 
 moved by the Presbyterians. The vali- 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 135 
 
 dity of Presbyterian ordination was re- 
 nounced, by which the ministrations of 
 the foreign churches were disowned. 
 Lecturers and schoolmasters were put 
 upon the same foot with incumbents as 
 to oaths and subscriptions. A new de- 
 claration was invented, which none who 
 understood the Constitution of England 
 could safely subscribe — and to terrify 
 the clergy into a compliance, no settled 
 provision was made for those who should 
 be deprived of their livings, but all were 
 referred to the royal clemency. A se- 
 verity, says Bishop Burnet, neither 
 practised by Queen Elizabeth in enact- 
 ing the Liturgy, nor by Cromwell in 
 ejecting the royalists ; in both which a 
 fifth of the benefice was reserved for 
 their subsistence." 1 
 
 1 NeaTs History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 
 
136 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 At length arrived the fatal St. Bartho- 
 lomew ; only three months having been 
 allowed to prepare the Presbyterians for 
 the change that was expected from them. 
 Upon this occasion about two thousand 
 ministers resigned their benefices, and 
 preferred poverty and wordly ruin with a 
 pure conscience, to affluence and dignity 
 accompanied with remorse. The pro- 
 visions of the act were executed with 
 the utmost rigour and severity; and it 
 seems as if Sheldon u Archbishop of Can- 
 
 11 Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, was 
 born July 19th, 1598. His father was, according to 
 Wood, " a menial servarit" to Gilbert Earl of Shrews- 
 bury. He was called Gilbert after that nobleman, 
 who was his godfather. At the beginning of his 
 clerical career he became domestic Chaplain to Lord 
 Keeper Coventry. In 1660 he was made Bishop of 
 London, and in 1663 Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 He died November 9th, 1677. Sheldon appears to 
 have been a man of talents and of generosity, though 
 too ostentatious in his gifts and charities; but more 
 
KESPECTING CLARENDON. J 37 
 
 terbury, who was a creature of Claren- 
 don's, was even disappointed that the 
 ejectments of ministers had not been still 
 more numerous. On its being observed 
 to him by Dr. Allen, " It is a pity the 
 door is so strait," he answered " It is no 
 
 of a politician than a churchman, and in his conduct 
 to other sects a cruel and most intolerant High 
 Priest. Burnet thus describes him ; " Sheldon was 
 esteemed a learned man before the wars : but he was 
 afterwards engaged so deep in politicks, that scarce 
 any prints of what he had been remained. He was 
 a very dexterous man in business, had a great quick- 
 ness of apprehension, and a very true judgment. 
 He was a generous and charitable man. He had a 
 gri at pleasantness of conversation, perhaps too great. 
 He had an art, that was peculiar to him, of treating 
 all that came to him in a most obliging manner : but 
 
 depend* d much on his professions of friendship. 
 He seemed not to have a deep sense of religion, if any 
 at all: and spoke of it most commonly as of an en- 
 gine of government, and a matter of policy. By this 
 means the King (Charles II.) came to look upon him 
 
 wise and honest clergyman, though he had little 
 virtue, and less n ligion." 
 
138 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 pity at all, if we had thought so many of 
 them would have conformed, we would have 
 made it straiter."* A sentiment certainly- 
 worthy of the supporter of such a mea- 
 sure ! 
 
 But though the barbarity of the High 
 Church Divines sanctioned Clarendon in 
 his intolerant and oppressive measures, 
 the feeling of the nation was against 
 him. The ministers dispossessed were, 
 according to Locke, " worthy, learned, 
 pious, orthodox divines," distinguished 
 by their zeal and abilities, and conse- 
 quently much regretted by the people : 
 and the more so, because those who 
 were put in to supply their places, were 
 frequently the very reverse of their 
 predecessors/ Even the colleagues of 
 Clarendon in the ministry were against 
 
 x Neal. y Burnet. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 139 
 
 his proceedings; especially Lord South- 
 ampton, who, though his strenuous 
 friend, openly dissented from him on 
 this occasion; and declared that if such 
 an oath as that exacted from the Clergy 
 were to be imposed upon the laity, he 
 for one would refuse to take it. z 
 
 Though the passing of these two laws, 
 the Corporation Act and the Act of 
 Uniformity, had crushed the power of 
 the Presbyterians, and reduced great 
 numbers of their clergy to destitution 
 and misery, the Chancellor was by no 
 means contented, because the laity 
 among the sectaries had thus far escaped 
 persecution. To remedy this omission, 
 he, in 1GG4, incited the House of Com- 
 mons to pass an Act, which has been 
 
 • Macdiarmid's Lives of British Statesmen, vol. ii. 
 
140 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 since knwn by the name of The Con- 
 venticle Act. 
 
 By this Act/ any person above the 
 age of sixteen, being present at any 
 Meeting or Conventicle, under colour 
 or pretence of any exercise of religion in 
 other manner than according to the 
 Liturgy or practice of the Church of 
 England, where should be present five 
 or more persons than the household, was 
 made liable, for the first offence to a fine 
 of £5, or three months' imprisonment. If 
 the offender was a peer, the penalty was 
 f 10. The second offence was visited 
 with a fine of £10, or six months' impri- 
 sonment; and £20 for a peer: — and the 
 third, with transportation to the Planta- 
 tions, after a trial by jury, or of a peer 
 
 a Rapin. — Neal. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 141 
 
 by his peers, unless a fine of £100 was 
 paid. In case the culprits returned 
 from transportation, they were to be 
 adjudged felons, and to suffer death 
 without benefit of clergy. Sheriffs or 
 Justices of the Peace, or others commis- 
 sioned by them, were empowered to dis- 
 solve, dissipate, and break up all unlaw- 
 ful conventicles, and to take into cus- 
 tody those among the congregation whom 
 they thought fit. Those persons who 
 suffered conventicles to be held in their 
 houses or barns were liable to the same 
 forfeitures as other offenders. Married 
 women taken at conventicles were to be 
 imprisoned for twelve months, unless 
 their husbands paid forty shillings for 
 their redemption. Such were the prin- 
 cipal provisions of this most infamous 
 law, which was contrived by Clarendon, 
 
142 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 and carried into execution by him, with 
 the aid of a bigoted and violent House 
 of Commons, against the wishes of his 
 colleagues in office, and of the King 
 himself. The melancholy consequences 
 of the Conventicle Act to the Presbyte- 
 rians, and the cruel treatment they expe- 
 rienced under the provisions of it, are 
 thus described by Neal. 
 
 " This Act was a terrible scourge over 
 the laity, put into the hands of a single 
 justice of the peace, without the verdict 
 of a jury, the oath of the informer being 
 sufficient. By virtue of it the jails in 
 the several counties were quickly filled 
 with Dissenting Protestants, while the 
 Papists were covered under the wing of 
 the prerogative. Some of the Ministers, 
 who went to church in sermon time, 
 were disturbed for preaching to a few of 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 143 
 
 their parishioners after the public service 
 was over; their houses were broke open, 
 and their hearers taken into custody; 
 warrants were issued out for levying 
 £20 on the minister, £20 upon the house, 
 and five shillings upon each hearer. If 
 the money was not immediately paid, 
 there was a seizure of their effects, the 
 goods and wares were taken out of the 
 shops ; and in the country, cattle were 
 driven away and sold for half the value. 
 If the seizure did not answer the fine, 
 the minister and people were hurried to 
 prison, and held under close confinement 
 for three or six months. The trade of 
 an informer began to be very gainful, 
 by the encouragement of the spiritual 
 courts. At every Quarter-Sessions se- 
 veral were fined for not coming to church, 
 and others excommunicated: nay, some 
 
144 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 have been sentenced to abjure the realm, 
 and fined in a sum much larger than all 
 they were worth in the world." b 
 
 " Before the Conventicle Act took place 
 the laity were courageous, and exhorted 
 their ministers to preach till they went 
 to prison ; but when it came home to 
 themselves, and they had been once in 
 jail, they began to be more cautious, 
 and consulted among themselves how to 
 avoid the edge of the law in the best 
 manner they could ; for this purpose 
 their assemblies were frequently held 
 at midnight, and in the most private 
 places ; and yet, notwithstanding all 
 their caution, they were frequently dis- 
 turbed ; but it is remarkable, that under 
 all their hardships they never made the 
 
 b Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 
 Baxter's Life. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 145 
 
 least resistance, but went quietly along 
 with the soldiers or officers, when they 
 could not fly from them. The distress 
 of so many families made some confine 
 themselves within their own houses, 
 some remove themselves to the planta- 
 tions, and others have recourse to occa- 
 sional conformity, to avoid the penalty 
 for not coming to church." d 
 
 " So great was the severity of these 
 times, and the arbitrary proceedings of 
 the justices, that many were afraid to 
 pray in their families, if above four of 
 their acquaintance, who came only to 
 visit them, were present. Some families 
 scrupled asking a blessing on their meat 
 if five strangers were at table. In Lon- 
 don, where the houses join, it was 
 
 d "Seal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 
 I 
 
14G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 thought the law might be evaded if the 
 people met in several houses, and heard 
 the minister through a window or hole 
 in the wall ; but it seems this was over- 
 ruled, the determination being (as has 
 been observed) in the breast of a single 
 mercenary justice of peace." e 
 
 But, however harsh and relentless was 
 the manner, in which the regulations of 
 the law against conventicles were put in 
 force, it by no means satisfied the Chan- 
 cellor; whose capacity of persecution 
 appears to have been fully worthy of 
 those better clays, when the fires of 
 Smithfield were lighted against heresy. 
 " This Bill," he observes in his own life, 
 " was looked upon as the greatest dis- 
 countenance the Parliament had yet 
 given to all the factions in religion, and 
 if it had been vigorously executed, would 
 e Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 147 
 
 no doubt have produced a thorough re- 
 formation." f 
 
 Rapin says, the reason of " the ex- 
 treme rigour of this act, was not so 
 much to punish the pretended transgres- 
 sions of the Presbyterians, as to drive 
 them to despair, that they might render 
 themselves guilty indeed." 5 If this was 
 indeed the Chancellor's barbarous and 
 horrible intention, his memory ought to 
 be doubly hateful to every just and 
 honourable mind. And that some such 
 motive actuated him is surely obvious 
 from the following circumstances. — 
 
 1st. That this act was but one link in a 
 chain of premeditated persecution, which 
 was neither called for by the circum- 
 
 f Continuation of the Life of Edward Earl of Cla- 
 rendon. 
 * Rapin's History of England, vol. ii. 
 
 l2 
 
148 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 stances of the times, nor by the disposi- 
 tions of the court. 2dly. That it was 
 directed most particularly against that 
 peculiar body of dissenters, who were 
 the most orderly and the best subjects 
 of all the sectaries ; and who had, at the 
 late restoration, given proofs of the 
 greatest loyalty. 3dly. That the vexa- 
 tious severity, with which the provisions 
 of the act were put in force, could evi- 
 dently answer no purpose but that of 
 irritating the victims of it to madness, 
 and thereby inciting them to acts of in- 
 subordination and rebellion. 
 
 The following year (1665) the Chan- 
 cellor completed his penal code by the 
 enactment of the Five Mile Act. This was 
 a measure of the most vexatious cruelty, 
 and intended by Clarendon to deprive 
 the non-conformist ministers of the very 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 149 
 
 means of subsistence, by separating 
 them from their friends, and from those 
 to whom they were known. By it, no h 
 non-conformist teacher, under what de- 
 nomination soever, was allowed to dwell 
 or come, unless upon the road, within 
 five miles of any corporation or any other 
 place where he had been minister, or 
 had preached, after the Act of Oblivion, 
 unless he first took the following oath. 
 I do swear that it is not lawful upon any 
 pretence whatsoever to take arms against 
 the King ; and that I do abhor the traitor- 
 ous position of taking arms by his autho- 
 rity against his person, or against those 
 that are commissioned by him, in pursuance 
 of such commissions ; and that I will not at 
 any time endeavour any alteration of govern- 
 ment either in church or state. The for- 
 h Rapin. 
 
150 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 feiture for each offence was the sum of 
 forty pounds, one-third of which was to 
 go to the King, another third to the poor, 
 and a third to the informer. It was 
 further enacted, that such as should 
 refuse the oath aforesaid, should be 
 incapable of teaching any public or pri- 
 vate schools, or of taking any boarders 
 to be taught or instructed, under pain of 
 the same fine. Any two justices of 
 peace, upon oath made before them of 
 any offence committed against this act, 
 were empowered to commit the offender 
 to prison for six months, without bail or 
 mainprize. 1 
 
 An anonymous author before quoted 
 observes upon this act, " that it seemed 
 to be the last step in the climax of into- 
 lerance ; for to deprive men of the means 
 
 i Neal. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 151 
 
 of subsistence implies more deliberate 
 cruelty, though it does not excite so 
 much horror, as fire and faggots. " J 
 
 Rapin, who strongly reprobates the 
 Five Mrle Act, tells us, that it met with 
 great opposition in the House of Lords, 
 even from the Earl of Southampton, 
 Lord Treasurer, though the intimate 
 friend of Lord Clarendon, the principal 
 author of the persecution against the 
 non-conformists. k Southampton, in his 
 place in the House, declared that, " it 
 enforced an unlawful and unjustifiable 
 oath, which no honest man could take.'' 1 
 The Lords Wharton and Ashley, and Dr. 
 Earl, Bishop of Salisbury," 1 also vehe- 
 mently opposed the bill ; but Lord Cla- 
 
 j Secret History of the Reign of Charles II., 
 vol. ii. 
 
 k Rapin, vol. ii. — Burnet. — Echard. 
 
 1 I Fume. — NeaL ■ Neal. 
 
152 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 rendon and the rest of the bishops, toge- 
 ther with most of the secret favourers of 
 popery, n (who hoped, by turning public 
 indignation against the Protestant secta- 
 ries, to direct it from their own religion,) 
 were too strong for them, and it passed 
 triumphantly ; and on the 31st of Octo- 
 ber, 1665, received the royal assent. 
 
 " The great body of the non-con- 
 formist ministers," as had been expected, 
 " refused to take the oath, choosing 
 rather to forsake their habitations, their 
 relations and friends, and all visible sup- 
 port, than destroy the peace of their 
 consciences. Those ministers who had 
 some little estate or substance of their 
 own, retired to some remote or obscure 
 villages, or such little market-towns as 
 were not corporations, and more than 
 
 n Burnet. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 153 
 
 five miles from the places where they 
 had preached; but in many counties it 
 was difficult to find such places of retire- 
 ment ; for either there were no houses 
 untenanted, or they were annexed to 
 farms, which the ministers were not 
 capable of using ; or the people were 
 afraid to admit the ministers into their 
 houses, lest they should be suspected as 
 favourers of non-conformity. Some 
 took advantage of the ministers' neces- 
 sities, and raised their rents beyond 
 what they could afford to give. Great 
 numbers were thus buried in obscurity ; 
 while others, who had neither money nor 
 friends, went on preaching as they 
 could, till they were sent to prison, 
 thinking it more eligible to perish in a 
 jail than to starve out of one; especially 
 ° Baxter- Life, —Burnet. 
 
154 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 when by this means they had some 
 occasional relief from their hearers, and 
 hopes that their wives and children 
 might be supported after their deaths 
 Many who lay concealed in distant 
 places from their flocks in the day-time, 
 rode thirty or forty miles to preach to 
 them in the night, and retired again be- 
 fore day-light. These hardships tempted 
 some few to conform (says Mr. Baxter) 
 contrary to their former judgments; 
 but the body of dissenters remained 
 steadfast to their principles, and the 
 church gained neither reputation nor 
 numbers. The informers were very dili- 
 gent in hunting after their game ; and 
 the soldiers and officers behaved with 
 great rudeness and violence. When 
 they missed of the ministers, they went 
 
 p Baxter's Life. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 155 
 
 into the barns and out-houses, and some- 
 times thrust their swords up to the 
 hilts in the hay and straw, where they 
 supposed they might lie concealed ; 
 they made havoc of their goods, and ter- 
 rified the women and children almost 
 out of their lives." q 
 
 " And, as if the judgments of heaven 
 upon this nation were not heavy enough, 
 nor the legislature sufficiently severe, 
 the bishops must throw their weight 
 into the scale ; for, in the very midst of 
 the plague, July 7th, 1665, Archbishop 
 Sheldon sent orders to the several 
 bishops of his province to return the 
 names of all ejected non-conformist 
 ministers, with their places of abode and 
 manner of life ; and the returns of the 
 several bishops are still in the Lambeth 
 
 1 NeaTs History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 
 
15G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 Library. The design of this inquiry was 
 to gird the laws closer upon the dis- 
 senters, and to know by what means 
 they earned their bread : and if this 
 tender-hearted archbishop could have 
 had his will, they must have starved, or 
 sought a livelihood in foreign countries." 1 * 
 It was computed that sixty thousand per- 
 sons suffered on a religious account 
 under these persecutions, and that of 
 this number Jive thousand perished in 
 prison. 8 
 
 In speaking of the series of penal 
 acts, which we have been just enumera- 
 ting, Hume in conclusion observes, 
 " had not the spirit of the nation under- 
 gone a change, these violences were 
 preludes to the most violent persecu- 
 
 r Neal's History of the Puritans, vol, iv. 
 8 Godwin's Lives of the Philips's. — Jeremiah 
 White's Collection. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 157 
 
 tion."* The change the spirit of the 
 nation underwent was caused by the 
 disgrace and banishment of Clarendon in 
 1G67. " It was a great ease that befel 
 good men by his fall/' says Baxter, 
 M for his way was to decoy men into 
 conspiracies, or pretended plots, and 
 upon those rumours innocent people 
 were laid in prison, so that no man 
 knew when he was safe ; whereas since 
 his time, though the laws have been 
 made more severe, yet men are more 
 safe.' u It is impossible to afford a 
 greater proof of the vexatious tyranny of 
 Lord Clarendons administration, than 
 may be derived from an attentive consi- 
 deration of the foregoing extract. Bax- 
 ter, who wrote it, was himself a contem- 
 
 1 Hume's History, vol vi. 
 u Baxter's Life. 
 
158 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 porary and a sufferer; and in those 
 capacities he delivers it as his deliberate 
 opinion, that, though after the Chancel- 
 lor's fall the laws themselves were made 
 more harsh, they were more tolerable to 
 live under, because no longer executed 
 by his unrelenting and implacable hand. 
 
 I shall conclude the account of the 
 Chancellor's religious persecutions in the 
 impressive words of two writers of emi- 
 nence. 
 
 " The author of the Declaration of 
 Breda, and of the repeated violations of 
 the faith of that declaration towards all 
 persons dissenting from the Church of 
 England and the liturgy, was the Earl 
 of Clarendon. By a singular destiny 
 all the folly, the impolicy, and the guilt 
 of his administration, has been swallowed 
 up in his character as an historian ; and 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 159 
 
 in consideration of his having enriched 
 the world with an admirable narrative 
 of the adversities of Charles L, posterity 
 have been inclined to forgive him all the 
 enormities he perpetrated as first minister 
 of Charles II." v " His lordship was 
 undoubtedly a person of very consider- 
 able abilities, which have been suf- 
 ficiently celebrated by his admirers, but 
 I have not been able to discover any 
 great or generous exploits for the service 
 of the public ; and how far his conduct 
 with regard to the non-conformists was 
 consistent with humanity, religion, or 
 honour, must be left with the reader. " w 
 In order to give additional testimony 
 of the power and arrogance* of the 
 
 v Godvi u - of the Philips's. 
 
 w Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 
 
 x Rapid says of him, " that his behaviour was 
 vou^h, and always too haughty." 
 
160 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 Chancellor, as they appeared to his con- 
 temporaries, it will now be necessary to 
 return to Pepys's Diary, and to state his 
 account of two conversations he held 
 with Mr. Povy and Sir William Coventry. 
 In June, 1667, Mr. Povy y tells him, 
 u That the Duke of York's marriage 
 hath undone the kingdom, by making the 
 Chancellor so great above reach, who 
 otherwise would have been but an ordi- 
 nary man to have been dealt with by 
 other people ; and he would have been 
 careful of managing things well, for fear 
 of being called to account ; whereas now 
 he is secure, and hath let things run to 
 rack, as they now appear." z 
 
 y Mr. Povy, according to the noble Editor of 
 Pepys's Diary, was named Thomas Povy ; was 
 Member of Parliament for Bossiney in 1658 ; and 
 subsequently Treasurer for Tangier. 
 
 7 Pepy's Diary, vol, ii. Mr. Povy again delivers 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 161 
 
 In September of the same year 
 Pepys, in a conversation with Sir Wil- 
 liam Coventry, a says to him, " I did 
 
 the same opinion in a subsequent conversation with 
 Pep; 
 
 a Sir William Coventry was, according to the uni- 
 versal testimony of his contemporaries, a very emi- 
 nent man. Sir William Temple in his Memoirs says, 
 " Sir William Coventry had the most credit of any 
 man in the House of Commons, and I think the most 
 deservedly." Burnet calls him " a man of great 
 notions and eminent virtues, and the best speaker in 
 the House of Commons," and adds, that when he 
 knew him, " he had become a very religious man." 
 Pepys omits no opportunity of praising him ; and 
 Lord Dartmouth observes, " that he was the most 
 esteemed and beloved of any courtier that ever sat 
 in the House of Commons, where his word always 
 passed for an undoubted truth without further in- 
 quiry : which the Duke of Buckingham would have 
 had him make use of to deceive them, upon which 
 Coventry challenged him." The Duke of Buck- 
 ingham, as it is well known, was not of a fighting 
 disposition, and he therefore got Coventry forbid the 
 court. Upon this he retired to Minster Lovel in 
 Oxfordshire ; and passed the rest of his days in 
 tranquil retirement, refusing all places that were 
 M 
 
162 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 then desire to know, what was the great 
 matter that grounded his desire of the 
 Chancellor's removal ? He told me 
 many things not fit to be spoken, and 
 yet not any thing of his being unfaithful 
 to the King, but, instar omnium, he told 
 me that while he was so great at the Council 
 Board, and in the administration of matters, 
 there was no room for any body to propose 
 any remedy to what was amiss, or to com- 
 pass any thing, though ever so good for the 
 kingdom, unless approved by the Chan- 
 cellor, he managing all things with that 
 
 subsequently offered to him. He was the fourth 
 and youngest son of Thomas, first Lord Coventry, 
 and sometime Lord Keeper. He was long a Member 
 of Parliament. On the Restoration he was made 
 Secretary to the Duke of York ; in 1662 he was a 
 Commissioner of the Admiralty; in 1665 he was 
 Knighted, and sworn of the Privy Council ; in 1667 
 he was made one of the Commissioners of the 
 Treasury. He died June 23d, 1686, at Somerhill 
 near Tunbridge. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 163 
 
 greatness which will now be removed* that 
 the King may have the benefit of others' 
 advice." 
 
 Here we close the case against Lord 
 Clarendon upon the score of his corrupt 
 and rapacious practices, of his cruel and 
 tyrannical measures ; but there are one 
 or two other points in his character, one 
 or two other acts of his life, which ought 
 to be mentioned, though they do not 
 come precisely under these heads. 
 They are, his encouragement of the 
 attempts to assassinate Cromwell ; the 
 act he passed upon the subject of the 
 religion of Charles II. ; and the blas- 
 phemous comparison he makes in his 
 History in speaking of the execution of 
 
 b The King had taken the Great Seal from him on 
 the 13th of August. 
 
 Pepys'a Diary, vol. ii. 
 
 y 2 
 
1G4 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 the first Charles. The first will tend to 
 show how little scrupulous he was of 
 the means he employed to compass his 
 ends — the second displays in its full 
 perfection the crooked policy of the 
 thorough-paced politician — while the 
 third gives us some notion of the degree 
 of respect for religion entertained by this 
 pretended patron of the Protestant faith. 
 We find abundant proofs in the col- 
 lection of the Clarendon State Papers, 
 published at Oxford in 1786, of the 
 connivance of the Chancellor in the 
 bloody designs of some of the more un- 
 principled cavaliers to murder Cromwell. 
 Indeed, it appears that a regular account 
 of the proceedings of these ruffians was 
 sent to him, and that they were incited 
 by him to persevere in them. It is not 
 by any means impossible that he may 
 even have been himself the author of 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 165 
 
 some of these brilliant schemes ; at all 
 events it is evident, from the style of the 
 different letters addressed to him upon 
 the subject, that he did not in any way 
 discourage them. 
 
 On the 27th of January, 1657, Captain 
 Titus/ under the name of Mr. Jennings, 
 
 - c Silas Titus was the author of the celebrated 
 Pamphlet entitled " Killing no murder," of which 
 the object was to incite persons to the assassination 
 of Cromwell. Titus, as we have seen in the text, 
 did not confine his attempts against Cromwell's life 
 to his pen. Clarendon, apparently at the Restoration, 
 quarrelled with his former tool Titus, perhaps left 
 him unrewarded ; for he is mentioned by Sir Peter 
 Pett, in a letter to Anthony A v Wood, as one of the 
 Chancellor's opponents in Parliament. He was a 
 mere adventurer, and served at different periods of 
 his life all sides and all parties. Swift says, " he 
 was the greatest rogue in England," which is not dif- 
 ficult to be believed. He was born about 1622, and 
 died some time during the reign of William III. 
 He was first a Captain in the Parliament army ; 
 afterwards Groom of the Bed-chamber to Charles 
 II. : a great supporter of Titus Oates and the 
 Popish Plot: and subsequently made a Privy Coun- 
 
166 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 writes thus from Antwerp to Sir Edward 
 Hyde. 
 
 " Never was any thing more unhap- 
 pily prevented than the killing Crom- 
 well the first day of the Parliament, and 
 I find the relation Saxby e made of that 
 business was true, for Major Wood was 
 a spectator. All things were as well 
 prepared as was imaginable, and Major 
 General Brown resolved, had it taken 
 effect, to engage ; since that time, those 
 that were to do it have grown cold, and 
 
 cillor by James II. He was long a Member of the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 c Saxby was an adventurer, who appears to have 
 volunteered his services through Father Talbot, to 
 murder Cromwell. But, though he did not shrink 
 from crime, he seems to have been peculiarly fanciful 
 and nice in smaller matters, for Father Talbot, in his 
 letter to Charles in the Clarendon State Papers, 
 dated November 22d, 1656, begs that he maybe 
 excused, when presented to the King, from kneeling, 
 " which," he says, " he thinks to be a sort of 
 idolatry!" 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. I ()7 
 
 could never agree of the way ; but 
 Major Wood is very confident, that had 
 not Saxby come away, the business had 
 been done long since, and I cannot but 
 be of the same opinion. However, there 
 is yet no disorder in the affair, and 
 Saxby is resolved to prosecute it, and 
 speedily to put things to a trial ; and to 
 that purpose he is preparing to go sud- 
 denly for England, and Major Wood 
 with him, and I believe Massey and 
 Jennings will not stay long behind them. 
 I am most importunely interrupted, and 
 am forced to break off, and therefore 
 crave your pardon till the next post."' 
 
 The same personage again writes to 
 him on the 3d of February. 
 
 " I shall now give you a fuller ac- 
 
 Clarendon State Papers, vol, iii 
 
168 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 count of this unlucky business than yes- 
 terday I had time to do. I shall not 
 trouble you much with my opinion con- 
 cerning it, because it is so easy and 
 common to find faults when things have 
 miscarried, and not very ingenuous to 
 judge of things, and censure them by 
 the effects. But as far as I can see into 
 the matter, this powder plot required 
 too much time, too many persons, and 
 was subject to too many accidents to be 
 carried on with any reasonable hopes 
 that it should succeed. Saxby and 
 Major Wood were of the same opinion; 
 but Wildman was opinionated in the 
 business, and his authority prevailed. 
 And by a letter of his he seems to insi- 
 nuate, that this was not only intended 
 to destroy Cromwell, but if he should 
 chance to escape, the setting Whitehall 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 169 
 
 on fire was to be the watchword to a 
 rising; but this leaves us still in good 
 hopes that Cecill, that discovered all, 
 never did know Saxby, Wildman, or 
 who Major Wood was, but only came 
 in upon the score and confidence of 
 him, that, as they say, hath suffered for 
 it? Vg 
 
 Again, on the 17th of the same month, 
 he writes as follows : — 
 
 u It seems this plot was not disco- 
 vered by Cecill as we heard, but by 
 one of Cromwell's life-guards, whom 
 Cecill had made privy to it, upon a con- 
 fidence he had, that being a discon- 
 tented person, he would have assisted in 
 it. This fellow betraying Cecill, Cecill 
 immediately confessed all he knew, and 
 
 ? Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. 
 
170 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 more. Upon this Syndercombe was 
 apprehended, who singly beat the guard 
 that was sent to apprehend him, and 
 made them cry out murther ; but at last 
 one getting behind him cut off his nose, 
 and so they took him. No man can be- 
 have himself with greater resolution than 
 he hath done, and we are confident will 
 do ; and then the discovery can be made 
 no farther. Wildman hath assured 
 Saxby that all things were so disposed, 
 that had it not been discovered, Crom- 
 well had not lived that night/' h 
 
 On the 15th of March he writes from 
 Breda — " Sir, I had long before now 
 prevented yours of the 7th, but that I 
 had nothing worth your trouble. Saxby 
 came with me to this place, and is since 
 gone to Amsterdam, from whence I have 
 
 h Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 171 
 
 not yet heard from him, but daily ex- 
 pect a summons to meet him. I believe 
 that immediately upon his return he 
 will go for England, and I am confident 
 that he will either procure Cromwell's 
 death or his own, for I know he goes as 
 much resolved in that purpose as any 
 man can do ; and I know if any man can 
 have opportunity to effect it he will. 
 And Major Wood assures me, that had 
 not Saxby come out of England when 
 he did, the business had not been now 
 to do. This thing in effect is all I can 
 persuade myself to rely upon ; for that 
 Saxby should be able by his interest to 
 divide the army, and to get a party con- 
 siderable enough to oppose Cromwell 
 by force, I have not any proportion of 
 faith to believe.' 1 
 
 1 Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. 
 
172 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 Father Peter Talbot, a Catholic priest, 
 deeply engaged in the plots against 
 Cromwell, and who, it appears, intro- 
 duced the assassin Saxby to the notice 
 of the King and of Clarendon, writes 
 thus from Ghent to the latter, on the 
 18th of August, 1657:— 
 
 " I have had a relation of Colonel 
 Saxby 's ill fortune, he was betrayed 
 both in Holland and England; and 
 though Cromwell should poison him, 
 the business is not yet lost, though the 
 loss of his person be great. There are 
 endeavours from divers parties to cut 
 Cromwell off, as I suppose you know 
 better than L" k 
 
 The death, by natural means, of Oli- 
 ver Cromwell, on the 3d of September, 
 
 k Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 173 
 
 1G58, prevented the Chancellor from 
 assisting in the perpetration of the crime, 
 which it is proved by these documents, 
 he had concurred in meditating. The 
 guilt of intention however rests with him 
 in the clearest and most satisfactory 
 manner. This is acknowledged even, 
 and deplored, by his panegyrist Mac- 
 diarmid, who says, — " It is not to be 
 concealed that even Hyde encouraged 
 the attempts of Captain Titus and others 
 to assassinate Cromwell. To such a 
 degree do men reconcile themselves to 
 the worst means, when they are eagerly 
 bent on the end, that even this consci- 
 entious minister, in his devotion to the 
 rights of the King, forgot what was due 
 to the rights of human nature." 1 
 
 1 Macdiarmid'a Lives of British Statesmen, vol. ii. 
 
174 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 At the time of the Restoration Claren- 
 don was certainly aware that Charles II. 
 was a Roman Catholic ; and therefore 
 had he been the good Protestant he af- 
 fected to be ; had he had the welfare of 
 the Reformed religion, or indeed of the 
 country, as much at heart as he pro- 
 fessed, so far from assisting to restore 
 Charles, he would have insisted upon his 
 being excluded. At all events he would 
 have stated what he knew upon the 
 subject of his religion, and then left 
 the people to make their own choice. 
 Instead of this he carefully concealed 
 the fact, but passed an act in July, 
 1661, by which he made " any man 
 who should maliciously or advisedly 
 publish or affirm that his Majesty was a 
 Papist™ liable to all the severe penalties 
 
 m Rapin. 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 175 
 
 of a praemunire." n That is to say, he 
 inflicted a most unjust punishment upon 
 any one who should say what he, Cla- 
 rendon, who made the law, knew to be 
 true. This may be thought a small cir- 
 cumstance, but it surely shows the 
 unjust, the unconstitutional, and the 
 crooked policy of Clarendon in the 
 strongest and most remarkable light. 
 
 I now come to the last point to which 
 I shall have to call the attention of the 
 reader: namely, the Chancellor's com- 
 parison of the martyrdoms of our blessed 
 Saviour and of Charles I. In his His- 
 tory, when speaking of the execution of 
 King, he has this sentence, " The pro- 
 nouncing that horrible sentence upon 
 the most innocent person in the world, 
 
176 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 and the execution of that sentence by 
 the most execrable murder that was ever 
 committed since that of our blessed Sa- 
 viour." 
 
 Upon this passage Warburtons obser- 
 vation is, " nothing can excuse this in- 
 decent reference in a pious man like the 
 noble historian." 9 Had Clarendon been 
 " a pious man" he certainly would never 
 have made the remark; nor would it 
 even have entered into his head to do 
 so. Thousands, tens of thousands of 
 men more innocent than the tyrannical 
 Charles q have been put to death, with- 
 
 ° Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, Oxford 
 Edition, vol. vi. 
 
 p Extracted from Bishop Warburton's curious 
 Notes on Lord Clarendon's History, published in the 
 last edition of that work. 
 
 q I beg it to be understood, that though I apply the 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 177 
 
 out their executions being likened to 
 that of the Saviour of mankind. It 
 shows either a most perverted intellect, 
 or the grossest ignorance of the religion 
 of the New Testament to have even 
 thought of making such an allusion. 1 
 
 epithet " tyrannical" to Charles, I am by no means 
 prepared to go the length of justifying his execution 
 by the Parliament. But that when he had power, he 
 fully justified the charge of tyranny, no impartial 
 man can, I think, deny. 
 
 r The University of Oxford were guilty of a similar 
 act of irreverence. They had two portraits made of 
 Christ and of Charles I. exactly similar in every re- 
 spect, and with an account of the sufferings of each at 
 the bottom of his respective likeness. These pictures, 
 in the memory of persons now alive, were hung as 
 pendants to one another in the Bodleian Library. The 
 improved taste of the present day lias caused one to 
 be removed into the Picture Gallery. The other re- 
 mains in its old position — and thus both may still be 
 examined by those who are curious in tracing the 
 baseness and blasphemy of the supporters in old 
 times of the doctrines of passive obedience. 
 
17B HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 
 
 And yet this is the man who is held up 
 by some historians to all posterity as the 
 champion of Christianity. That he re- 
 stored the Church to its possessions, 
 and the bishops to their seats in the 
 House of Lords, is undoubtedly true, 
 because he regarded them as a useful 
 state engine, and intimately connected 
 with a monarchical form of government : 
 But this is a very different thing from 
 his having been himself a sincere Chris- 
 tian ; which the whole tenor of his life 
 would indeed lead us to doubt. His 
 conduct to the sectaries, which has been 
 already related, proves that he was far 
 from being actuated by the mild and 
 forgiving tenets of the Gospel, and the 
 comparison just quoted, though it may 
 be deemed at first sight of small import- 
 ance, is surely an additional evidence 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 179 
 
 how little he was really acquainted with 
 the subject. 
 
 Having said thus much upon the dif- 
 ferent points which it w r as my wish and 
 intention to bring before the notice of the 
 public, I deem it fair to add, that, though 
 my decided conviction is that Clarendon 
 was all that I have stated, I am by no 
 means disposed to deny that he had 
 merits : that in private life his conduct 
 was good : that as a minister he was (as 
 indeed I have before stated) more de- 
 cent, and probably more conscientious 
 than his successors : and that, in point 
 of talents, he was one of the very first 
 men of his age. These subjects, how- 
 ever, do not come in detail within the 
 scope of my plan, narrowed, as it pro- 
 ed to be at the commencement of 
 these pages, to the elucidation of parti- 
 N 2 
 
180 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES. 
 
 cular circumstances in the life and cha- 
 racter of the Chancellor, hitherto but 
 little noticed by his biographers. 
 
 Thus have been laid before the reader 
 the various authorities, facts, and state- 
 ments of circumstantial evidence, which 
 have led the author of these pages to the 
 following conclusions : — 
 
 That the strongest suspicions attach 
 to the character of Lord Clarendon upon 
 the score of rapacious and corrupt prac- 
 tices; and that it is evident, that such 
 was the general opinion of his contem- 
 poraries. 
 
 That his measures against the secta- 
 ries were of a most cruel and tyrannical 
 nature. 
 
 That various circumstances of differ- 
 ent kinds favour very strongly the belief 
 of his having been an unconstitutional, 
 
RESPECTING CLARENDON. 181 
 
 and, in some respects, an unprincipled 
 politician, whose religion was also, pro- 
 bably, more of a political kind than any 
 thing else. 
 
 And lastly, that his character has 
 been unjustly favoured by historians 
 from various motives — for party pur- 
 poses ; from pity for his subsequent 
 misfortunes ; from admiration of his ta- 
 lents, and especially of his historical 
 work ; and from a just dislike and con- 
 tempt of his successors. 
 
 Whether the public will agree in these 
 conclusions remains to be seen. Per- 
 haps the author is too sanguine, but he 
 cannot help hoping that those, who 
 bring an impartial mind to the consider- 
 ation of the subject, will allow that he 
 has some ground for his opinions. If 
 he has been in error in any of his state- 
 
182 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES, &C. 
 
 ments, (which he trusts and believes is 
 not the case) he hopes in some measure, 
 at least, to be forgiven, in consideration 
 of his endeavours to be accurate, which 
 he can truly say have been unintermit- 
 ting. To quote from works of authority ; 
 to trouble the world with as little of his 
 own reflections as possible, and at the 
 same time to redress certain errors in 
 history, have been his objects; and if 
 he shall be deemed by the intelligent 
 part of mankind in any degree to have 
 accomplished them, he shall feel himself 
 amply rewarded for his labours. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 1RINTFD BY C. ROWORTH, BELL YAIld, 
 TEMPLE BAR. 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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