We have thus seen how Clarendon was driven along, against all his better judgment, in spite of all his remonstrances, by an insane current of warlike frenzy, amidst which his warnings were unheard, and where a small clique exploited the prevalent commercial jealousies, as a means of bringing satisfaction to their own selfish schemes of greed and ambition. We have seen how he strove vainly to moderate international hatred, to compose topics of quarrel, and to bring about a pacific settlement. We have noted his efforts to obtain alliances with, or at least neutrality on the part of, neighbouring Powers, and how cautiously he watched each movement of France, whose adhesion to England's foes might be so full of danger. We have learned his estimate of the cost, and how fully he realized that for the Crown to enter on war without ample supplies, was the certain precursor of a new Parliamentary struggle more keen and more fatal than the last; and we have seen how he managed, in spite of opposition at Court, to secure an unprecedented grant. We have seen how convinced he was of the corruption and mismanagement of the navy, and with what thoughtless lack of preparation we were entering upon a fierce struggle with a foe that fought for very life. We have seen how, even at the entry upon the war, Clarendon found that no remonstrances of his could prevent a huge asset, in the prizes of war, being handed over to a corrupt clique, to be dissipated in grants that were at once illegal in method, and degrading in effect. The incidents of the war do not belong to Clarendon's life, except as they presented new problems for statesmanship, or gave opportunities for attempting accommodation.

At the opening of the war, and in spite of all that hindered efficient work, the fleet was organized upon a scale unknown before. The Duke of York was in command, and under the influence of the outburst of warlike fervour, the nobility hastened to join the fleet as volunteers. Some 30,000 men manned the ships, and the Duke found himself at the head of a hundred sail. The Dutch, who were commanded by Opdam, were in no less ardent mood, and both sides were equally eager for an engagement. They soon got into touch with one another; and in June, 1665, and after some tentative attacks, a general engagement took place in Southwold Bay, off the coast of Suffolk, on the 3rd of that month. The result was a great victory for the English fleet. The Dutch lost some twenty ships, and 10,000 men in killed and prisoners. On the English side some 800 men were killed, and not a few of the leading men who had volunteered for the war fell in the fight. Amongst them was the new Earl of Falmouth, [Footnote: Sir Charles Berkeley, whose name has emerged in our narrative in no honourable guise, had the year before been created Lord Harding, and soon after Earl of Falmouth. At the same time, Bennet, another of the ignoble clique, became Lord Arlington.] whose loss produced a grief on the part of Charles, for which those who had known its object were at a loss to account. A far more serious loss to the nation was that of Admiral Lawson, the very model of the best type of English sailor. He had borne the brunt of naval warfare under Blake in Cromwell's day, had materially helped to bring about the Restoration settlement, and was one of the few who played his part in that work without thought of personal aggrandizement; and he had maintained the older traditions of naval discipline against the newer school who scorned the roughness of the older type. Clarendon's simple words are his best epitaph, and they are none the less sincere because they were written of one who was an ardent Independent: "He performed to his death all that could be expected from a brave and an honest man."

The victory was a notable one, but the chance it offered of completely destroying the Dutch fleet was lost by stupid bungling on the part of the Duke of York or some one in his suite. The remnants of the Dutch fleet were making for harbour, and could easily have been overtaken by the pursuers; but for some reason never well explained—probably some timid order given by his attendant, Brouncker, in order to lessen the risk to the Duke, or, more strange still, in order not to disturb his sleep—a command was issued to slacken sail, and the fugitives escaped. The story was never cleared up, but reasons of policy brought about an order that, as heir to the Crown, the Duke should not again assume active command.

This success, incomplete as it was, might have seemed to offer a good opportunity for coming to a settlement, and again Louis XIV. was ready to give his services in the capacity of peacemaker. The Dutch were still obstinate and extravagant in their demands. But the policy of Louis was suddenly changed by the death of the King of Spain, by the new prospects which were thus opened to him, and by his hopes to secure the assistance of the Dutch in seizing Flanders. In the autumn of 1665, France was obviously ready to sacrifice the friendship of England for this new alliance. Never was the prospect more threatening. The burden of the war had been terribly severe. To that burden was added the grievous scourge of the plague now raging in London, with such intensity that it claimed 10,000 victims in one week. When in October, 1665, Clarendon laid before Parliament a narrative of the war, and asked for new supplies, the outlook for England was dark indeed. The appeal was met generously, and a new grant of 1,250,000 was voted. But the King's Ministers had to face the probability of an almost solid alliance against them. The resources of the Bishop of Munster were exhausted, and in no case could he maintain himself in the field when greater Powers intervened. Sweden and Denmark were at best but doubtful friends. France saw her opportunity. She urged that the King of England should formulate his demands against the Dutch, and so permit France to mediate and thus stop a war which was interfering with the trade of Europe, and in which the excesses of the privateers had inflicted heavy damages upon French merchantmen. The intervention of France assumed a more and more threatening aspect. At length, Clarendon had to make a firm stand against the attitude assumed. The words he uses are grave and dignified.

"The counsellors of the King told the French Ambassadors that their master had very well considered the disadvantage he must undergo by the access of so powerful a friend, and of whose friendship he thought himself possessed, to the part of his enemies who were too insolent already; to prevent it, he would do anything that would consist with the dignity of a King; but that he must be laughed at and despised by all the world, if he should consent to make him arbitrator of the differences, who had already declared himself to be a party; that such menaces would make no impression in the last article of danger that could befall the King." [Footnote: Life, ii. 437.]

The conference broke off with no doubt in the mind of Clarendon that France was resolved on war. When the Council was called to consider the situation "there was," he says, "no one present who had not a deep apprehension of the extreme damage and danger that must fall upon the King's affairs, if at this juncture France should declare war against England." But however much he withstood the outbreak of the war, it was not consistent with Clarendon's mood to yield in presence of danger.

Meanwhile no further successes had attended the prosecution of the war. By means of Henry Coventry and Talbot, efforts were still made to bind Sweden and Denmark closer to England, and in July, a scheme had been arranged by which the Dutch fleet of East Indian merchantmen, while in the harbour of Bergen, should be handed over to Lord Sandwich, who had now succeeded the Duke of York as Commander of the English fleet. The plan was not one that reflected much credit on any of those engaged in it; and it was not crowned by the atoning quality of even partial success. The Dutch showed fight, the citizens of Bergen resented the attack by the English fleet, contradictory or dilatory orders produced doubt and confusion, and the damage and loss were distributed equally amongst the attackers and the attacked. De Ruyter drew off with his convoy, and Sandwich returned from a bootless errand. France managed to detach Denmark from England, and to bring about a treaty with the Dutch which bound Denmark to assist Holland against England. Sweden remained at best a half-hearted friend.

Sandwich was injured at once by his failure at Bergen and by a peculiarly ill-conducted case of mal-appropriation of prizes, of which he was guilty. [Footnote: Sandwich had never been a close adherent of Clarendon. But Clarendon is generous enough, in this crisis of his fortunes, to defend him against his enemies, and to acquit him of all but a somewhat awkward exercise of a right of perquisites. In Clarendon's eyes, he had the saving merit of being attacked by Coventry. See post, p. 235.] He was sent as ambassador to Spain, and Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle were appointed to joint command of the fleet. The "affection and unquestionable courage of Prince Rupert were not doubted"—so Clarendon said when arranging the matter with Albemarle—"but the King was not sure that the quickness of his spirit, and the strength of his passion, might not sometimes stand in need of a friend, who should be in equal authority with him." [Footnote: Life, ii. 485. In these words, Clarendon no doubt expressed some lively memories of the days of the Civil War.] The combination did not answer well. By a fatal error—not improbably induced by Rupert's desire for independent action—the fleet was broken up, and the Prince sailed, on the credit of a false report, to meet a French fleet under Admiral Beaufort. While he was thus detached, Albemarle was attacked by the Dutch fleet, and escaped only with heavy loss. A month or two later a portion of the English fleet attacked Schelling—a sea-port on the Zuyder Zee—and burned a fleet of merchantmen and the town itself.

"The conflagration, with that of the ships, appearing at the break of day so near Amsterdam, put that place into that consternation that they thought the day of judgment was come, and thinking of their ships there as being out of the power and reach of any enemy; and no doubt it was the greatest loss that State sustained in the whole war." [Footnote: Life, iii. 80.]

But it was a costly success; "it raised great thoughts of heart in De Witt, and a resolution of revenge before any peace should be thought of," [Footnote: Life, iii. 80.] and it did not materially improve the position for England.

To the burden of the plague and of war there was now added—in September, 1666—the calamity of the Great Fire of London. Clarendon was not disposed to accept humiliating terms, but prudence forbade him to reject openings for peace. Charles offered in January, 1667, to send an embassy to the Hague to treat of peace. The place was selected because it was believed that there the party of the Prince of Orange might best balance the influence of De Witt, and give an impulse to the peace negotiations. Delay was caused by other places being proposed in its stead, but there was no unwillingness to enter upon negotiations. These, however, received their chief impulse from the separate proposals for a treaty between England and France. These proposals had at first been made through the Queen-Mother, Henrietta Maria; but at a later stage the Earl of St. Albans (Jermyn) was deputed to act for the King. The wheels of the negotiations drove heavily, and suspicion clogged the proceedings on both sides; but it became clear that both sides desired peace. Breda was now named, on the suggestion of the English King, as the meeting-place for the wider negotiations, and was accepted by the Dutch. But their intentions were still doubtful, and even when the negotiations opened at Breda, in May, 1667, they absolutely declined a proposal for a cessation of hostilities pending the negotiations. De Witt had not yet given up "the great thoughts of heart" that the burning of Schelling had raised, nor had he dismissed his "resolution of revenge before any peace should be thought of." He was not without hope from the state of the English fleet; he knew well that the English Treasury was in no position to meet new outlays; and he counted upon the depression caused by pestilence and the Fire. The city would be hard put to it to advance money on the credit of the supplies newly voted.

As a fact, the largest ships of the fleet were actually laid up. Only the lighter vessels which could act against the enemy's merchantmen were kept in commission, and the necessary defences of the kingdom were reduced to a minimum, in reckless reliance on the speedy conclusion of the peace negotiations. It was that prime object of Clarendon's dislike, Sir William Coventry, who was responsible for this act of treasonable neglect. Such was the position, when De Ruyter's fleet appeared at the Nore on June 10th, 1667. The Dutch Fleet divided; one division moved up to Gravesend; another broke through the defences of the Medway, [Footnote: Works were in progress at Sheerness, and the King had visited the place, and given orders for new fortifications. The Commissioners of the Admiralty had been too busy with peculations to carry them out.] burned the guardships, captured the first-class warship, the Royal Charles, and next day pursued their advantage further, and burned three more first-class ships of war. The guns were heard in London, and for the first time for six hundred years, the way seemed open for the invader. The citizens of London realized the straits to which the folly of their rulers had brought them. [Footnote: Disastrous and disgraceful as was the episode, the alarm and confusion which it caused at Court seemed to Clarendon even more degrading. "All they who had most advanced the war and reproached all who had been against it, as men who had no public spirit, and were not solicitous for the honour and glory of the nation; and who had never spoken of the Dutch but with scorn and contempt, as a nation rather worthy to be cudgelled than fought with, were now the most dejected men, railed very bitterly at those who had advised the King to enter into that war— and wished that a peace, as the only hope, were made on any terms" (Life, iii. 251). The braggart repeats himself in all ages and all nations.]

These exploits, serious as they were, marked the limit of the Dutch success. Their memory would not soon be wiped out, and they inflicted a sore wound upon the pride of England. But De Witt could not hazard the impossible. Other attempts were made elsewhere—at Portsmouth and at Plymouth—but they were easily repelled. Even De Witt could feel that his resolution of revenge was satisfied, and he allowed the negotiations at Breda to proceed. On July 21st, treaties were there signed with France, with Holland, and with Denmark. Peace was based upon the maintenance of the status quo; no cession of territory was to take place. The rights of commerce and of navigation were to be as provided by the treaty of 1662. Never was a costly and devastating war entered upon more recklessly, conducted, on our side at least, with more helpless inefficiency, and closed with a smaller result in any change which it effected. The people of England accepted peace as a relief; they found in it neither honour, nor compensation for their heavy loss.

A point of no little importance may be noted before we conclude the narrative of this disastrous war, to which Clarendon was so bitterly opposed, and for which he was afterwards so unjustly blamed. Before the negotiations were completed, while the impression of the bold attack of De Witt was still heavy upon the country, and when his ships still threatened the dockyards and the home counties bordering on the Thames, a constitutional question of some difficulty arose. It was necessary suddenly to levy troops and incur heavy expenses for the defences of each bank of the river. No provision had been made for this, and Parliament was prorogued until October 20th. It was debated in Council whether Parliament could be summoned in anticipation of that date, or how otherwise money could be obtained. Clarendon saw that the meeting of Parliament could only increase the prevailing alarm, that it might lead to serious confusion, and that as a means of obtaining money, its grants would be so delayed as to be useless. For himself he held that Parliament could not legally be summoned in advance of the date proclaimed; and he strongly urged that money could be legally provided by way of loan, to be deducted from next assessment. After full debate the point was decided contrary to his advice: but fortunately before Parliament met, the peace had been concluded, and the emergency was gone. The vexed question of special supplies, and of the extraordinary powers of the Crown, was thus luckily avoided. But Clarendon's contention was soon to form a good handle of attack to his enemies.



CHAPTER XXII

ADMINISTRATIVE FRICTION

In order to be a great Foreign Minister, a statesman must follow one of two courses. He must either hold the internal affairs of the country in a grasp of iron, so securely as to impose an effectual guard against their ever becoming a source of trouble or agitation; or else he must abandon these affairs to a knot of subsidiary and secondary agents, who will be content to steer strictly according to the course which he has laid down. Cromwell is a good specimen of the first; Chatham is the most conspicuous example of the second. Circumstances did not allow Clarendon to pursue either course, and his efforts to guide his country through the stormy sea of foreign politics were foredoomed to failure. He could look back with little satisfaction on the waste of life and treasure in the war now closed. He was thwarted by a crowd of jealous intriguers at home, and his intentions and directions as to foreign politics were often set aside by such an agent as Downing.

But from foreign affairs we have now to turn to those matters of internal politics which had necessarily occupied much of Clarendon's attention while the war was in progress. Here, again, he had to tread a thorny path. It seemed as if there was no possible source of mischief which did not add something to his troubles. He saw that the recklessness of the courtiers was breeding irritation and contempt towards the Crown, and weakening the nerves and sinews of the nation. All he could now hope for in the King was, that he might to some extent hide the scandals of his Court, and not be entirely led away by the more dangerous spirits in it. Efficient aid from his master, Clarendon had ceased to expect; it would be well if the worst gang amongst the courtiers could at least be persuaded to interfere as little as might be with affairs of State.

Meanwhile the signs of widespread disaffection were clearly visible to Clarendon, and the existence of dangerous conspiracies was confirmed by the strongest evidence. These were not the less threatening because they were disseminated throughout the most dissimilar sections of society, and were actuated by the most opposite aims. The wilder sects of the Independents were avowedly animated by revolutionary schemes, and violent preachers advocated them in their "congregated churches," where they regularly assembled, in various parts of London, and stirred one another to frenzy by aspirations for the rule of the saints. Restless discontent, disappointed ambition, the jealousy of jarring factions at Court, all found ready instruments in the enthusiasts who revived many of the strange vagaries of doctrine that had been rife during the Civil War. Anabaptists and Millenarians, Fifth-monarchy men and Levellers—all were mingled together in the cauldron of religious and political frenzy. The reckless vanity of a courtier like Buckingham found it useful to cultivate the good-will of the more ardent sectaries. The Civil War had left an ample crop of bravos, who were to be hired for any outrage, and whose excesses added to the restless uneasiness that prevailed, and that made men nervously apprehensive of revolution. The religious enthusiast, and the blustering cut-throat of Alsatia, were equally open to the persuasions of any turbulent faction which sought to defy the law. The forces of order which Clarendon commanded were but scanty. The elements of turbulence were overwhelming in number, and were weakened only by their confusion and diversity. It was not Clarendon alone who saw and dreaded the danger of disturbance. His fears were shared even by those counsellors, such as Clifford and Arlington, who were his jealous opponents; and it was only too evident how many sources of combustion went to feed the flame of discontent. The Presbyterians, however little in sympathy with the aims of the wilder sectaries, were bitterly disappointed at the ecclesiastical settlement, and deemed that their Royalist leanings had been rewarded by the basest ingratitude. The burden of taxation was excessive, and its irksomeness was sorely aggravated by the added misfortunes of the Plague and the Fire. The confidence of the city was shaken, and the monied men shrank from making advances to a discredited administration. Even those amongst the opponents of the Court for whom the title of patriot has been claimed—perhaps on flimsy grounds,—were not ashamed to negotiate with the French King, or the Dutch Pensionary, and to offer their services to the enemies of their country. [Footnote: On June 9, 1665, Downing writes to Clarendon that Algernon Sidney was at Breda, disguised as a Frenchman, on his way to the Hague; and that "others of that gang" were flocking to the Dutch as enthusiastic allies.] It seemed as if every evil which Divine vengeance, religious frenzy, human folly, foreign enemies abroad, and deep-rooted political discontent at home, could engender, were poured out into the welter of confusion that reigned in England during these unhappy years. In such a turbid flood had Clarendon to steer the ship of State.

It was this general confusion, and the dangers which it threatened, that formed the theme of the King's Speech to Parliament at the opening of the session in March, 1664. That Speech was doubtless composed by Clarendon, and may be taken as expressing his views. [Footnotes: It is given by Clarendon (Life, ii. 281) with a fullness which proves that he had the notes of it still in his possession.] "The spirits of many of our old enemies," it said, "were still active." Old conspiracies, detected in the capital, had shown themselves once more in the provinces.

"The malcontents were still pursuing the same consultation, and have correspondence with desperate persons in most counties, and a standing council in the metropolis, from which they receive their directions, and by whom they were advised to defer their last intended insurrection." "These desperate men," he proceeded, "have not been all of one mind in the ways of carrying on their wicked resolutions. Some would still insist upon the authority of the Long Parliament, of which, they say, they have members enough willing to meet; others have fancied to themselves by some computation of their own, upon some clause of the Triennial Bill, that this present Parliament was at an end some months since; and that, for want of new writs, they may assemble themselves and choose members of Parliament."

Then follows a passage which has caused much searching of hearts amongst our Whig historians.

"I confess to you, my Lords and Gentlemen, I have often myself read over that Bill; and though there is no colour for the fancy of the determination of this Parliament, yet I will not deny to you, that I have always expected that you would, and even wondered that you have not considered the wonderful clauses of the Bill, which passed in a time very uncareful for the dignity of the Crown, or the security of the people.... I need not tell you how much I love Parliaments. Never King was so much beholden to Parliaments as I have been, nor do I think the Crown can ever be happy without frequent Parliaments. But, assure yourselves, if I should think otherwise, I could never suffer a Parliament to come together by the means prescribed in that Bill." [Footnote: In a note upon this passage, Mr. Lister assumes that it means only that the King pledged himself to summon a Parliament within the prescribed time, rather than allow it to meet by the operation of the Act; but that he did not contemplate anything but submission to the Act, in the event of failure of such summons. He differs—with some hesitation—from Mr. Hallam, who stigmatizes it as "an audacious declaration, equivalent to an avowed design, in certain circumstances, of preventing the execution of the laws by force of arms"— a declaration such as "was never before heard from the lips of an English King." We take the liberty of agreeing with Hallam's interpretation as against Lister's, but of dissenting from Hallam's estimate of the culpability of the avowal.]

It is absurd to think it needful either to explain away such a plain statement of policy, or to attribute to its author any constitutional crime. The King declared his intention to have constant recourse to Parliaments. But he also declared, with good reason, not only that he gave no weight whatever to the baseless assumption that a new Parliament must be elected every three years, but also that he would never feel himself justified, by the provisions of an Act of Parliament passed under evil auspices, in permitting a Parliament to be elected under conditions which necessarily implied a complete subversion of every constitutional principle. There is such a thing as pedantic reverence for statute law. It is perfectly clear that a statute which provided that electors might proceed themselves to elect their representatives, and that sovereign power should be committed to these representatives, virtually assumes a state of anarchy to prevail. No constituted authority could, consistently with its fundamental duty, ever contemplate a case in which it could voluntarily permit such procedure. Far from proclaiming an intention to infringe the constitution, Charles only uttered a commonplace of administrative duty. It is perfectly clear that to permit the course indicated in the Triennial Act would be to bring into being not one Parliament, but as many Parliaments as there were different factions in the country, free to meet together and chose their own representatives as and how they pleased. In such a case effective government would have ceased to exist. The Speech from the Throne had at least the desired effect. The Bill for the repeal of the Triennial Act passed rapidly through both Houses. Parliament was not to be intermitted for more than three years; but the enactment was buttressed by none of the obnoxious provisions of the previous Act, which would have preserved the fiction of a free Parliament by a resort to the methods of anarchy, and by assuming that such methods were consistent with constitutional and settled government.

But further measures appeared necessary to secure the safety of Church and Crown. Alarm had been created by the threatening tone of the addresses in the "congregated churches," where the preachers drew their most effective metaphors from the language of the camp and the battlefield, and where he was heard with most reverence who depicted in the most lurid language the doom which overhung the Court and the Church, and of which it was the duty of every devout enthusiast to make himself the instrument. To check this it was deemed necessary to proscribe Conventicles, and a new Bill was introduced, and rapidly passed, declaring any meeting of more than five persons for religious services, otherwise than in accordance with the Liturgy of the Church, to be "a seditious and unlawful conventicle." The penalty for attendance was, in the case of a first offender, to be a fine of five pounds, or three months' imprisonment; ten pounds, or six months for a second offence; and thereafter transportation, or a fine of one hundred pounds. It is, of course, easy to denounce this Act on the specious and readily accepted principle of religious toleration. But, as it met with no opposition in a Parliament where there was already a party prepared to thwart the measures of the Court, we must assume that the general sense of danger appeared to justify it beyond possibility of contradiction. We must at least not forget, in judging the justification of the Act, that it embodied the same principles which were applied until the last quarter of the eighteenth century, under a succession of Whig administrations, to assemblies of Episcopalian adherents in Scotland, and of Roman Catholics in both countries. If the principle of religious toleration is to be a universal guide, it is difficult to say why the maxims it enjoins should be held to apply only in the case of Presbyterians and Independents. Whatever the blame to be measured out to the promoters of the Act, there is no ground for exempting Clarendon from his share of responsibility. Our estimate of the weight of that responsibility will vary according as we judge the real danger of the situation. That there was widespread and implacable disaffection, there can be no reasonable doubt. That it was fostered to a very large extent by the earnest sympathy, and the stimulating harangues, of the sectarian preachers, admits of just as little doubt. Rumours of plots were thickening day by day. Evidence was forthcoming of a plan for seizing the Tower, and one, Colonel Danvers, who was concerned in it, was rescued from the hands of the King's officers by open force. [Footnote: Pepys, August 5th, 1665.] The Plague not unnaturally increased the panic that prevailed; and the air seemed darkened by vague threatenings, in which war, pestilence, and famine cast their gloomy shadows over the land. It is hard to say how Clarendon, or any other Minister, could have withstood the determination of Parliament to make adequate provision against what it deemed to be impending dangers.

The increasing prevalence of the Plague forced the Court and Parliament once again, in 1665, to move to Oxford; and there legislation followed the same course. Still further security was deemed necessary against the dissenting clergy, and a new Bill was introduced, providing that all non- conforming clergy should take the oath of non-resistance—declaring that it was unlawful on any pretence, to take up arms against the King, and that they would at no time endeavour any alteration of government in Church and State; and providing that those who refused the oath should be incapable of teaching in schools, and should not be permitted to reside within five miles [Footnote: Hence its popular name of "The Five Mile Act."] of any city or burgh returning members to Parliament, or of any place where they had acted as ministers of religion.

The Bill was evidently conceived under the influence of a panic. Absurd as were its provisions, they would perhaps not have been so severely condemned, under the high ethical standard of later historians, had they not been accompanied by the almost humorous provision that the penalties should be escaped by an oath, which not the most compliant Nonconformists could possibly have accepted. Sarcastic pleasantries of that sort always bring upon coercive legislation a heavier condemnation than it would otherwise incur.

Whatever its merits or demerits, the Bill was one which the House of Commons was determined to have, and which it passed without a division. It was only in the Lords that it met with opposition. There its chief advocate was Archbishop Sheldon, whose inclination coincided with what he naturally believed to be his duty—to press every advantage for the Church. Sheldon was faithful to his convictions, and frankly desirous of securing the Church against any new efforts of the Nonconformists. His attitude was that of the stalwart ecclesiastical protagonist, whose business it was to avenge the wrongs of the Church, not to conciliate her foes; and considerations of what was prudent in secular politics had no concern for him. Between Sheldon and Clarendon there was the sympathy of old and tried friendship and of comradeship in many a hard fight. But Clarendon, faithful friend of the Church as he was, did not always see eye to eye with ecclesiastics. We have seen how often and how severely he could criticize them; and his sympathy with their general object did not always commend to him their methods. His doubts might not always lead him to assume an attitude of open and direct opposition. Deliberate abstention might be just as effective, and was less liable to be misunderstood by the friends of the Church. As a fact, in this case Clarendon was absent from the debates owing to his persistent enemy, the gout. He expresses no opinion adverse or otherwise upon the Act, of which he omits to make any mention. This sufficiently indicates his attitude towards it; and his own closest political ally, Southampton, offered direct opposition to the Bill in the Lords. Whatever his loyalty to the Church, Southampton declared, he could take no oath to pledge himself against any alteration, which he might even "see cause to endeavour."

We need have little doubt as to which way Clarendon's sympathies went in the dispute between his two old friends. But indeed the passing of the Bill depended upon no individual views and upon the action of no Minister. The House of Commons was more Royalist than the King—more orthodox than the Church. Charles was finding out now what he was to find out more surely as time went on, that the bull-headed obstinacy of his friends might be quite as troublesome as the intrigues and plottings of his foes. It would have been dangerous either for King or Minister to resist the impetuosity of Parliamentary intolerance. We cannot assume sympathy on Clarendon's part with these exaggerations of loyalty to the Church, from his general commendation of the Parliament at Oxford, and its legislation as a whole. It had, he tells us, "preserved that excellent harmony that the King had proposed." "Never Parliament so entirely sympathized with his Majesty;" "It passed more Acts for his honour and security than any other had ever done in so short a session." All this was strictly true; and that Parliament doubtless did not lose favour in Clarendon's eyes, because it met at Oxford, and amidst those congenial surroundings which reminded him of the old days, and the old fights amongst comrades whose aims were purer, and their hearts higher, than the actors on the present stage. Clarendon might, however, be fully persuaded of the honest aims of the Parliamentary Cavaliers, without approving all their methods or being blind to the danger these methods involved.

We have now to turn to another aspect of the work of this session, which concerned Clarendon much more directly, and which aroused in him not mere doubts of its expediency, but direct and deeply-felt conviction of its pernicious tendency. It is a matter which it is worth examining with some care, because it struck at Clarendon's fundamental theory of administration, and aroused in him an antipathy which may easily be misunderstood if we do not apprehend exactly what it involved.

In no sphere of administration did more difficult problems emerge after the Restoration than in that of Finance. It was then, as it always must be, the pivot upon which all constitutional questions turned; and it was this which had given to Parliament the lever by which the monarchy had been overturned. When the Restoration took place, it was natural that some of the older usages in regard to finance should be revived. Cromwell had dictated their course to those feeble figments of Parliamentary representation which he had allowed to exist, and had crushed out any financial liberties which they might be supposed to possess. A regular system of assessment, by the quarter or the month, had been laid upon the counties. The real responsibility for this had rested with local functionaries acting under the direct orders of the executive; and its regularity caused it to be submitted to without resistance. Excise had been established, as we have seen, during the Civil War, as a temporary expedient, destined to be permanent; and any sudden alteration of this would have led to financial confusion. The old system of subsidies, of which a certain number were voted according to the exigencies of the time, and the power of the Government to influence Parliament, had been abandoned. When the Restoration came, these subsidies were for a while resumed. But at the same time a regular revenue of 1,200,000 was granted to the Crown, and provision was supposed to be made for it by assigning certain taxes, and the produce of the Excise, for the purpose. But this was found to be inadequate to realize the stated income, and that income was found inadequate to meet the increasing expenditure, especially when the defence of England's commercial interests had to be maintained by a large and costly fleet. When the enormous and unprecedented grant of 2,500,000 was made to the Crown for the Dutch war, it was provided that it should be realized, not by the old method of subsidies, but by twelve quarterly assessments extending over three years. Clarendon's aim was by no means to place the Crown in a position of financial irresponsibility. He realized that Parliament had a place in the Constitution as well as the Crown, and had no desire to minimize the financial independence of Parliament, or to free the Crown from the necessity of regular resort to Parliament for such special and extraordinary grants as might be necessary. But he thought that the Crown should be provided with a regular revenue to meet ordinary expenses; and that it should be required to apply to Parliament only for any increase of that revenue if special exigencies should arise. But the revenue, so granted, should belong to the Crown, which should be free to administer it according to the judgment of the Ministers of the Crown. Parliament possessed the prerogative of making the grant, and thereby of imposing conditions upon it. But once made, the Ministers of the Crown were to be responsible for its application. Any maladministration would be subject of punishment by the Crown, or, if need be, of impeachment by the Parliament.

The abandonment of the system of subsidies almost necessarily led to another far-reaching change. Separate subsidies had formerly been granted by Parliament in respect of the nation, and by Convocation in respect of the Church. The right of making independent grants was a doubtful privilege for the Church, and would, had it continued, have caused endless confusion to the Exchequer. It was abandoned by consent. No statute abolished it. It was an old usage, but rested upon little more than usage; and it was abolished, once and for all, not by statute, but by arrangement between Sheldon and the leaders of the Church, on the one hand, and Clarendon and Southampton on the other. It was an instance of the abandonment of an ancient principle, sanctioned by the usage of centuries and intimately bound up with the relations between Church and State, by no action of the legislature, but solely by the action of the Crown. At the same time, by an almost more startling extension of the prerogative, the clergy were compensated by being allowed to take part in the election of Parliamentary representatives.

The method by which the grants given by Parliament could be made available for national expenditure had been found easy and convenient. For this purpose the help of the bankers, who were generally goldsmiths of high standing, was invoked. Clarendon gives us a detailed account of the usage. Half a dozen of the leading monied men of the city were summoned to the council chamber. They knew the amount of grant made by Parliament, and were asked to what extent they were prepared to make advances upon this amount. They did so in reliance upon the faith of the King and the Lord Treasurer, and upon the certainty that any failure to fulfil its obligations on the part of the Exchequer would inevitably lead to national loss of credit, and consequent bankruptcy. If the current rate of interest was 6 per cent., they advanced the money at 8 per cent., and counted on the 2 per cent. to recoup them. Clarendon thought the rate fair, and found the method eminently convenient. But the bankers relied solely upon the good faith and prudence of the Minister. There was nothing to prevent the King making an assignment of the revenue, as it came in, to purposes other than the reimbursement of the bankers. The only guarantee against this was the good faith of the responsible Minister and the certainty that the Crown must submit its case to Parliament should the need of further grant arise. The King had to adapt his expenditure to his revenue; but the application of revenue to any particular branch of the expenditure was, in Clarendon's view, a matter for himself and his responsible Ministers.

On more than one occasion in the past grants from Parliament had been expressly assigned to specific purposes, and such an arrangement had unquestionably much to commend it. But a long time often intervened between the making of a grant and the realization of revenue. Money had to be procured at once, and before the tax yielded revenue new needs had arisen, and new expenditure had to be incurred. The system of appropriating supplies would undoubtedly make the financial administration more mechanical, circumscribe the responsibility of Ministers, and cripple the power of the Crown in applying revenue towards pressing objects. Unforeseen savings—though these, indeed, were not an item of much importance in the financial administration of Charles's reign—could not, under such a system, be applied to new exigencies without a further warrant from Parliament. The whole system of appropriation, however defensible on the modern maxims of sound finance, was inconvenient in working, and tended to increase the dependence of the Crown on Parliament, and to diminish at once the discretion and the responsibility of Ministers of the Crown.

It was during the Parliament at Oxford in 1665 that this fundamental change in the financial system was pressed forward by the personal jealousy of that clique at Court which sought the ruin of Southampton and Clarendon. Specious arguments could easily be brought forward against the greed and extortion of the bankers, who were realizing fortunes by the loose financial administration which made the King's revenue pass through their hands, and subjected it to a heavy toll upon which they throve. Once revenue was assigned to a specific object, the credit of the Crown, it was alleged, would be enormously enhanced, and it would be perfectly easy to establish a State bank, on the model of that in Amsterdam, which would be a perennial source from which money might be drawn as required. And this facility of supply would be joined with purity of financial administration; Parliament would know exactly what was done with the money that it voted; leakages would be stopped, and peculation would cease to be possible.

The arguments were at once specious and inviting. But in truth the real motives which prompted the new proposals were jealousy of Southampton and Clarendon and personal ambition. The prime mover was Sir George Downing, that turbulent and versatile political adventurer, who had run through the whole gamut of political tergiversation, and who, as envoy to Holland, had long worried Clarendon by the pertinacity with which he had provoked the jealousy of the Dutch and had done all in his power to precipitate the war. He had contrived to secure appointment as one of the Tellers of the Exchequer, was in close confederacy with Bennet, now Lord Arlington, and was scheming with him to oust the influence of the Chancellor and the Treasurer. His perquisites, as Teller of the Exchequer, were lessened by the assignment of taxes to the bankers in return for their advances, and as the proceeds of the taxes did not pass through the Exchequer, the percentage to the Tellers was thereby diminished. The position of Lord Southampton was difficult to assail. "His reputation was so great, his wisdom so unquestionable, and his integrity so confessed, that they knew in neither of those points he could be impeached." [Footnote: Life, iii. 2.] The King was still faithful to his Treasurer, and insinuations as to his increasing age and unfitness for active business did not shake his confidence. But Southampton's enemies were strengthened by the support of Ashley, who, though his advancement was due to his relationship to Southampton by marriage, was beginning to feel that he might well rid himself of the ladder by which he had climbed, and that he himself would be a very competent Treasurer. It was only when he perceived that his confederates might not aid this ambition that he became more lukewarm in his support of their schemes.

There was at least one convenience in the present system. The facile humour of the King led him to assign revenues to suitors who had no very creditable claims to reward. It was convenient to him to shift to the Chancellor and the Treasurer the odium of refusing to endorse these grants. Their watchful jealousy against inroads upon the national resources increased the number of their enemies; but it saved the King from the irksome burden of refusal. It was speciously urged against this that the root of all the financial difficulties was

"the unlimited power of the Lord Treasurer, that no money could issue out without his particular direction, and all money was paid upon no other rules than his order; so that, let the King want as much as was possible, no money could be paid by him without the Treasurer's warrant." [Footnote: Life, iii. 5.]

It was a persuasive argument for Charles's ears. The popular pretence went only a little way. The real aim—and this it was that attracted the King— was that personal authority should be eliminated, and that he should no longer be subject to the galling supervision of the two Ministers, whose bull-dog honesty was so often inconvenient. Meanwhile the minds of the members of the House were cunningly prepared for the reception of the new design, by invectives against the bankers. They were "cheats, bloodsuckers, extortioners." Their enemies "would have them looked upon as the causes of all the King's necessities and of the want of monies throughout the kingdom." [Footnote: Ibid., p. 7.]

When the Bill for supply was brought in by the Solicitor-General, Downing found his opportunity. He proposed a proviso, the object of which was "to make all the money that was to be raised by the Bill to be applied only to those ends to which it was given, and to no other purpose whatsoever, by what authority soever." The restrictions thus imposed upon the royal authority were viewed with jealousy by many, who found in them a renewal of that financial supremacy of the Commons which had been the symptom of the approach of the rebellion. Cromwell, it was pointed out, had himself seen the inconvenience of such restrictions, and had refused to submit to them. The proviso would have been defeated, had not Downing assured the Solicitor-General that the proviso was proposed by the King's own direction. After the House had risen, the King sent for the Solicitor- General, and "forbade him any more to oppose that proviso, for that it was much for his service." [Footnote: Ibid., p. 11.] He refused to listen to any remonstrances. "He would bear the inconveniences which would ensue upon his own account, for the benefits which would accrue." Downing took care to strengthen these favourable resolutions of the King. "He would make his Exchequer the best and the greatest bank in Europe, where all Europe would, when it was once understood, pay in their money for the certain profit it would yield, and the indubitable certainty that they should receive their money." He would, he assured the King, "erect the King's Exchequer into the same degree of credit that the Bank of Amsterdam stood upon." He forgot to tell the King that such credit could only be established by eliminating the personal influence and authority of the Crown over finance. That was no doubt a change which must come. But it formed no part of Charles's calculation, and it was opposed to Clarendon's theory of monarchy. Clarendon states the case with precision. Downing propounded his scheme

"without weighing that the security for monies so deposited in banks (such as that of Amsterdam) is the republic itself, which must expire before that security can fail; which can never be depended on in a monarchy, where the monarch's sole word can cancel all those formal provisions which can be made." [Footnote: Life, iii. 13.]

Anxious as he was for financial purity and for a due interdependence of King and Parliament, Clarendon was not disposed to part with this prerogative of the Crown. Downing and his allies were equally aware that to abandon it was no part of Charles's thoughts. It would be absurd to argue back from later days when such a claim on the part of the Crown was a thing of the past. The essence of the plan, which made it palatable to the King and the object of all Downing's scheming, was that "it was to new-model the whole Government of the country, in which the King resolved to have no more superior officers." The power of these superior officers was an incubus of which Charles longed to rid himself.

The Bill passed the House of Commons, and was brought to the Lords. Such Bills, says Clarendon in an interesting passage, [Footnote: Life, iii. 13.] "seldom stay long with the Lords."

"Of custom, which they call privilege, they are first begun in the House of Commons, where they endure long deliberation, and when they are adjusted there, they seem to pass through the House of Peers with the reading twice and formal commitment, in which any alterations are very rarely made, except in any impositions which are laid upon their (i.e. the Lords') own persons." "The same endorsement that is sent up by the Commons is usually the Bill itself that is presented to the King for his royal assent."

It is to be observed that Clarendon is speaking of custom only, not of right; and he is careful to add that such Bills are "no more valid without their (the Lords') consent than without that of the other (the Commons); and they may alter any clause in them that they do not think for the good of the people." Only "the Lords use not to put any stop on the passage of such Bills, much less diminish what is offered by them to the King."

But in spite of such usage, the new provisions of the Bill so alarmed those in the House of Lords who understood the matter, as to prompt them to an alteration. Both the Chancellor and the Treasurer were confined by illness, and neither of them had received notice of the Bill. It was only when their colleagues in the House of Lords informed them of its purport that they resolved to resist what they believed to be a deadly blow to the power of the Crown, albeit dealt with the sanction and active approval of the King.

By this time Ashley, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, found his own prerogatives threatened, had definitely ranged himself against those with whom he had been associated in plotting against Clarendon and Southampton. His fertile wit supplied new arguments, and helped him to alarm the King. Charles

"was contented that the matter should be debated in his presence; and because the Chancellor was in his bed, thought his chamber to be the fittest place for the consultation; and the Lord Treasurer, though indisposed and apprehensive of the gout, could yet use his feet, and was very willing to attend his Majesty there, without the least imagining that he was aimed at."

Clarendon could no longer rely upon an effective ally in his aged colleague.

Besides the King and the Duke of York and the two chief Ministers there were present Ashley, Arlington, and Coventry. The law officers were there to advise; and Downing was admitted that he might answer the objections to his scheme. Ashley began the discussion by inveighing against the proviso. The King checked this "by declaring that whatsoever had been done in the whole transaction of it had been with his privity and approbation, and the whole blame must be laid to his own charge, who, it seems, was like to suffer most by it." Whatever the tendency of the proviso, it is clear that such action made an end of all real ministerial responsibility, if the chief Ministers of the Crown were to find their authority undermined by schemes which the King might concoct with inferior officers. The appropriation of supplies might be a step towards financial control; but it was bought at a heavy cost if it was to be achieved by backstairs influence against the advice of the King's responsible advisers. Clarendon was not prepared to accept what he believed to be a breach of the Crown's constitutional prerogative; but, compared with his master, he had travelled far on the road towards constitutional monarchy. Charles's nonchalant surrender of the powers of the Crown was carried out with cynical disregard of all the principles of the constitution.

But the King did not refuse to admit the force of some of the adverse arguments. He confessed "that they had given some reasons against it which he had not thought of, and which in truth he could not answer," and he was waiting to hear it argued further. The first objection was its novelty. The new proviso would form a dangerous precedent, which would hereafter appear in every Bill. The King would not be "master of his own money, nor the Ministers of his revenue be able to assign monies to meet any casual expenses." The authority of the Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer must be vested in the Tellers of the Exchequer, who were subordinate officers. Clarendon's comment upon this is characteristic of his best vein of grave sarcasm.

"The King had in his nature so little reverence for antiquity, and did in truth so much contemn old orders, forms, and institutions, that the objections of novelty rather advanced than obstructed any proposition. He was a great lover of new inventions, and thought them the effects of wit and spirit, and fit to control the superstitious observation of the dictates of our ancestors; so that objection made little impression."

Many sore trials to his patience have lent point and acid to Clarendon's satirical picture of a master, whose cynicism made him fancy that blind pursuit of novelty sat well upon the occupant of a throne that rested chiefly upon ancient usage, and upon the glamour of reverence which that usage brought.

The overpowering temptation to the King was the chimera of a bank which, it was represented, would be created by this new proviso. It was in vain that Clarendon showed that the hope was an empty one; that heavy interest would have to be paid for advances; that good husbandry, and that alone, could restore order to the finances. Downing was an adept in specious argument. "He wrapped himself up, according to his custom, in a mist of words that nobody could see light in, but they who by often hearing the same chat thought they understood it."

To the King's credit it must be counted that he was not indifferent to the injustice involved to the bankers, who had already advanced large sums, on the credit of the King and his Minister, for which, under the new proviso, they could receive no reimbursement, and might thus be ruined. That and the other arguments impressed him. He went so far as to "wish that the matter had been better consulted," and confessed that Downing "had not answered many of the objections." But the balance of personal convenience, and the facilities which Downing lavishly promised, in the end carried the day. That vein of obstinacy, which was entwined with the love of ease in Charles, determined him to adopt an expedient, hazardous, indeed, but which promised some hope of financial fruit, and had been propounded on the King's own orders. Perhaps Clarendon himself contributed to this result by the natural, but imprudent, outbreak of indignation which moved him in the King's own presence to scold Downing in no measured terms. To do so was almost the same as to administer the scolding to the King himself; and even a temper so easy as that of Charles could hardly have taken such an outburst in good part.

"It was impossible," Clarendon told Downing, "for the King to be well served whilst fellows of his condition were admitted to speak as much as they had a mind to; and that, in the best times, such presumptions had been punished with imprisonment by the Lords of the Council without the King taking notice of it."

Clarendon himself seems to have felt that such an utterance, in the presence of the King, to one whom the King declared to have acted on his orders, was a straining of courtly etiquette which required some apology. It was uttered, he tells us, in the extremity of bodily pain; and he thought "it did not exceed the privilege and the dignity of the place he held." Clarendon certainly set himself no very strict bonds of courtliness in the freedom of his utterances to his King. On this particular occasion his plain speaking seems to have rankled.

What, then, was the real meaning of this change, so bitterly resented by Clarendon, and eventually adopted in the teeth of his advice by Parliament and King? It is absurd to suppose that any consuming desire for financial exactitude prompted the action of Downing, of Arlington, or of Coventry. No doubt they anticipated one necessary result of full Parliamentary control over finance, in the principle of appropriation. But what they really desired was to eliminate the discretion, and thereby the control over expenditure, which was exercised by the great officers of State. That also was bound to come. The rapidly increasing range of administration and of expenditure must inevitably have substituted routine rules and fixed practice for the personal intervention, and the exercise of personal authority, by those great officers of State. But Clarendon was loth to part with this personal authority; he distrusted, with good reason, the honesty and the independence of the inferior officials into whose hands the administration of finance was intended to pass, and who could easily, under the cover of routine practice, which relieved them from the intervention of their superiors, conceal a system of malversation. The change, indeed, embodied in its essentials the passing of authority from the great responsible officers to a bureaucracy. Its full results could not yet be seen. Its dangers have since then been prevented, and it is to be hoped they may not again arise. But Clarendon saw in the change the reversal of all former traditions; the diminishing of responsibility in the high officers and the substitution for them of a lower grade of petty officials, shielded by the great edifice of rules of routine in which they become experts, and, as such, are unassailable. It was a change which was bound to come. It was impossible that the vast machine of national finance could be guided by rules laid down for each case by a responsible Minister. The change was none the less a revolution, and was not more welcome to Clarendon, in that it was carried out by the scheming of an ambitious underling, working upon the facile temper of the King, who thus hoped to have an ampler supply of revenue, freed from the control of Ministers who could curb his extravagance.

The episode produced a marked increase of the estrangement between the King and the Minister who had served him so well. Clarendon's fierce denunciation of Downing's presumption rankled in Charles's memory, and those about him took care that it should not be smoothed over. "Whatever else was natural to wit sharpened with malice to suggest upon such an argument, they enforced with warmth, that they desired might be taken for zeal for his service and dignity, which was prostituted by those presumptions of the Chancellor." [Footnote: Life, iii. 24.] Clarendon soon learned the truth from the changed demeanour of the King. At first he was at a loss to explain this; but Charles soon spoke in terms that could not be mistaken, and expressed "a great resentment of it," as an unpardonable insult. "And all this," adds Clarendon, "in a choler very unnatural to him, which exceedingly troubled the Chancellor and made him more discern, though he had evidence enough of it before, that he stood upon very slippery ground." [Footnote: Life, iii. 25.] It was no part of Clarendon's character to take such a rebuke in silence or to leave it to pass gradually from the mind of the King. His conscience, he said, had not reproached him; but since his Majesty thought his behaviour so bad, "he must and did believe he had committed a great fault, for which he did humbly ask his pardon." It was impossible, he said, that any one could believe that he sought to keep the King from a clear view of his own affairs; and none knew better than his Majesty how earnestly he had striven "that his Majesty might never set his hand to anything before he fully understood it upon such references and reports as, according to the nature of the business, were to be for his full information." That innate reverence for the power of the Crown, which was Clarendon's guiding principle, could hardly have been united with sharper sarcasm upon the business methods of the King.

To outward seeming the feeling of offence was removed. Charles had no wish to resume the argument, and forbade him to believe "that it was or could be in any man's power to make him suspect his affection or integrity to his service." He covered any resentment he might feel with that dissimulation of which he was so great a master; and soon after gave an earnest of his continued good-will by promoting Clarendon's kinsman, Dr. Hyde, to the Bishopric of Salisbury. "Nor was his credit with the King thought to be lessened by anybody but himself, who knew more to that purpose than other people could do." It may be doubted whether some of Charles's familiars did not guess more shrewdly than Clarendon supposed. The gossip of Pepys lets us know that the tongues of talebearers were not silent.



CHAPTER XXIII

DECAY OF CLARENDON'S INFLUENCE

We must still look backwards a little in tracing the accumulating effect of friction, of jealousy, and of slander, in sapping the power of Clarendon.

He had not long to wait to see how adroit his many enemies were in twisting to his disadvantage any irritation which Charles might feel. The state of public affairs was sufficiently overclouded to make his anxieties in any case very great. The war still dragged on its weary course (we are now dealing with a period anterior to the peace already described), with its heavy burden of expense and its ever-recurring disasters, relieved only by occasional success. The combined calamity of the Fire and the Plague increased the general depression, paralyzed trade, and made the burden of taxation more severe. Repressive measures, if they had checked rebellion, had left a troubled background of smouldering discontent, and were sowing the seeds of future opposition to the Crown and to the Church. The temper of the House of Commons, however pronounced its adhesion to the Cavalier party, was stubborn and perverse; and stubbornness and perversity are never so provoking in politics as when they are united with an exaggeration of one's own opinion. The House resented almost with the tone and in the spirit of the Long Parliament, the dictation—and Clarendon's best friends must admit that his methods were apt to be dictatorial—of a Minister who saw that its exaggerated Royalism might be itself a danger to the Crown, and who was faithful to a theory of the constitution which imposed limits at once upon King and upon Parliament. Clarendon belonged to an older generation, and was unwilling to trim his sails to suit the newer fashions. His pedantic constitutionalism—we are all apt to think that notions which will not adopt themselves to our own practice are pedantic—became unpalatable at once to King and Parliament. He was not compliant enough to suit the prejudices of the stalwart Cavaliers; he had no weapons wherewith to fight courtiers, such as Buckingham, who knew how to make friends for themselves amongst those who condemned the Court and all connected with it. It was the growing estrangement between him and the House of Commons that added force to the schemes of his enemies.

Clarendon saw two symptoms of danger—in the attempts to detach from him his most trusted friends and allies, and in the sure and gradual advancement of those who were his sworn foes. His oldest and most trusted comrade—from whom death was soon to part him—was the Treasurer, Lord Southampton. Their friendship was the growth of years. In the earliest days of the Civil war, Southampton, who had avoided, before its outbreak, all connection with the Court, had joined the King's party with some misgiving, but had brought to it the weight of unblemished character and great debating power. He had striven, even against the inclination of the King, to advance proposals for a treaty with Parliament; and his loyalty did not blind him to the hopelessness of the struggle, or to what seemed to him defects in the Royalist cause. Too proud to be a courtier, and too sensible of the responsibility of great lineage and high station to be a rebel, his aim was to steer a moderate course. In temper, as well as in political views, he and Clarendon were closely united; and their mutual confidence continued unbroken after the Restoration. Clarendon's enemies found a convenient opportunity for kindling in the mind of Southampton some petty offence, in the fact that Clarendon, at the instance of the Duke of York and his daughter, the Duchess, had done something to promote the claims to a Court appointment of a candidate other than that favoured by Southampton. [Footnote: The post was one about the Court of the Queen, and the two claimants were the son of Lord Montague, favoured by the Duke and Duchess; and Robert Spencer, a relative of the Earl of Southampton. Personally, Clarendon preferred the latter; but he had put forward the name of the other at the solicitation of the Duke and his daughter without much consideration, and without knowing that any other claimant was in the field.] The matter was a trumpery one; but the irritation was fanned by those who were eager to break the alliance of the older statesmen. Southampton was a man who asked for few favours, and was all the more incensed when he was made to understand that his old friend had stood in his way, when for once he had stooped to make an application. Clarendon soon discerned his old friend's ill-will, and took his usual course of bringing it speedily to a clear issue. His own temper was hot, and for a time "he grew out of humour too, and thought himself unworthily suspected." But he soon thought better of it, and bluntly told the Treasurer that "it should not be in his power to break friendship with him, to gratify the humour of other people, without letting him know what the matter was." The explanation was given; and mutual confidence was soon restored between the two old allies. But Clarendon saw in the incident new evidence of the sordid tricks that sought to entangle him in the petty jealousy of rival cliques. "They who had contrived this device entered into a new confederacy, how they might first remove the Treasurer, which would facilitate the pulling the Chancellor down." [Footnote: Life, ii. 454.] Clarendon found a sign of danger even more alarming in the gradual advancement of those who were pledged to his enemies, and who became their most useful tools. There was none whose influence, in this or in other respects, was more baneful to Clarendon than the Duke of York. The incidents of the Duke's first connection with his family were amongst his bitterest memories; and although he never failed to show to his son- in-law the respect due to the brother of the King, yet Clarendon found in him a perpetual obstacle to his plans, an intriguer whose selfish aims and jealous temper ever engendered fresh dissensions at Court, and a sullen bigot whose moroseness was redeemed by none of his brother's easy suavity of manner. The Duke's pride did not permit him openly to desert the interests of his father-in-law or to range himself with Clarendon's enemies. But his blundering tactlessness, his easily wounded vanity, and his insatiable appetite for power, often led him to give encouragement to those whose influence Clarendon knew to be pernicious. One of these was Sir William Coventry, against whom Clarendon, as we have already seen, cherished an invincible dislike, all the more marked because he had known and reverenced his father, the former Chancellor. He knew Coventry's restless ambition and how capable he was by boldness, by ability in debate, and by adroitness in expedient, to supply the defects of the stolid and slow intrigue of his patron, Arlington. Coventry had managed to gain the confidence of the Duke and to be his trusted agent in the affairs of the navy, where the Duke, as Lord High Admiral, was supreme; and Clarendon knew that Coventry's influence boded no good to the moderate policy which it was his own chief aim to pursue. It was by the Duke's solicitation that Coventry now obtained the position of Privy Councillor, and was admitted to the inner Cabinet, where no modesty prevented him from opposing Clarendon at once in internal affairs and in foreign policy. An opportunity soon offered itself to Coventry for proving his influence and inflicting a deadly blow upon Sandwich, whose placid temper and essential loyalty had made him one of Clarendon's chosen friends. At first Coventry endeavoured vainly to insinuate doubts of Sandwich's capacity as a naval commander; and when he failed there he soon found another means of attack. [Footnote: This incident has already been briefly alluded to in connection with the progress of the war. See above, p. 202.] Sandwich had, with much rashness and in too ready compliance with the laxity which prevailed in matters of public finance, yielded to the urgency of some of his flag officers, and permitted the sale of some East India prizes captured from the Dutch, in order to meet long-standing arrears of pay due to his officers. He had referred the matter to the King, through the Vice- Chamberlain, but, with singular carelessness, carried the transaction through before he had received the royal approval. This gave Coventry just the chance that he desired. Sandwich's action was a clear infringement of the prerogative of the Duke as Lord High Admiral, through whom alone any such favour could be conferred. Albemarle, incensed at what appeared a flagrant breach of military discipline, became a powerful adherent of Sandwich's enemies. Sandwich's own money difficulties were no secret, and he himself was to benefit by the bounty, which he shared with his flag officers, and against which the rest of the fleet was murmuring. He saw too late the error that he had committed, and made his humble apologies to the King and the Duke. But though he was able to appease their anger, the evil to his own reputation was done, and his enemies were in no mood to relieve him of it. Clarendon could not prevent his being deprived of his naval command. Already Sandwich had incurred the jealousy of the old Cavaliers, who grudged to one, once Cromwell's officer, the rewards which had not come to their earlier loyalty. All that Clarendon could do was to soften Sandwich's fall by procuring his appointment as ambassador to Spain. The ablest of Charles's naval commanders was sacrificed because of what, in the lax financial morality of the day, seemed only an error of judgment; and the direction of naval affairs was thus placed almost entirely in the hands of Coventry, who, as representing the Duke, could issue commands and thwart the policy of the King's Ministers.

The same restless faction which had sought to sow dissension between the Chancellor and the Treasurer, were not deterred, by failure, from new efforts to break the influence of these two older Ministers. They were busy gathering new recruits to their faction and insinuating them into offices of trust; and now they thought they could undermine the fort by driving Southampton into the resignation of his office. His character and rank stood too high to make him an easy victim, or to encourage them to any open attack. But they could suggest that his powers were waning; that he was no longer equal to the task of guiding the finances of the nation; that he was ruled by subordinates; and that consideration for his age would make it only reasonable to relieve him of an irksome burden. They knew that little persuasion was required to bring about his resignation of a post which duty rather than inclination made him retain; and they guessed, with good reason, that it was Clarendon's advice that chiefly kept Southampton in office.

The procedure followed the usual course. First, Charles was persuaded that his aged Treasurer was no longer equal to the duties of his office. It was easy to suggest to him that his business would move more smoothly if the pedantic methods, the vigilant care, and the cumbrous and dilatory processes of the Lord Treasurer's office were simplified and expedited. When he was duly impressed, the King had then to be brought to discharge the ungracious task of conveying to the Chancellor the fact that the King would welcome the Treasurer's relinquishment of his office. To do him justice, Charles did not relish the part he was compelled to play. Even his selfishness could not cloak its ugly ingratitude, and it suited ill with his easy temper to be the medium of such an ungracious message. Nor was it quite compatible with that royal dignity, which he did not always cast aside, to be made the spokesman, to his more serious Minister, of a conspiracy not unlike that of unruly schoolboys. The King knew by experience that, master though he was, he could still be made uncomfortable by hearing stern and plain truths, even in the ceremonious diction in which his Chancellor knew how to clothe them.

The King began the interview—somewhat hypocritically—by "enlarging in a great commendation of the Treasurer." But in spite of all his merits Southampton "did not understand the mystery of that place, nor could his nature go through with the necessary obligations of it." His ill-health caused delay and murmuring in regard to urgent business. His secretary [Footnote: Sir Philip Warwick was born in Westminster in 1609, and was employed before the Civil War, in the service of Lord Goring, and, afterwards, of Bishop Juxon. He acted as Secretary to the King during the Conference at Newport, in 1648. After the Restoration, he became Secretary to the Treasury under Lord Southampton, and had all the qualities of an excellent civil servant, virtually controlling the department under its ministerial head. His Memoirs are not of first-rate importance, but contain some good accounts of engagements in the war, and of incidents in the life of the King. He survived till 1683, and won the fervent admiration of that other worthy official, Pepys.] virtually discharged the work of the office—an estimable and honest man, no doubt, but not equal to the position of Lord Treasurer. The Treasurer's "understanding was too fine for such gross matters as the office must be conversant about, and if his want of health did not hinder him, his genius did not carry him that way." Nothing could be further from the King's thoughts than to disoblige so faithful a servant; but perhaps he would not be unwilling to go, and perhaps the Chancellor would do the King the singular service of suggesting it to him.

The first answer of Clarendon in reply to this not very palatable speech was to ask whom the King proposed to make Treasurer in Southampton's place? He would, said the King, never have another Treasurer, but would exercise the office by Commissioners. Once more the same insuperable prejudice, which Clarendon had felt against the system involved in the Appropriation Clause, was stirred in him. He saw precisely the same motives at work, involving precisely the same dangers. Commissioners might be all very well in Cromwell's days. He needed no Treasurer, and could take care, with an army at his back, that Commissioners would not prove troublesome. But the plan suited ill with monarchical principles. The King should have his Lord Treasurer, of standing and of honour sufficient to ensure sound administration and compel respect. Commissioners, as Clarendon discerned clearly, would be bad servants and dangerous masters. Clarendon might be fighting a forlorn hope against the growing forces of officialdom; but his dislike was honest, and his discernment of the future was correct.

But he had other reasons to urge against the slur which it was proposed to throw upon his old friend.

"Most humbly and with much earnestness he besought his Majesty seriously to reflect what an ill savour it would have over the whole kingdom, at this time of a war with at least two powerful enemies abroad together, in so great discontent and jealousy at home, and when the Court was in no great reputation with the people, to remove a person, the most loved and reverenced for his most exemplary fidelity and wisdom, who had deserved as much from his blessed father and himself as a subject can do from his prince, a nobleman of the best quality, the best allied and the best beloved; to remove at such a time such a person, and with such circumstances, from his counsels and his trust."

The King was not of a mould to resist plain speaking like this, and when not supported by the presence of those who made him their tool and instrument, he seldom managed to make way against the vehemence of Clarendon's rebukes. It could hardly be pleasant for a monarch to be told that what he designs is base ingratitude; that his throne is in danger; the reputation of his Court in evil savour; that both require such support as they may be able to get from men of reverence and station, and that he would be mad to alienate any support from such men that may be vouchsafed to him; yet this was the plain meaning of Clarendon's words. But Charles hesitated to go back, repulsed, to those who had made him their mouthpiece. He remained "rather moved and troubled than convinced." But fortunately Clarendon found an unexpected ally in the Duke of York, who had joined the King and himself at the interview, with the intention, it appears, of supporting the King's purpose. To him Clarendon restated his arguments, and urged him to do the best service to the King his brother "by dissuading him from a course that would prove so mischievous to him." For this once, the Duke was converted to Clarendon's view, and "prevailed with the King to lay aside the thought of it." [Footnote: Charles not rarely showed a respect for his brother's opinion which was not founded upon any high estimate of his abilities. Clarendon himself remarks this when commenting upon the failure of any attempt to arouse jealousy between the brothers. Charles, he says, "had a just affection for him, and a confidence in him, without thinking better of his natural parts than he thought there was just cause for; and yet, which made it the more wondered at, he did often depart, in matters of the highest moment, from his own judgment to comply with his brother" (Life, iii. 62).] Once more the Court conspirators were baulked of their purpose. They could press the King no further; but

"only made so much use of their want of success by presenting to his Majesty his irresoluteness, which made the Chancellor still impose upon him, that the King did not think the better of the Chancellor or the Treasurer for his receding at that time from prosecuting what he had so positively resolved to have done." He could only promise "to be firmer to his next determination."

Between the reproaches of the conspirators of the Court and the scoldings of the stern Chancellor, the King plays no very dignified figure. Even Charles's easy humour could not but owe a grudge to one who so often rated him like a schoolboy in the solemn phrases of State ceremony.

The year 1666 opened on a prospect far from cheering either to the country or to those charged with its administration. There were symptoms enough of actual and impending ills to make it no hazardous prophecy for the astrologers to predict that it was to be "a year of dismal changes and alterations throughout the world." [Footnote: Life, iii 39.] The war dragged on its weary course, with what seemed to be but delusive hopes of settlement. Financial troubles were becoming urgent, and the mood of Parliament, without being actually refractory, was stubborn and suspicious. The Plague was still pressing with grievous heaviness, even though there were symptoms that it was somewhat alleviated. Throughout the nation there was murmuring and discontent, at times breaking out into active resistance to the law; and the Court was in increasingly worse odour with the people. It aroused at once the anger of those whom its extravagance seemed to insult; the disgust of those who had some respect for decency; and the contempt and bitter grief of those who prized the honour of the Crown, and desired to maintain the loyalty of the nation.

Charles's disappointment of any hope of legitimate offspring seemed to dissipate any frail purpose he had entertained of ordering his life and Court with more regard to the elementary dictates of decency and decorum. The influence of Lady Castlemaine was supreme; and the grossness of the palace atmosphere was made all the greater because his favourite mistress added the character of procuress to that of courtesan.

Clarendon would fain have found some excuse for the degradation of the family to whose service his life had been devoted. Apart from all political inclinations and all thoughts of personal ambition, it is absolutely certain that what largely aroused in Clarendon that enthusiastic loyalty which he felt for Charles I. was the consummate dignity of a pure life. Dignity as well as purity were alike banished from the Court of Charles II., with the examples before it of his own more open debauchery and of his brother's more morose viciousness, which was rendered all the uglier by his sullen bigotry. With a discerning eye Clarendon read the prevailing defects of the Stuart race—their proneness to succumb to flattery and vicious influence, and then obstinately to sacrifice every good inclination to the acquired vice.

"They were too much inclined to like men at first sight, and did not love the conversation of men of many more years than themselves, and thought age not only troublesome, but impertinent. They did not love to deny, and less to strangers than to their friends; not out of bounty or generosity, which was a flower that did never grow naturally in the heart of either of the families, that of Stuart or of Bourbon, but out of an unskilfulness and defect in the countenance; and when they prevailed with themselves to make some pause rather than to deny, importunity removed all resolution." [Footnote: Life, iii. 63.]

It is a heavy indictment in the mouth of one who had felt its truth by bitter experience and to whom its avowal caused the deepest pain.

The scandals of the Court touched Clarendon through his daughter, the Duchess of York. The Duke was no model of connubial fidelity, and his lapses from virtue, if not so flagrant as those of his brother, yet gave food enough for gossiping tongues. But ostensibly his married life was fairly decorous, and against the Duchess no charges could be made. Her life, however, did not escape the gibes of those who sought to attack her father through her, and the trust which the Duke showed in her judgment roused their malice. They did their best to bring the King to listen to their sarcasm on a married life which seemed to rebuke his own; and Clarendon at the same time saw with regret that both his daughter and her husband partook in large measure of the spirit of reckless expense which prevailed at Court. Dutiful as she was in other respects, here her father's admonitions were of no effect. The Duke and she had formed their ideas of the scale of expenditure necessary in the household of the heir apparent, from the usages of the French Court. To those who saw in her only the daughter of one who, a few years ago, had been but a Wiltshire squire, her assumption of almost royal state was a cause of petty malice, and suggested the false pride of a family of obscure birth. To Clarendon it seemed but a necessary insistence upon that respect which the prevailing tone of the Court rendered necessary. In his eyes the danger lay, not in their insistence upon the usages of royal etiquette, but in their extravagance; and he incurred some ill-will from her, as well as from her husband, by his refusal to give his aid in securing for them a more ample revenue. The connection with the royal family, which had been thrust upon Clarendon to his indignation and sorely against his will, proved a new source of anxiety and dispeace.



It was on the first of September "in this dismal year of 1666," that the Great Fire burst out that in a few days consumed two-thirds of London, comprising all the repositories of her wealth. It added, to the other disasters weighing on the country, a stupendous disturbance of her commerce at its very centre, and the plunging of the nation into one of those unthinking panics, which, once indulged, so easily become habitual. The people were in no condition to face such a calamity with the coolness that comes from native energy or the confidence inspired by trust in their rulers. It seemed as if a judgment from heaven had fallen upon the nation; but it was received with all the despair of craven superstition and with no thought of benefiting by the lessons of tribulation. Angry and groundless accusations against foreigners and papists only added to the general excitement, without stirring up any of the courage which makes brave men face disaster. Public credit was shaken; commercial operations were stunned; wage-earners were thrown out of employment; the forces of crime found themselves released even from those imperfect bonds which then kept them in check. The King and his brother did, indeed, prove their courage in danger and their readiness of expedient; and they were well helped in their efforts to cope with the calamity by many of the leading nobility. But as a whole the visitation proved that the nerves of the nation were sadly relaxed. Clarendon summarizes the progress of the fire and the destruction wrought by it; but his most significant comments are those with which he closes his narrative, telling how hopeless he had grown, in this, the last stage of his laborious career:—"It was hoped and expected," he says, "that this prodigious and universal calamity, for the effects of it covered the whole kingdom, would have made impression, and produced some reformation in the licence of the Court; for as the pains the King had taken night and day during the fire and the dangers he had exposed himself to, even for the saving the citizens' goods, had been very notorious and in the mouths of all men, with good wishes and prayers for him; so his Majesty had been heard during that time to speak with great piety and devotion of the displeasure that God was provoked to. And no doubt the deep sense of it did raise many good thoughts and purposes in his royal breast. But he was narrowly watched and looked to that such melancholic thoughts might not long possess him, the consequence and effect whereof was like to be more grievous than that of the fire itself; of which that loose company that was too much cherished, even before it was extinguished, discoursed of as an argument for mirth and wit, to describe the wildness of the confusion all people were in; in which the Scripture itself was used with equal liberty when they could apply it to their profane purposes. And Mr. May [Footnote: Baptist May (born in 1629) managed to ingratiate himself with Charles II. in France, and became a favourite in the unsavoury position of "Court Pimp," as he is styled by Pepys. He secured for his base services some grants of land about St. James's, and was one of the lowest of a degraded gang. He sat occasionally in Parliament to discharge commissions which no man of honour would have undertaken. He lived a despised life down to 1698.] presumed to assure the King that this was the greatest blessing that God had ever conferred upon him, his restoration only excepted; for the walls and gates being now burned and thrown down of that rebellious city, which was always an enemy to the Crown, his Majesty would never suffer them to repair and build them up again to be a bit in his mouth and a bridle upon his neck, but would keep all open that his troops might enter upon them whenever he thought it necessary for his service, there being no way to govern that rude multitude but by force." [Footnote: Life, iii. 100.]

Such ribaldry was distasteful to the King, and for the moment he frowned upon it. But it wrought a dire effect, as it spread beyond the purlieus of the palace. Liberty of criticism was as easy to the rude multitude as to the witlings of the Court, and its effects, when it spread to that multitude, were far more deadly. The King's judgment might condemn, but his facile love of jesting made him inclined to listen to, the empty and sordid chatter of frivolity that sounded through his Court. "Meanwhile," says Clarendon, "all men of virtue and sobriety, of which there were very many in the King's family, were grieved and heartbroken with hearing what they could not choose but hear, and seeing many things which they could not avoid seeing." It is hard to say which is most worthy of contempt—the appalling cynicism that prompted such scurrilities, or the amazing folly which mistook their vulgarity for wit.

But even although Charles, out of a seeming respect for his older and sounder counsellors, might frown upon such irresponsible outbursts of bad taste, his scanty respect for the forms of the constitution continued to be a source of deep regret to Clarendon. In the view of the Chancellor, the Privy Council was the pivot of the constitution.

"By the constitution of the kingdom," he says, [Footnote: Life, iii. 103] "and the very laws and customs of the nation, as the Privy Council and every member of it is of the King's sole choice and election of him to that trust, so the body of it is the most sacred, and hath the greatest authority in the government of the State, next the person of the King himself, to whom all other powers are equally subject; and no King of England can so well secure his own just prerogative or preserve it from violation as by a strict defending and supporting the dignity of his Privy Council."