Chapter XXV: The Triumph of Faction (1)

Just as peace had been cemented amongst his enemies, in preparation for a final attack, Clarendon was struck by a heavy blow of domestic bereavement. Throughout all the vicissitudes of his life, amidst the hardships of exile, and in the still heavier anxieties that surrounded his later years of seeming prosperity, Clarendon had ever found in his family a centre of affection, and a source of consolation--broken only for a season when his eldest daughter was raised, by her marriage with the Duke, to a position which Clarendon knew well involved danger, both for her and for himself. His wife had proved an affectionate helpmate, and it is to her credit that in these Court circles which jealousy had rendered vigilant of any trace of scandal, and keen to note any assumption of arrogance, the wife of the Chancellor provoked the attacks of no enemies, and managed to elude the wrangles and bickerings of the Palace. In the summer of 1667, after a brief illness, she who had been his life's companion was taken from him, when, deprived of all his early friends, he was most in need of the comfort of a loving heart. Belonging, by birth, to the higher grade of the squirearchy, Lady Clarendon had married in her own rank, with every promise of all the comfort and dignity of honoured station, and in the first years had enjoyed a rare felicity of happy wedded life. When the career of politics absorbed her husband, she submitted without murmur to the interruption of that happiness, and in after years, without repining, she accepted the burden of the breaking up of her home, long years of anxiety, and the trials and privations of exile. She carried her later elevation to high rank without pride or ostentation. She does not lose her right to our respect because she earned what the Greek historian pronounces to be woman's highest glory, the least noisy echo either of praise or blame. That helpmate he lost just at the moment when all the forces of factious bitterness, of meanness, and of ingratitude, were preparing to vent their venom upon him.

The loss fell upon one already sorely tried by long and painful illness, against which he fought with courageous manliness. He was well aware that the weight of ill-will was rapidly accumulating against him. He had opposed the summoning of Parliament for the purpose of securing supplies to meet the exigencies of the war, on the ground that such anticipation of the day fixed for the resumption of its business was illegal. The expedient he had contemplated was a temporary loan, and this had been easily twisted, by the perverseness of his enemies, into a suggestion of raising funds without the consent of Parliament, in order to maintain a standing army. His advice had been set aside, and Parliament had been summoned for July 25th. But peace had already been secured, and immediate supply was no longer necessary. The King prorogued Parliament on July 29th, but not before the House had passed a resolution against a standing army. This abrupt dismissal of Parliament, when its presence was no longer called for, inflamed the anger against Clarendon. Those who had hoped to find an opportunity of pressing home their attack upon him in Parliament were indignant at the loss of this opportunity. Even the moderate men desired an explanation, and wished to be relieved of suspicions that arbitrary taxation was once more to be attempted. Those who were scandalized by the proceedings of the Court were prepared to make their anger felt, and had no mind to be silenced. The country members had trooped to Westminster from all parts of England, when long journeys were no easy matter. They returned home in no pleasant humour, grudging at once the expense which they had borne, and the muzzling to which they were subjected; [Footnote: See Pepys' _Diary_, under July 29,1667.] and the murmuring all fell upon Clarendon's devoted head. It was just as it grew most threatening that his wife's death plunged him into mourning.

"Within a few days after his wife's death, the King vouchsafed to come to his house to condole with him, and used many gracious expressions to him." [Footnote: _Life_, iii. 282.] When Charles had a scheme on foot that was peculiarly shabby or selfish, he knew how to conceal his intention under a gracious manner. The limit of his patience to suffer Clarendon's scoldings, or of his power to resist the pressure of his boon companions, was nearly reached; but he could yet hope that a solution might be found that would save any vexatious upbraidings. Clarendon might surely be persuaded to retire, and the peace of the Court would not then be broken by these troublesome wranglings. Less than a fortnight afterwards, the Duke of York was made the bearer of an astounding message. The King, he told Clarendon, had asked after him, and had been told by the Duke that "he was the most disconsolate man he ever saw;" that not only was he grieved for the loss of his wife, but that he feared he had lost the favour of his master, who seemed of late to have "withdrawn his countenance from him." Charles had made an evasive answer; but on a later day he explained himself more fully to the Duke. He knew, he said, from sure information that the Chancellor was "very odious" to the Parliament, and that at its next meeting an impeachment would certainly be moved. "Not only had he opposed them in all those things upon which they had set their hearts, but he had proposed and advised their dissolution." For the good of his Majesty's service, and for his own preservation, it was imperatively necessary that he should deliver up the seal. He might choose himself what should be the manner of doing so--whether it should be done personally, or through an intermediary. The Duke did not deny the danger, but he lamented the resolution of the King.

Clarendon was profoundly astonished. That the plainness of his criticism and advice had come to irritate the King, and that a persistent plotting against his influence was on foot, could hardly have been news to him. Strong as were his reasons for distrusting Charles, he can hardly have failed to have measured the depths of his dissimulation, or to have realized his readiness to yield to pressure. But his confidence in his own rectitude made him bold. He refused to believe that the majority of the House distrusted him, or that his enemies had that commanding influence which they claimed in order to intimidate the King. He was confident that, be their malice what it might, the Parliament was not of their mind. In that belief he demanded to speak with the King, before he delivered up the seal. He could not, indeed, go to the King, as gout disabled him, and the usages of the day did not permit of his being seen abroad so soon after the death of his wife; but the Duke did not doubt that he could prevail with the King to do as he had often done before, and come to Clarendon House. That hope was not fulfilled; the King declined to visit Clarendon, but was prepared to see him at Whitehall.

It may well be doubted whether Clarendon would not have served his own cause better, and that with no injury to public interests, had he complied with the request. His health was now broken; the phalanx of his enemies was overwhelmingly strong; and even had he been allowed to breast the storm for a few years more, and had he found that courageous support which it was not in Charles's nature to give, in maintaining the fight, he must have carried on his work in the face of increasing petulance on the part of his master, and increasing bitterness of venom from his enemies. The hopes that had inspired him, when he saw the Restoration accomplished, had long vanished; it could have been with only a shadow of his old courage that he would still have continued to guide the ship of the State. Charles was shrewd enough in judging the temper of the nation, and could form a good estimate of the force of the opposition; and there is no reason to think that he was wrong in supposing that a timely surrender would have saved his Minister from anything more than the loss of office--a loss to which Clarendon would not have attached much importance. The very fact that his enemies were obnoxious to the darts of scandal, and that the nation was watching them jealously; the very probability that many would have resented the fall of a Minister who had notoriously fought against the flagrant indecencies of the Court--these were additional reasons why Arlington and his faction would have been content with the removal of the object of their hatred, and would perhaps have foregone further persecution. Clarendon's voluntary retirement, upon the private suggestion conveyed from the King, might have saved him from the hardships that darkened his closing years, and might have prevented his feeling, in its full force, the poison of the King's ingratitude.

But we must remember other considerations that could not be absent from Clarendon's mind. History had not yet many instances to show of a Minister who had fallen from high place, and yet was suffered to lead a private life in peace. It was just a quarter of a century since Essex had used the menacing words in regard to Strafford, "Stone-dead hath no fellow." Arlington's ill-gotten influence might have felt itself threatened, if an ex-Chancellor with Clarendon's unrivalled prestige had been ready to permit his mansion in Piccadilly to be the resort of all who sought to form a powerful parliamentary opposition. The instinct of self- preservation may well have suggested to Clarendon that there might be few steps between his abdication and the Tower and scaffold. But still more, the central principles of his life forbade Clarendon to desert his post. He might not infrequently be prejudiced; he certainly was often sternly obstinate; he took too little account of the views of other men, and failed to adapt himself to the changed circumstances of the day. But never, in all his career, did he compromise with his duty, or give way to threats of personal danger. Adversity and he had long been familiar, and it may be doubted whether he would not have preferred to accept those few last years of banishment, rather than have yielded one jot of his own relentless resolution, or given occasion to his enemies to boast that they had made him shrink before them. We may doubt the wisdom of his decision; we cannot refuse our homage to his undaunted courage.

But the breach between the King and the Chancellor, and Clarendon's threatened fall, were already the theme of Court gossip. The Duchess learned that his resignation had been demanded, and she, with his old friend Archbishop Sheldon, and the Duke of Albemarle, joined in remonstrating with the King in no measured terms. Other lesser persons followed their example, and Charles soon found that the change was not to be carried out without seriously impinging on his own cherished ease. He protested that he sought nothing but Clarendon's safety, and that he had believed from what he had heard "of the extreme agony the Chancellor was in upon the death of his wife, that he had himself desired to be dismissed from his office." Albemarle was sent to require Clarendon's presence at Whitehall, and seems both to have believed, and to have desired, that what was but a passing misunderstanding might be easily arranged. The interview, at which the Duke of York was present, took place upon August 26th. Charles received him graciously and protested his sense of his high services, and his earnest desire to preserve him from the malice of his enemies. He did not scruple to add that he "had verily believed" that the demand for his resignation "had his own consent and desire." He had fancied that his brother concurred, however much he now protested. It is not impossible to believe that James may have found it convenient not to speak in exactly the same tone to his father-in-law and to his brother.

But apart from all mistakes as to personal feeling, the King was positive not only as to the intention of impeachment, but that the fate of Strafford would be the probable result for Clarendon, if he did not yield to the storm. If he did so yield, Charles was confident that he could preserve him, and that he could in this way best provide for his own business. He added a consideration which really gave the lie to what he had just said. "He was sorry that the business had taken so much air, and was so publicly spoken of, that he knew not how to change his purpose." He had surely a better reason for not changing his purpose, if he was persuaded that no change could be made without hazard to the Chancellor's life.

Clarendon's reply to Charles's shuffling was firm and dignified. He had no desire that the King should change his resolution. But he would not suffer it to be believed that his delivery of the seal was his own willing act. "He should not think himself a gentleman, if he were willing to depart, and withdraw himself from office, in a time when he thought his Majesty would have need of all honest men." Neither was he ready to acknowledge that the deprivation was "in order to do him good." It was "the greatest ruin he could undergo," and instead of saving him, it would deliver him, a discredited man, to the malice and vengeance of his enemies. His last declaration was the most scornful of all.

"He renounced his Majesty's protection or interposition towards his preservation. He feared no censure, if his Majesty should reveal all that he had counselled him in secret. If any one could charge him with a crime, he was ready to undergo the punishment."

Such words as these are strange, to be uttered by a falling Minister to his King, when that King is trying to cloak his own meanness by a pretence of a single-minded desire to save that Minister; they would be stranger still if they had been used by a man conscious of any guilt. But Clarendon did not stop there; he turned the tables fiercely upon the King.

"He doubted very much that the throwing off an old servant who had served the Crown in some trust near thirty years (who had the honour by the command of his blessed father, who had left good evidence of the esteem he had of his fidelity, to wait upon his Majesty when he went out of the kingdom, and, by the great blessing of God, had the honour to return with him again; which no other counsellor alive could say), on a sudden, without any suggestion of a crime, nay, with a declaration of innocence, would call his Majesty's justice and good nature into question."

Charles had pretended to be working for his servant's safety, and in accordance with what he thought that he desired. That servant brushes aside his subterfuges, renounces his protection, and plainly tells him that the course he proposes to follow will stamp him as an ungrateful master, and drive every honest man to abandon his service. No wonder that the King seemed "very much troubled." He pleaded the power of Parliament, and how he was "at their mercy." Clarendon could only advise him not to act the coward. He had a warning in the fate of Richard II. of what faint- heartedness in a King might bring. In his last thrust Clarendon forgot--as he himself admits--the bounds of prudence. "In the warmth of this relation, he found a seasonable opportunity to mention the Lady with some reflections and cautions, which he might more advisedly have declined." The close of his final interview was perhaps an ill-chosen moment for wounding the King's pride by another reference to the foul-mouthed termagant, who now swayed the Court, and trampled on her royal lover with the usual insolence of the pampered courtesan.

The visit of the King and the Duke to Clarendon's chamber at Whitehall, where the interview took place, lasted two hours, and at its end the King rose in silence and retired ill-pleased. Meantime the tongues of the Court gossips were busy. When the conference closed, the garden was filled with a crowd of courtiers, eager to watch the countenance of the King. As the Chancellor left the presence of his master, "the Lady, the Lord Arlington, and Mr. May, [Footnote: Bab May, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, and minister to Charles's pleasures. See _ante_, p. 244.] looked together out of her open window with great gaiety and triumph, which all people observed." The fallen Minister could spare a moment's attention, to mark the dramatic fitness of the scene. [Footnote: Clarendon, _Life_, iii. 291. Pepys gives us the scene with more detail (_Diary_, August 27). "Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, tells me how this business of my Lord Chancellor's was certainly designed in my Lady Castlemaine's chamber; and that, when he went from the King on Monday morning, she was in bed, though about twelve o'clock, and ran out in her smock into her aviary looking into Whitehall Garden; and thither her woman brought her her nightgown; and stood joying herself at the old man's going away; and several of the gallants of Whitehall, of which there were many staying to see the Chancellor's return, did talk to her in her bird cage; amongst others Blancfort (the Marquis de Blanquefort), telling her she was the bird of Paradise."]

Two or three days passed, during which the plot ripened amidst the gossip of the quidnuncs. To those of his more sober-minded counsellors, who spoke for the Chancellor, the King professed much kindness for him, but "he had made himself odious to the Parliament, and was no more capable to do him service." The Lady, Arlington, and Bab May still honoured him by their fervent denunciation, and by their sure prediction of his speedy fall. Evelyn visited him the day after his interview with the King, and "found him in his bedchamber, very sad." "He had enemies at Court," Evelyn goes on, "especially the buffoons and ladies of pleasure, because he had thwarted some of them and stood in their way; I could name some of them." The next day Evelyn dined with him, and found him "pretty well in heart, though now many of his friends and sycophants abandoned him." Clarendon knew the world too well to be surprised or grieved by such abandonment, or to allow it to affect his fortitude.

The Duke of York, none of the most adroit or persuasive of advocates, still stood his friend, and endeavoured to bend the purpose of the King. Sir William Coventry, always--although afterwards he disclaimed it to Pepys--one of the most pronounced of Clarendon's enemies, found it necessary to resign his post of secretary to the Duke, and the place was filled by one whom Clarendon suggested. It may be doubted whether the change was meant as more than an outward sign to Clarendon that he still retained his son-in-law's respect. The fight between his friends and enemies still proceeded apace. When the Duke of York attempted to stem the tide against him, Charles only replied, "that he had gone too far to retire; that he should be looked on as a child if he receded from his purpose." Selfishness and love of ease blunted Charles's judgment; they did not interfere with that obstinacy which was a dominant trait in the family character. Only two days later he took the decisive step, and sent Secretary Morrice with a warrant under the sign manual, to demand the seal.[Footnote: The seal was entrusted to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, as Lord Keeper.] The Chancellor delivered it "with all expressions of duty to the King." If Charles felt the stings of conscience for his sorry action, he could comfort himself with the congratulations of the Court pandar, Bab May. That worthy fell upon his knees, kissed the King's hand, and told him "that he was now King, which he had never been before." [Footnote: See Pepys, _Diary_, November 11, 1667.] It was an odd change, from the dignified loyalty of Clarendon to the fulsome flattery of Bab May. Even the scanty pride that had survived in one degraded by sottish debauchery might have been nauseated by the contrast.

Clarendon was mistaken if he thought that compliance with the King's request had either satisfied the rancour of his enemies, or secured for him the King's support. At first he hoped the storm was over, and after an interval sufficient to show that he was conscious of no guilt, and sought to hide himself from no inquiry, he intended to retire to the country, and live as a private gentleman. He had no fear either of Parliament or of his countrymen, and was ready to abide their question. He heard that the King dreaded his assumption of the part of leader of a Parliamentary opposition, and hastened to assure him that he had no such intention. His friends still resorted to his house, and those who respected themselves declined, at the bidding of an ignoble clique, to lessen the signs of their respect for him. The King had not courage enough to forbid such demonstrations; but at the instigation of his new confidants he sulked and uttered vague hints, to which Clarendon's enemies gave open and more definite utterance. They had secured the cordial alliance of Buckingham, by persuading him that Clarendon had been at the root of his recent prosecution. Thus reinforced they resolved to make their vengeance more complete.

The King had induced Clarendon to yield, as the only means by which the wrath of Parliament could be stayed, and that had undoubtedly been the pretext put forward to the King by Arlington, and those who acted with him. But now they went further. So long as Clarendon remained at liberty, they dreaded his influence, and persuaded the King that he would spread suspicion and disaffection, and would obstruct every design of the Government. Charles was weak enough to believe a slander, which no one who has studied Clarendon's life and character can for one moment accept, and which Clarendon himself had expressly repudiated. When the Duke of York expostulated, Charles shuffled and prevaricated after his wont. "All might have been quiet, if only the Chancellor had been more practicable; but he had delayed so long, that now the King was compelled 'in the vindication of his honour,' to give some reason for what he had done." Those who praised the Chancellor so loudly were reflecting upon himself. But if he were freed from these inconvenient demonstrations, the Chancellor would not suffer, and he would use his sons as kindly as ever, Charles was not rancorous, but his gleams of good nature only mark his cowardice more strongly.

In his Speech at the opening of Parliament on October loth, the King attempted to smooth matters over. "There had been miscarriages;" but he "had altered his counsels;" "what had been done amiss had been by the advice of the person whom he had removed from his counsels, and with whom he should not hereafter advise." No man ever betrayed a faithful servant with more consummate self-abasement.

The House was asked by some to thank the King "for removing the Chancellor," but it was thought premature to do so, and a committee was appointed to draft a reply. The King--so Clarendon's enemies represented-- was offended by the omission, and the Court party pressed for a specific vote, which should endorse his action in the dismissal. That was carried after a keen debate, and by similar Court action it was pushed through the House of Lords. The Duke remonstrated, but was told by the King "that it should go the worse for the Chancellor if his friends opposed." We need not be surprised that Charles doubled the weakness of the coward by the allied blustering of the bully.

Again the King thought that he had satisfied the rancour of Clarendon's enemies, and had vindicated sufficiently the petty jealousy which he himself still felt at the memory of the Chancellor's sway. But he soon found that he had to satisfy more exigent taskmasters. Clarendon's power, they urged, was only scotched, not killed. His influence would soon be supreme, and "he would come to the House with more credit to do mischief." Grounds of accusation were greedily sought for, and readily supplied, [Footnote: Briefly stated, these were-- 1. That the Chancellor had advised the King to dissolve the Parliament and said there could be no further need of Parliaments. That it would be best for the King to raise a standing army, and govern by that. 2. That he had reported that the King was a Papist in his heart. 3. That he had advised the grant of a Charter to the Canary Company for which he had received great sums of money. 4. That he had raised great sums of money by the sale of offices. 5. That he had introduced an arbitrary government into his Majesty's several plantations. 6. That he had issued _quo warrantos_ against most corporations till they paid him good sums of money. 7. That he received large sums for the settlement of Ireland. 8. That he had deluded the King, and betrayed the nation in all foreign treaties. 9. That he had farmed the customs at under rates, in return for money. 10. That he had received bribes from the Vintners, to free them from penalties due. 11. That he had raised a great state, and got grants of Crown lands. 12. That he had advised the sale of Dunkirk. 13. That he had caused letters under the great seal to be altered. 14. That he had arbitrarily raised questions of titles to land. 15. That he had been the author of the fatal counsel of dividing the fleet in June, 1666. 16. That he had been in correspondence with Cromwell during the King's exile.] and these contrivances soon resulted in a violent harangue from Edward Seymour, who now made himself conspicuous in the attack upon the fallen Minister. It is not easy to trace the special source of Seymour's violence, but we can find sufficient to account for it in the character of the man himself. He was of illustrious descent, as the head of the great house of Seymour; [Footnote: Seymour was the direct representative of the great Duke of Somerset, the Lord Protector; but the Dukedom had, by special remainder, passed to a younger son, over the head of Edward Seymour's ancestor. "You are of the family of the Duke of Somerset," said William III. when he was first presented. "Pardon me, Sire," answered Seymour, "the Duke of Somerset is of my family." ] possessed of abundant wealth, and unbounded territorial interest in the west. But his birth and wealth were accompanied by overweening pride and ambition, and by a restlessness of rancorous temper that made him for more than a generation a thorn in the side of every successive Government. With high ability, he combined the character of a selfish voluptuary; and although possessed of great wealth, his support was always to be bought by the offer of a place, and he did not disdain the malpractices of a cozener in his eagerness to increase his store. After serving as Speaker, he remained in the Parliament, over which he had presided, as a captious and unruly partisan, forgetting alike dignity and honour in his factious virulence. Such was the spokesman chosen by Clarendon's enemies to frame the indictment. It was enough for Seymour that the task seemed likely to gratify his own ambition. His pride of birth and station no doubt gave a zest to the attack upon one who had raised himself from the smaller squirearchy to the place of foremost Minister. The Chancellor, he avowed vaguely, had designed to govern by a standing army. Seymour swore that he would produce ample proofs, and meantime he urged that a charge of treason should be laid against Clarendon in the House of Lords. The wiser spirits, and those who preserved some regard for the decencies of justice, refused to assent to a course so flagrantly illegal, upon the unsupported clamour of an arrogant youth.

After protracted debate a committee was appointed to examine precedents in cases of impeachment. On October 29th, it presented its report, and another keen debate ensued. Some argued that they should prefer a general impeachment, without adducing any special charge; others, like Maynard, argued that "common fame is no ground to accuse a man where matter of fact is not clear; to say an evil is done, and therefore this man hath done it, is strange in morality, more in logic." As a result, another committee was appointed to reduce the charge against the Chancellor into heads; and that committee then formulated their charges in seventeen heads. Again a debate ensued upon these charges. They were discussed _seriatim_, and the sixteenth head was reached without one being found to involve a charge of treason.

But the zealots had now gone too far to turn back. Another of the band, conspicuous for his profligacy even in a Court of libertines, Lord Vaughan, the son of the Earl of Carbery, [Footnote: With bitterness, which is perhaps pardonable, Clarendon gives him a line of unflattering portraiture: "A person of as ill a face as fame, his looks and his manners both extreme bad" (Clarendon, _Life_, iii. 317).] undertook to prove another charge. The Chancellor, he avowed, had discovered the King's secrets to the enemy. He was prepared to prove it, and, to stimulate the virulence of those who were bent on Clarendon's ruin, Vaughan passed the whisper along the benches, that this was in truth the source of the King's anger against him. Charles, it would seem, had dissembled the cause of his own jealousy to his Minister; he was content that it should be suggested as a new incentive to that Minister's foes. Opposition was trampled upon, and, with unseemly haste, on November 12th, Seymour was sent to the House of Lords to impeach the Earl of Clarendon at the bar, and to desire that his person be secured.

A new stage in the fight now began. The House of Lords, weak as, in Clarendon's opinion, it had often been in yielding to the encroachments of the Commons, yet contained many members who were not prepared to abandon the very semblance of justice, and of dignified procedure, either at the bidding of a Court clique, or before the unseemly rancour of a party in the House of Commons. They urged that the demand of the Commons should be peremptorily refused, and they maintained their ground so firmly before the blustering of those who were ready not only to commit, but to convict, the Chancellor, in obedience to the dominant faction, that the debate was perforce adjourned. The delay continued, and the dispute raged fiercely. To the persecution of the Chancellor there was now added the additional zest of a struggle between the two Houses, All business was suspended while the fight went on. The angry clique saw all their schemes threatened, the King found his cherished ease disturbed; by some means or other the wrangle must cease. To those who refused to bend to the storm, hints were conveyed that they were incurring the anger of the King. Desperate plans were discussed; and if other means failed, a guard of soldiers might be sent to arrest the Chancellor and convey him to the Tower. How far Charles was privy to these designs, it is impossible to say. Reverence for the law would be no potent motive either to him, or to the gang who had for the moment secured his confidence.

His friends urged Clarendon to make his escape. They saw the danger increasing, and they guessed that no ill-timed interruption would be placed in his way. Such an escape would relieve the King of a vexing situation, and would satisfy those enemies who might, by means of it, effectually destroy his reputation and his influence. An escape would doubtless have been construed as an evidence of guilt; but to give way to the malignity of his persecutors would at least have been better than life-long imprisonment, or death upon Tower Hill. To yield to such advice was not in keeping with Clarendon's character. He was eager to stand his trial. Rightly or wrongly, he did unquestionably feel absolute confidence in the support of his countrymen at large. Even were he proved to have been mistaken, and were the power of his enemies greater than he reckoned, he was yet ready to bear the consequences so long as his good name was secure. Were he to fly, he would abase his pride before his foes, and would give just ground for impugning his innocence. Nay, more, how could he trust that he would not be captured at the first attempt to escape? It might only be a trap laid by his enemies, who would bring him to trial with that frustrated attempt as their securest evidence of his guilt. Rumours were rife of the King's growing irritation, of the specific charges to be preferred, of the proposed constitution of the commission by which he was to be tried. The Duke of York, still faithful to the Chancellor's cause, resolved to seek an explanation from the King. He asked if his Majesty was determined either to have the Chancellor's life, or his condemnation to perpetual imprisonment. Charles repudiated with his usual facility, either idea, and swore that he wished the matter were ended. Had the Chancellor, asked the Duke, ever proposed to govern by an army? "Never," answered the King; "on the contrary, his fault was that he always insisted too much upon the law." The Duke asked again, if he might say as much to others. "With all my heart," said the King.

The statement of the King was creditable, and gave hopes to Clarendon's friends. But when the words were repeated, they were found to be disheartening to the conspirators, who thereupon carried their complaints to the King. "They had tried to serve him, and now knew not how to behave themselves." Their weapons would be gone, if the King indulged in such inconvenient candour. The messenger was repudiated by the King with just as much readiness as he had shown in giving his original assurances. The Duke remonstrated, and the King's only answer was "that he would be more careful hereafter what he said to him." The Duke might surely have learned that the King's candid truths were often uttered only to be repudiated when convenient.

Once more the petty scandals of licentious intrigue obtrude themselves at the most critical juncture of a grave historic drama. In no transaction where Charles was concerned could such sordid details be long absent. The King's fancy had shortly before been attracted by a new denizen of the "Lady's" drawing room, and he had become so infatuated with the charms of Miss Stuart, [Footnote: Frances Teresa Stuart, born in 1648, was the daughter of Dr. Walter Stuart, a cadet of the House of Blantyre. Her father, an ardent Royalist, fled from the vengeance of Parliament, and Frances was brought up at Paris, where her beauty and peculiar charm attracted even royal attention. When she joined the household of Queen Catherine in England, her loveliness captivated all hearts, and stirred the fire of passion even in such a jaded voluptuary as the King. Her subtle combination of virgin simplicity and adroit prudence only inflamed him the more. For once he was consumed by an ardent love, and tortured by a real jealousy. Hence his anger at the runaway match and all concerned in it.

Frances Stuart steered her course with safety through many quicksands, and died, not without honour, in 1702.] that he had seriously contemplated a divorce, which might enable him to offer her those terms of lawful marriage which could alone overcome her stubborn virtue, or her ambitious prudence. Whether any such designs were actually entertained or not, the amorous hopes of the King were speedily disappointed by the lady's marriage with the Duke of Richmond. The royal lover was ignominiously defeated in the only sort of rivalry which seriously touched him, and the pride of the jaded voluptuary was more easily wounded than the honour of the King. His vanity was ruffled, and nothing was easier for Clarendon's enemies than to inspire Charles with the belief that his Chancellor had arranged the marriage as the best means of stopping his licentious freak. The story was absolutely untrue; but the certainty that it had been conveyed to the King [Footnote: An accidental meeting of the King with Clarendon's eldest son, Lord Cornbury, at the door of Miss Stuart's lodging, contributed, it is said, to the King's belief of the Chancellor's agency in the matter. Ludlow can have had no personal knowledge of the circumstances. But he does not scruple to describe the marriage as a contrivance of Clarendon, "that old Volpone." Volpone was a character in one of Ben Jonson's plays.] induced Clarendon to write to Charles a letter which might well have stirred remorse even in a heart as hardened by selfishness as his--

"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY,

"I am so broken under the daily insupportable instances of your Majesty's terrible displeasure, that I know not what to do, hardly what to wish. The crimes which are objected against me, however passionately soever pursued, and with circumstances very unusual, do not in the least degree fright me. God knows I am innocent in every particular as I ought to be; and I hope your Majesty knows enough of me to believe that I had never a violent appetite for money that could corrupt me. But, alas! your Majesty's declared anger and indignation deprives me of the comfort and support even in my own innocence, and exposes me to the rage and fury of those who have some excuse for being my enemies; whom I have sometimes displeased, when (and only then) your Majesty believed them not to be your friends. I hope they may be changed, I am sure I am not, but have the same duty, passion, and affection for you that I had when you thought it most unquestionable, and which was and is as great as ever man had for any mortal creature. I should die in peace (and truly I do heartily wish that God Almighty would free you from further trouble, by taking me to Himself) if I could know or guess at the ground of your believing that I have said or done somewhat, I have neither said nor done. If it be for anything my Lord Berkeley hath reported, which I know he hath said to many, though being charged with it by me he did as positively disclaim it; I am as innocent in that whole affair, and gave no more advice or counsel or countenance in it, than the child that is not born; which your Majesty seemed once to believe, when I took notice to you of the report, and when you considered how totally I was a stranger to the persons mentioned, to either of whom I never spake a word, or received message from either in my life. And this I protest to your Majesty is true, as I have hope in Heaven; and that I have never wilfully offended your Majesty in my life, and do upon my knees beg your pardon for any overbold or saucy expressions I have ever used to you; which, being a natural disease in old servants who have received too much countenance, I am sure hath always proceeded from the zeal and warmth of the most sincere affection and duty.

"I hope your Majesty believes, that the sharp chastisement I have received from the best natured and most bountiful master in the world, and whose kindness alone made my condition these many years supportable, hath enough mortified me as to this world; and that I have not the presumption or the madness to imagine or desire ever to be admitted to any employment or trust again. But I do most humbly beseech your Majesty, by the memory of your father, who recommended me to you with some testimony, and by your own gracious reflection upon some one service I may have performed in my life, that hath been acceptable to you; that you will by your royal power and interposition put a stop to this severe prosecution against me, and that my concernment may give no longer interruption to the great affairs of the Kingdom; but that I may spend the small remainder of my life, which cannot hold long, in some parts beyond the seas, never to return, where I will pray for your Majesty, and never suffer the least diminution in the duty and obedience of,

"May it please your Majesty,

"Your Majesty's most humble and most obedient subject and servant,

"CLARENDON.

"_From my house this 16th of November._"

To our ears these words have something of exaggerated humility; as a fact they only clothe in the formal language of the day, that overflowing and sincere loyalty which Clarendon wore on a background of indomitable pride. That pride was so fundamental, that the high-sounding adulation is made almost more palpable by the evident restraint which he places upon his underlying indignation. His love for the King was honestly felt; but it was the fruit only of long past memories, of the tenderest associations of his life, of his profound reverence for his first master. He scarcely even recognized how utter was his contempt for the man himself, as he now was, with all his vulgar licentiousness, all his superficial good nature, all his essential selfishness and cynicism. Clarendon himself would have been surprised had he known how much of that contempt he had unconsciously revealed, by an occasional phrase, or a half-perceptible stroke of sarcasm. The effect of the letter was plain enough, and it conveyed a covert defiance from the fallen Minister, both to his faithless master and to his triumphant foes. "Withdraw your charges, and I shall free you of my presence, conscious of my own innocence; but do not expect that I shall slip away like a scared criminal to avoid the consequences of my guilt, or that your cowardly hints have power to move me."

Charles was free to accept the letter as a passionate appeal from a loyal servant to all that there was of self-respect and honour in his breast. If he so accepted it, he acted as only the boundless selfishness of cynicism could have suggested. He read the letter, held it over a candle until it was consumed, and then calmly said that he wondered that the Chancellor did not withdraw himself. But, indeed, we can scarcely doubt that the King was astute enough to see that the letter was, in truth, a note of defiance. If he was to play the craven, Charles was bid to play it in the light of day. To such a master of shuffling and evasion, the clear-sighted determination which made Clarendon insist upon a point of form in demanding an open order to depart, and which compelled his refusal to allow a triumph to his foes, might well seem incomprehensible. The result was only that Clarendon was besieged with new suggestions that he should escape, by a flight which it was more than hinted would be connived at. Charles's unkingly task was to bring about by hint and stratagem, what he was not man enough to prescribe by order. He satisfied Clarendon's enemies by openly proclaiming his anger at the Chancellor's delays; he kept up a pretence of compunction to Clarendon's friends, and begged them to persuade him how wise and prudent flight would be.

Herbert Croft, now Bishop of Hereford, was one of the emissaries of the King. [Footnote: Croft belonged to a Roman Catholic family of some importance. He had first been educated at St. Omer's, although afterwards he was admitted to the Anglican Church, and became an object of Laud's special patronage. This naturally secured to him the favour of Clarendon, and, as a fact, Clarendon informs us that he had placed Croft under heavy obligations. But the friendship had not continued. In later years Croft showed latitudinarian tendencies in his writings, which may have been apparent in his conversation at an earlier date, and may well have alienated Clarendon. The fact, however, that Croft belonged to a family of high rank and large possessions may still more probably have induced him to feel jealous of the quick rise of the more plebeian Edward Hyde, and may have bred ill-will between them.] He was no pleasing agent to Clarendon. He was not churchman only, but also an aristocrat, of great wealth, whose jealousy of Clarendon's newly acquired rank had made him, like Seymour, keen to reduce the pride of one whom he deemed an upstart, and led him to show ingratitude for Clarendon's early patronage. He sought an interview with the Chancellor, through Clarendon's early and trusted friend, George Morley, now Bishop of Winchester. He explained his mission with all the awkwardness of one who had a double part to play. "He had good authority for what he had to say." But he shunned any mention of the King's name, until his more candid brother, the Bishop of Winchester, blurted out, to Croft's annoyance, his previous confession to the Bishop that he came by the orders of the King. He could not contradict the other, but could only repeat that he could not be so mad as to interpose without authority. The Chancellor was meant to infer the truth, but he was to have no express assurance of it. All Croft could say was "that if Clarendon would withdraw himself beyond the seas, he would pledge 'his own salvation,' that no interruption to his journey would be given."

The Chancellor was inconveniently deaf to innuendoes. If he had the commands of the King, or clear evidence that the King desired it, he would face even the discredit of retreat. Without such orders or such assurance, he would consult his own honour, and abide the issue. Clarendon was determined to play only with the cards upon the table. Croft fell back upon his former subterfuge, and at length it was agreed that Clarendon should have a pass under the royal warrant which would ensure him against misconstruction. So the interview ended.

But he had not sounded the depths of Charles's cowardice. Word came that the King could not grant the pass; it would incense the Parliament; he could not face the risk that he asked his aged and discarded servant to run. Clarendon held to his former resolution. He would not obey even his sovereign in a trick. His decision may have been stubborn and ill-advised; it was at least courageous. His friends vainly sought to bend his will. Ruvigny, the new French ambassador, who had come to deal with Clarendon as first Minister, in his master's affairs, and had soon discerned his altered situation, sent word to him of the intrigues he found at Court, and advised his withdrawal to France, where he would find a ready welcome. Clarendon remained immovable; and all the bluster of enemies, like Seymour, who swore that the mob would wreak their vengeance on Clarendon's adherents, failed to crush hia will. With a pardonable triumph, Clarendon tells us how he scorned to take a mean advantage which offered itself against his adversaries. Arlington had made many enemies by his insolence, and Coventry was deeply involved in charges of malversation in dealing with the monies of the navy, and in selling offices in the Admiralty. Clarendon's friends urged him to divert the storm from himself by betraying the misdeeds of these his foes. The suggestion was made in vain. "No provocation," he declared, "should dispose him to do anything which would not become him." These men were Privy Councillors, and of what he saw amiss in them, he could inform the King. It was no business of his to protect his own innocence by counter charges. He would leave them to their fate. He would neither cower before the storm, nor divert it by spreading scandal against others.

It seemed as if the deadlock between the two Houses, and the tortuous twistings of the King and the angry faction that had acquired his confidence, had come to an insoluble entanglement.

The knot was at length loosed by the Duke of York's intervention. James had now recovered from an attack of small-pox, which had temporarily laid him aside, and he received the personal commands of the King to "advise the Chancellor to be gone." The Duke had no alternative but to convey this message, through the Bishop of Winchester, to Clarendon. The King had yielded to Clarendon's terms, so far as to send, through his brother, what was next to a personal order. Hyde, however reluctant, had no alternative but to obey. On the night of November 29th, he took coach, with two servants only. A boat was ready for him at Erith, and he there embarked. He had a stormy passage, which lasted three days and nights, and, sorely against his will, as he knew the evil construction that would arise from his resting on French soil, he was compelled to land at Calais.

When the Chancellor left, he deemed it right in the interests of his own honour, to leave a letter of explanation, which was read to the House of Lords by the Earl of Denbigh. [Footnote: An early friendship, long interrupted by estrangement during the Civil War, perhaps accounted for Clarendon's choice of an intermediary. Basil Feilding, in age a contemporary of Clarendon, was the son of William Feilding, whose marriage to the sister of the first Duke of Buckingham had procured him advancement at Court and high rank in the peerage as Earl of Denbigh. That Earl had joined the Royalist forces, and died of wounds received in battle in 1643. His son had, in 1628, been called to the House of Lords as Lord Feilding; but for some reason, in spite of his antecedents, and the strong remonstrances of his family, he joined the side of the Parliament, and became one of their leading commanders. When Commissioner at Uxbridge, in 1645, he renewed his old intercourse with Hyde, who formed a high estimate of his abilities, and Denbigh explained to Hyde his desire to get rid of his present allies, and do something for the royal cause. "If any conjunction fell out," he said, "in which by losing his life he might preserve the King, he would embrace the occasion, otherwise he would shift the best he could for himself" (_Hist. of Rebellion_, viii. 246). He was one of several peers whose pride was wounded, and whose resentment against Parliament was aroused, by the injury to their own order. He took no part in the King's trial, and gradually withdrew from the Parliamentary side. In 1660, he managed to prove himself of sufficient use to the Royalists, to secure indemnity, and a certain degree of favour. He retained enough of his former reputation as an ally of Parliament to be characterized by Ludlow as "a generous man, and a lover of his country."]