"It is now full seven years," he wrote to the King, "since I have been deprived of your Majesty's favour, with some circumstances of mortification which have never been exercised towards any other man, and therefore I may hope from your good nature and justice, that a severity which you have never practised upon any other man for half the time, may be diminished in some degree towards me."

He prays "that you will at least signify your consent that I may return to beg my bread in England, and to die amongst my own children." In terms as strong and moving he besought the mediation of the Duke of York. But these appeals, which might have touched the heart of the sternest tyrant, fell dead upon the selfish cynicism of Charles, deaf at once to the calls of honour, and to the gratitude due to unswerving loyalty. They met with no response.

In the spring of 1674, Clarendon moved to Rouen, indulging the hope of a return to his country and his home, and eager to be nearer to answer any summons sent by a relenting sovereign. But no such summons came, and the weary exile was now at the end of his brave and strenuous labour. On December 9th, 1674, he breathed his last. His son, Lord Cornbury, was present at his deathbed, having been summoned when the end was near. The French Court had granted him the privilege of making testamentary provisions, which otherwise would not have been possible to him as a foreigner on French soil. His will was dated on December 11th (French style [Footnote: December 1st, according to the English calendar.]), but it related only to his writings and papers, with which his heirs were to deal subject to the advice of his old friends, Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Morley, Bishop of Winchester. He had probably disposed of his other property by earlier gifts. His body was brought to England, and was buried in the Henry VII. Chapel at Westminster. No monument marks the spot where the great Minister rests amongst the monarchs whose throne he served so well. [Footnote: The name was inscribed on the site of the family vault, under Dean Stanley, in 1867. Clarendon's mother had been buried there in 1661; and afterwards his third son, in 1664. It is at the foot of the steps to Henry VII.'s Chapel.] We have endeavoured, from the varied episodes of his life of strange vicissitude, and from the records of his strenuous action, of his undaunted courage, and of his well-tried loyalty, to draw the portrait of Lord Clarendon, to describe his character as we conceive it, and to vindicate his place in history. We have not sought to conceal his foibles, nor to palliate what may appear to some to be his prejudices. We are concerned mainly to claim for him, as the first of a long line of Conservative statesmen, a high ideal of statecraft, a lofty patriotism, and a clear-sighted honesty of purpose. We admit, without considering it necessary to apologize for, that impetuous temper, which does not make us love him less, and those traits of self-complacency which were a part of his fearless candour, and in no wise detract from the dignity of his nature. We have tried to portray the secret of his influence, his genius for friendship, and the wide range of his outlook upon the drama of history. We have abundant evidence of the impression of his personality upon life-long friends, and even upon doubtful critics.

"He spoke well," says Burnet: "his style had no flaw in it, but had a just mixture of wit and sense, only he spoke too copiously; he had a great pleasantness in his spirit, which carried him sometimes too far into raillery, in which he sometimes showed more wit than discretion."

That is the verdict of an acute, but at best a lukewarm, judge. Elsewhere Burnet writes:

"Upon the whole matter, he was a true Englishman, and a sincere Protestant, and what has passed at Court since his disgrace has sufficiently vindicated him from all ill designs."

"Sir Edward Hyde," writes Sir Philip Warwick, "was of a cheerful and agreeable conversation, of an extraordinary industry and activity, and of a great confidence, which made him soon at home at a Court... He had a felicity both of tongue and pen, which made him willingly hearkened unto and much approved." [Footnote: Memoirs, p. 196.] "I am mad in love with my Lord Chancellor," says Pepys, "for he do comprehend and speak out well, and with the greatest ease and authority that ever I saw man in my life. I did never observe how much easier a man do speak when he knows all the company to be below him, than in him."

The gossipping diarist was no inapt observer of the ways of men, and had no small experience. Evelyn was a more attached and grateful admirer. To him, the great Chancellor was "of a jolly temper, of the old English fashion." Yet Evelyn had known Clarendon when his courage was most tried, when his hopes were baffled, and when the sordid crowd of courtiers and profligates had baited him almost to the death. It is little touches like these that fill in the picture of the man.

Of his literary achievement this is not the place to speak. It has a secure and proud niche in the annals of our literature. We have tried to present him as the Statesman and the Man of Action, and as the tried, the faithful, and the ungrudging, friend.

THE END