PROSPECT FOR THE RESTORED MONARCHY
The task which fell to Hyde during the early months of 1660, in gauging
the various influences at work in the country from which he had been
banished for fourteen years, was one of acute difficulty. He had been, it
is true, in constant correspondence with men whom he could trust; but the
letters which reached him from Sheldon, from Lord Mordaunt, from
Grenville, and from Brodrick--to name only a few of those who gave him
their impressions from week to week--had spoken in various degrees of hope
and fear, and given him very different accounts of the state of parties.
These parties had greatly shifted their attitude during the years of his
banishment. Many of those upon whom dependence had to be placed--such, for
instance, as Morrice, the close adherent of Monk, and now Secretary of
State--were personally unknown to him. Some of the strongest supporters of
a restoration were men who had been conspicuous as adherents of Cromwell,
and yet it became increasingly clear to him that their support was even
more valuable than that of some whose loyalty was of older date. The
Presbyterians and the Roman Catholics had specious claims to advance for
consideration; and even the Levellers, the Anabaptists, and the
Independents had motives, which dexterous manipulation might foster, and
which might make them ready to support the cause of the King, especially
now that it was in the ascendant. Amidst the strong tides which were
running under the influence of shifting currents of popular opinion,
principles were thrust to the wall, and each party, like each individual,
was chiefly occupied in looking after personal interests, and adjusting
views so as to suit the change of the national situation. No one was sure
of anything except that the political quicksands were moving rapidly, and
that it behoved them not to be behind others in forming advantageous
alliances.
The mood of the time could not be painted in more impressive words than
those which Hyde uses, after the manner of Thucydides in describing the
moral effects of the Peloponesian war.
"In a word, the nation was corrupted from that integrity, good nature, and
generosity, that had been peculiar to it, and for which it had been signal
and celebrated throughout the world; in the room whereof the vilest craft
and dissembling had succeeded. The tenderness of bowels, which is the
quintessence of justice and compassion, the very mention of good nature,
was laughed at and looked upon as the mark and character of a fool; and a
roughness of manners, or hardheartedness and cruelty, was affected. In the
place of generosity, a vile and sordid love of money was entertained as
the truest wisdom, and anything lawful that would contribute towards being
rich. There was a total decay, or rather a final expiration of all
friendship; and to dissuade a man from anything he affected, or to reprove
him for anything he had done amiss, or to advise him to do anything he had
no mind to do, was thought an impertinence unworthy a wise man, and
received with reproach and contempt. These dilapidations and ruins of the
ancient candour and discipline were not taken enough to heart, and
repaired with that early care and severity that they might have been, for
they were not then incorrigible; but by the remissness of applying
remedies to some, and the unwariness in giving a kind of countenance to
others, too much of that poison insinuated itself into minds not well
fortified against such infection, so that much of the malignity was
transplanted, instead of being extinguished, to the corruption of many
wholesome bodies, which, being corrupted, spread the diseases more
powerfully and more mischievously." [Footnote: _Life_, i. 360.]
The ignoble struggles of callous selfishness were made all the more
desperate by the bewildering confusion of the political situation. The
most difficult problem had been the attitude of Monk, and that was all the
more baffling from the fact that Monk had no clear discernment of his own
line of policy, and with all his accidental command of the situation, was
too obtuse to choose his own course and follow it consistently. The
Presbyterians were monarchical in sympathy, and dreaded the Independents
too much to be willing to revert to republican forms; but their
determination to alter the ecclesiastical traditions of the Church could
not be encouraged without losing the support of the main body of Royalist
opinion. The Roman Catholics hoped for toleration, but their hopes could
not be indulged without arousing the anti-Catholic prejudices of the
nation. The reviving aspirations of the Church had to be fostered, but the
extravagance of her hopes of revenge for past wrongs had to be kept in
severe check. Hyde himself was too little known by the new generation to
be cordially trusted, and he had to reckon on the implacable opposition of
those who believed that his influence over the King would make him
absolute as Minister. He was left in no doubt as to the slanders which
gathered round his name, and as to the personal jealousy of his power. For
a time it seemed doubtful whether the Restoration could be accomplished
without an express condition that the King should return without his chief
adviser. Between Hyde himself and the Presbyterians the feud was too old
to be appeased. The Roman Catholics recognized that their hopes of
toleration from the King might be frustrated by Hyde's sturdy
Protestantism. Monk was jealous of his influence, and his jealousies were
fostered by his wife, who was under the dominion of the Presbyterian
clergy. No pains were spared to stir up suspicion against him. "By stories
artificially related both to the General and his Lady," writes Lord
Mordaunt to him on May 4th, 1660, "your enemies have possessed them both
with a very ill opinion of you, which has showed itself by several bitter
expressions very lately uttered at St. James's." The Duke of Buckingham,
[Footnote: George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, was born only a few
months before his father's assassination, in 1628, and, from his affection
to the Minister whom he had lost, Charles had his son brought up with his
own family. Curiously enough, William Aylesbury, brother-in-law of Hyde,
was at one time the tutor of the young Duke. Buckingham took part in the
war as a very young man, and was one of the leaders in the second Civil
War, in 1648. His property had before this been confiscated, but he had
secured favourable terms by an arrangement with the Parliament. This time
it was again confiscated, and he narrowly escaped death by flight to the
Continent. He was a prominent member of the exiled Court; but his open
irreligion, his flighty character, and his continual plotting as an
adherent of Prince Rupert, alienated him from the party of Hyde. His wit
and personal charms won for him many friends, but his life was one
perpetual succession of reckless schemes and bitter quarrels, in which his
Royal master was often involved. He fought at Worcester, but his arrogance
prompted him to demand the generalship of the army, and he resented the
King's refusal by boyish sulkiness. In 1658, he again returned to England,
and married the daughter of Fairfax; but this was in defiance of Cromwell,
from whose vengeance he was probably saved only by the Protector's death.
He was restored to his vast possessions after the King's return, and then
began that long and restless career of varied intrigue, which won for him,
in later days, the character of Zimri, in Dryden's Satire, and during the
next few years made him the embittered foe of Clarendon.] ever a zealot in
any design of mischief, was doing all he could, wrote Mr. Brodrick, to
spread evil tales of him, and to inspire the Royalists with the opinion
that Hyde's influence would destroy their hopes. Hyde himself was ready to
remain in exile rather than that his return should prejudice the cause of
the King. But the very malice of his enemies overshot the mark. He had
friends who knew his worth, and Ormonde and Southampton were staunchly
loyal to him. It is to the credit of the King that he spoke in no
uncertain tone.
"It is not to be wondered at," he wrote to Sir Arthur Apsley on April
29th, "that at the same time that I have so many enemies, those that are
faithful to me should have some; and it is from some of those who are not
much my friends, that the report comes that the Chancellor should have
lost my favour. The truth of it is, I look upon the spreaders of that lie
as more my enemies than his, for he will always be found an honest man,
and I should deserve the name of a very unjust master if I should reward
him so ill, that hath served me so faithfully."
Hyde's strict constitutionalism was dreaded by those whose ideal of a
Restoration Government was one which would lavishly reward its adherents
without concerning itself with observance of the law. It was his fidelity
at once to the King and to the Constitution that inspired the opposition
to his return. Friends and enemies alike recognized that if he returned
with the King, his must be the guiding hand in the administration, as his
had been the chief task in setting the policy of the exiled Court.
Hyde accompanied Charles on his return to England. The King embarked at
Scheveningen, on May 24th. On the 26th, as we have already seen, he landed
at Dover amidst the thunder of cannon, and that day took coach to
Canterbury. The great cathedral had suffered sorely from sacrilegious
hands, but there gathered within its walls a goodly company of the
notables of the kingdom to join their King in a Service of Thanksgiving.
Upon General Monk, the Marquis of Hertford, the Earl of Southampton, and
Admiral Montague, [Footnote: Montague was created Earl of Sandwich next
month.] he conferred the honour of the Garter; and amidst the acclamations
of his people, he proceeded next day to Rochester. On the 29th, his
birthday, he entered London, "all the ways from Dover thither being so
full of people, and acclamations, as if the whole kingdom had been
gathered." At Greenwich he was met by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen "with
all such protestations of joy as can hardly be imagined." All the city
companies lined the road from London Bridge to Temple Bar, "giving loud
thanks to God for his majesty's presence."
At Whitehall "the two Houses of Parliament cast themselves at his feet
with all vows of affection to the world's end." Well might the King
exclaim, as he saw the fervency of welcome, "It had been his own fault he
had been absent so long; for he saw nobody that did not protest he had
ever wished for his return." Hyde saw a dramatic accompaniment of this
happy consummation of a long and doubtful struggle, in the death, within
three months, of the chief Ministers of France and Spain--Cardinal Mazarin
and Don Lewis de Haro--whose schemes of policy it seemed to ruin, and who
saw in it the failure of their machinations.
In the beginning of June, Hyde took his place as Speaker of the House of
Lords, and presided in the Court of Chancery. To the business of that
Court a great part of his labours were now to be devoted; but while he
studiously avoided the name of First Minister, he exercised, in addition
to his judicial functions, far more of the authority of supreme Minister
than fell to the lot of any officer of the Crown for some generations
after his day. For a few years he seemed to enjoy the unbounded confidence
of the King; but that confidence he had earned by no subserviency, and in
spite of marked lack of sympathy. For the first time in our history a man
of no high birth or commanding station, to whom the personal favour of his
sovereign had so far brought nothing but hardship and exile, found himself
indisputably marked out, by a long course of services devotedly given, for
what was virtually the position of First Minister of the Crown. His
judgment and his experience of men taught him how exposed such a position
was to every blast of envy. It was partly owing to his consciousness of
rectitude, partly to a certain unbending rigidity of character, that Hyde
neglected the caution that might have enabled him to shelter himself
against these blasts. With all his experience of Courts, Hyde never
learned the arts of a courtier. He was naively unconscious how little the
steadfast honesty of his purpose could render his blunt plainness of
diction palatable to a master, the chief feature of whose character was
callous selfishness, and whose self-love might for the moment allow him to
overlook, but never permitted him to forget, the liberty that presumed to
curb his caprices or to criticize his conduct.
But for the time the relations between Charles and his Minister were
cordial enough; [Footnote: These relations, in their intimacy and apparent
freedom from restraint, are perhaps best reflected in what are known as
the "Council notes," preserved in the Bodleian, and consisting of scraps
of memoranda passing between Charles and his Chancellor. Most of them are,
no doubt, mere notes passed across the table during a discussion in the
Council, and abound in those hieroglyphics on the margin, which sufferers
from tedious colloquies are impelled to make, and which perhaps indicate
the frequent boredom of the King. But others are evidently messages
transmitted from Whitehall to the Chancellor. In all alike there is a
singular lack of formality, or even of orderliness, and they might have
passed between business colleagues, who were on terms of close intimacy
and easy familiarity. Clarendon's tone is almost uniformly brusque and
off-hand, and he must have tried the King's patience terribly by the
infamous illegibility of his handwriting. Charles's writing is a schoolboy
scrawl, but it is uniformly legible.] and amongst his colleagues Hyde
could count some who were his warmest and most trusted friends. They
formed an inner circle, with common sympathies at once in their memories
and in their aims, and unassailed as yet by the coarse profligacy, the
vulgar buffoonery, and the ignoble selfishness that were soon to become
dominant in Charles's Court. Such were Ormonde, now Lord Steward, whose
loyalty was as untarnished as his position was above the assaults of
slander and envy, and whose unbroken friendship was a powerful buttress to
Hyde, and warded off the slights to which his own more humble birth might
have subjected him. Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, represented the very
best type of courtier of an older generation, and his acceptance of the
post of Lord High Treasurer gave security that the full tide of
corruption, which bid fair to spread its taint over the Court, should find
some check so far as the financial administration was concerned. In even
closer relation to Hyde's official sphere was Sir Edward Nicholas, the
Principal Secretary of State, between whom and Hyde there was the sacred
tie of common service and common veneration for the late King. Nicholas
was no brilliant statesman, and had no ambitious schemes to serve. But
amongst those who played an active, albeit unselfish, part in the varied
field of administrative work from the days of Strafford downwards, there
was none more industrious, none more loyal, and none less selfish than he.
It was all to his credit that he was unlikely to consort on easy terms
with the motley crew that now thronged the Court.
Hyde saw, without any displeasure, the Earl of Manchester [Footnote:
Edward Montague, second Earl of Manchester, who succeeded to the title on
the death of his father, in 1642, very early joined the Puritan, and
afterwards the Presbyterian party. He was one of the leading Parliamentary
generals until the Self-Denying Ordinance deprived him of command. He was
a man much beloved, and with marvellous suavity of manner. But to this
there was not added any marked ability, or any firmness of will. He had
long ceased to be in sympathy with the leaders of the Commonwealth, and
rendered powerful assistance in the Restoration. "By his extraordinary
civilities and behaviour to all men, he did not only appear the fittest
person the King could have chosen for that office (Lord Chamberlain) in
that time, but rendered himself so acceptable to all degrees of men, that
none, but such who were implacable towards all who had ever disserved the
King, were sorry to see him so promoted. He was mortally hated and
persecuted by Cromwell, even for his life, and had done many acts of merit
towards the King; so he was of all men, who had ever borne arms against
the King, both in the gentleness and justice of his nature, in the
sweetness and evenness of his conversation, and in his real principles for
monarchy, the most worthy to be received into trust and confidence"--
_Clarendon, Life_, i. 368. Manchester was hardly the stuff out of
which effective revolutionists are made.] created Lord Chamberlain,
although he was the avowed patron of the Presbyterian party; and
Manchester's easy courtesy and recognized probity were no unwelcome
ingredients in the Court. But there were others within the official pale,
not reckoning the newer courtiers who were destined soon to push their way
to power, who were less congenial partners for Hyde and his friends. Monk
had earned an unquestionable right to lavish reward, and the King bestowed
it with no grudging hand. But Monk's ambition aimed rather at wealth and
position than at administrative power; and as Duke of Albemarle, as Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland--an office of which the duties were left to others--
as Commander-in-Chief, and as Gentleman of the Bedchamber, Monk found
himself with titular rank, and with financial gains, which were more in
accordance with the tastes of himself and his wife than would have been
the burden and responsibility of laborious State business. Between the
Duke and the Chancellor there could never be close sympathy, and, for a
time, slanderous tongues came near to making active mischief. [Footnote:
We find a certain Thomas Dowde writing to Hyde on May 4, 1660, to tell him
how Edward Progers had been questioned by Mrs. Monk about Hyde, who had
been represented to her as "proud, insolent, contemning all counsel but
his own, disposing of all monies for his pleasure, and the delicacies of a
riotous table." The authority given is that of "a person of the French
interest," whom we may perhaps identify as Jermyn (_Bodleian MSS_.).]
But as they knew one another better they learned mutual toleration at
least, if not respect. Others were still more distasteful to Hyde. Sir
Anthony Ashley Cooper, [Footnote: Afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury.]
destined to play a leading part at a later day, as leader of dangerous
factions both for and against the Crown, and to figure in Dryden's Satire
as Achitophel, was scarcely likely, with his spirit of restless intrigue
and of daring cynicism, to prove a congenial colleague, even had he not
been prominent as a member of the clique which lost no opportunity for
undermining the influence of the older statesmen. He was now made
Chancellor of the Exchequer, with some hope that "his slippery humour
might be held in check by Southampton, whose niece he had lately married."
In the Comptroller, Lord Berkeley, [Footnote: John Berkley or Berkeley,
belonged to the house of the Berkeleys of Bruton, and was employed as
ambassador in Sweden, in 1636, after which embassy he was knighted. He
fought in the Royalist army, and at the close of the war, attempted to
carry out some unsuccessful negotiations between the army and the King. He
accompanied Charles in the escape from Hampton Court, and must share with
Ashburnham the folly or treachery which betrayed the King into the hands
of Hammond, and made him a prisoner at Carisbrooke. Afterwards he went
abroad, and managed to gain the post of Governor to the Duke of York, by
whose influence he was created Lord Berkeley of Stratton, in 1658. After
the Restoration, he contrived to secure lucrative posts. His mansion was
on the site now marked by Berkeley Square. The names of the streets in
that neighbourhood sufficiently indicate the localities inhabited by the
aristocracy of the Restoration.
He was uncle to Sir Charles Berkeley, afterwards Lord Palmouth, the
favourite of the Duke of York, whose foul slanders against the Duchess
have earned for him a lasting infamy.] Hyde found one for whom he had a
profound contempt, and of whose vile kinsman, Sir Charles Berkeley, he was
soon to have very odious experience. Hyde writes of the elder Berkeley,
"If he loved any one it was those whom he had known a very little while,
and who had purchased his affection at the price of much application, and
very much flattery; and if he had any friends, they were likewise those
who had known him very little." [Footnote: _Clarendon State Papers_,
vol. iii. Supp. p. lxxx.]
In the earlier part of the reign the business of Government was chiefly
transacted by a committee, nominally for the consideration of Foreign
Affairs, but really bearing a fairly close analogy to the more modern
Cabinet Council. The King and the Duke of York were constantly present at
its meetings, and the other members were the Chancellor, Ormonde,
Southampton, the Duke of Albemarle, and the Secretaries of State, Nicholas
and Morrice. Its deliberations extended far beyond the sphere of foreign
affairs, and really comprised every branch of the executive, as well as
consideration of the policy which was to be followed in Parliamentary
affairs. Hyde was unquestionably the dominant power in that Council, and
however much a careful observer might have detected the signs of coming
dissension, his influence was as yet unimpaired. It rested upon his well-
tried loyalty, his unrivalled administrative capacity, and his thorough
command of detail; and while it was cemented by the cordial friendship of
some of his colleagues, it was smoothed, for the present at least, by an
absence of marked friction with any.
We must, however, guard ourselves against a misconception which has
imposed itself upon many in forming their estimate of Hyde's new position.
It would be utterly wrong to fancy that he entered upon these heavy
responsibilities with any sense of triumph or elation, and inspired by any
pride of power. This would have been singularly out of harmony with his
character and disposition. Though he was ready to assume the burden of
administration from a sense of duty, we shall look in vain, throughout all
the critical epochs of his life, for any grasping after the prizes of
ambition. No letter and no utterance of Hyde's can be adduced in which he
put forward a claim for advancement or bargained for any office for
himself. The political arena had strong attractions for him, and his
principles, or, if we please to call them so, his prejudices, were
definite and keen. He was willing to spend his strength in the effort to
realize these, and success in that effort brought him rich satisfaction.
But he was too proud to make them aids in his own personal advancement.
Greatness was thrust upon him; and if disaster chafed him, it was not
because of the loss of personal advantages, but because the spirit of the
combatant felt defeat to be irksome, and because it involved a suspicion
of disgrace. The cause for which he fought was always more to him than his
own fortunes; and to plead on his behalf the excuse of natural elation at
his triumphal return to power is a singular ineptitude. [Footnote:
Strangely enough, this plea is advanced with little sense of proportion by
that most luke-warm of all biographers, Mr. Lister. Hyde's fame owes
little to such misplaced apologies.]
Apart from Hyde's own history, and from the character which stands out so
clearly at once from his actions and his own record, such a conception is
unsupported by the actual facts of the case. Severe as had been the
hardships of his exile, tangled as had been the mazes through which he had
to steer his course, and baffling as had been his difficulties, we may
well doubt if Hyde did not, in the years that now follow, look back with
regret on the days when he had to fight against heavy odds with an ever-
growing confidence in his ultimate success. Against overwhelming forces,
his pen had successfully maintained the righteousness of the cause of his
late and of his present master, and had, by its undisputed superiority,
earned the fear and hatred of his triumphant foes. He had done much to
compose restless animosities in the exiled Court, and had introduced
something like order into its tangled economy. He had handled with
marvellous dexterity the selfish intrigues of foreign Courts, which he
could approach only as the powerless agent of a discredited and bankrupt
exile. From first to last he had insisted that the Restoration should not
be brought about at the expense of conditions to any foreign Power. He had
imparted much of his own undying confidence to his English correspondents,
and had kept alive the flame of loyalty under untoward circumstances. He
had compromised the cause by no dangerous engagement, and had maintained,
with unswerving rectitude, his own convictions of constitutional
principle. He had been sustained by the sure confidence that, in poverty
and exile, quite as much as when in the possession of ample power, he was
making history, and was shaping the foundations of a restored monarchy.
But the hour of apparent triumph brought with it none of the solaces of
the long struggle. No one appreciated more fully the splendid chances that
were offered to the restored King; no one discerned more plainly how
blindly these chances were thrown away. Nor had he long to wait to realize
the depth of his disappointment. The blaze of triumph which surrounded the
Restoration; the universal joy with which the King was welcomed; the
strength of the tide of loyalty that swept over the nation--all these were
visible enough. But Hyde was under no delusionment as to the canker that
was soon to wither all his hopes. He draws no flattering picture of the
work in which his own part was so large. He recognizes that there "must
have been some unheard-of defect of understanding in those who were
trusted by the King with the administration of his affairs." [Footnote:
_Life_, i. 315.] His disappointment is too great to permit him to
waste words in any attempt to dissociate himself from the failure.
Hyde saw clearly enough the danger that lurked in the very suddenness with
which the nation allowed itself to be swept away by the tide of loyalty.
It did not blind him to the wide diversity of opinion which prevailed, and
which made the royal authority so much smaller in fact than "the general
noise and acclamation, the bells, and the bonfires, proclaimed it to be."
A sedulous cultivation of his own dignity on the part of the King, a
respect for public opinion, the most unwearied attention to public
business, might indeed have allowed the seeds of loyalty to grow into a
strong plant. But the King had need not only of character and industry on
his own part, but of a high standard of public spirit and of duty in those
who were to be his Ministers. It is hard to say in which of the two the
failure was most complete. No one had better opportunity of measuring its
extent than Hyde; and it is in this that the tragedy of these few years of
gradually increasing disappointment consists. He saw how "all might have
been kneaded into a firm and constant obedience and resignation to the
King's authority, and to a lasting establishment of monarchic power, in
all the just extents which the King could expect, or men of any public or
honest affections could wish or submit to." [Footnote: _Life_, i. 321.]
It is in these last words that we have the keynote of Hyde's deliberate
policy. He never lost what had been his guiding principle from his first
entry into the world of politics--a balance between Crown and Parliament,
and the maintenance of a constitutional monarchy. It is true that Hyde
assigned to the Crown a far more preponderating weight in the balance than
later constitutional theories admitted. Parliament, according to his
theory, was to be kept in a sort of tutelage, and the limits of its power
were to be strictly observed. But he felt that the Crown and the
Parliament were essential complements, one of the other; and he had no
wish to go back to the days when Parliament might be suspended, or the
Crown relieved from its dependence on the grants of the nation's
representatives. No underlying prerogative was to impose itself as
ultimately supreme. King and Parliament were alike to be subject to the
law; and the law courts were to be independent of dictation either from
one or the other. The last generation had seen each party alike attempting
to trample under foot that supremacy of the law; and Hyde hoped that each
had learned the lesson of their error. What he did not recognize was, that
new guarantees were necessary before the limitations of constitutional
monarchy were fully established. He had yet to learn how much the lessons
of adversity had been wasted on Charles II., and how mere shiftiness and
lack of principle might betray the Crown into errors even more fatal than
those of Strafford and of Charles I. These last had striven after an ideal
which was inacceptable to the English people, and they failed in the
struggle. Charles II, with incomparably better chances, threw these
chances away in mere wantonness, and he brought upon the Crown not defeat
only, but what was much worse, contempt. It was the very result from which
Hyde most recoiled.
Hyde had not had long to wait for experience of one sort of difficulty
which he and his master had to meet. Charles had reached Canterbury about
three hours after he landed at Dover; and there he had been met by a host
of prospective recipients of royal favours. Some of them were too powerful
to brook denial; and first amongst these stood General Monk.
The crowd of those who saw their own merits in an exaggerating mirror, and
whose shamelessness in urging their claims was often in inverse proportion
to their merits, roused only the contemptuous cynicism of the King. But
Monk was a claimant of another type; and it startled the King when Monk
placed in his hands a list of some seventy names as proper recipients for
the dignity of Privy Councillors, Some of these names were of such
unquestionable weight that application on their behalf was so unnecessary
as to be ridiculous. It did not need Monk's advocacy to recommend
Southampton and Ormonde and Hertford for any honour which the Crown could
bestow. But with their names were found those of men whose advancement
would have provoked a storm of opposition, and whose reputation for
loyalty rested upon the flimsiest basis. Charles thrust the paper in his
pocket, and dismissed Monk with the most flattering commendation of his
own merits. In his perplexity he turned to Hyde, and desired him to
expostulate with the General, and his dependant, Mr. Morrice. Hyde had
never before met either Monk or Morrice, and his first interview promised
to be a disagreeable one-preceded, as it was, by suspicions which had been
sedulously impressed upon Monk by Hyde's ill-wishers. He addressed himself
first to Morrice, whose character he soon learned to respect, as that of
an honest and capable man, although something too much of the scholar and
recluse, and with some lack of experience in action. To his surprise, he
found the difficulty less than he expected. The General, said Morrice, had
no thoughts of his recommendations being accepted wholesale. He had been
compelled to promise his favour, and had included many names only to
redeem that promise. But the King was not to understand that all these
names were meant for his acceptance. The difficulty was solved for the
time. But it had taught Hyde how slippery was the ground on which he
stood, and how fatal it would be to interpret, as sincere, suggestions
which were only formally made, and which might breed anger rather than
gratitude if accepted to the letter.
Incidents like this--one only amongst many--soon disillusioned Hyde. The
great hopes which he had formed from estimating the splendid chances
opened by the Restoration, were grievously dispelled. He learned how
selfish and how flimsy was much of the noisy loyalty. He soon learned,
also, to take a just estimate of the character of the King. During the
time of exile he had formed a high opinion of Charles's abilities, and had
frequent cause to appreciate his tact and abundant fund of humour and of
common-sense. What he had not fully observed was the extent to which the
canker of cynicism had undermined the King's character, and how low was
his judgment of his fellow-men. He now discovered this, and found how
little he could depend upon him for that careful attention to business,
and that sense of responsibility, which, amidst all his errors, had never
been lacking in Charles I. It was a splendid opportunity. The Church had
recovered its power, and, it might be hoped, had learned wisdom from
adversity. The reign of that fanaticism which Hyde detested had passed
away. The Crown was restored, and its dignity and solid influence might be
increased and not diminished, by the recognition of the constitutional
limits on the power of the monarch. Parliament was again strong, and it
had learned enough to know that a straining of its powers to a tyranny was
distasteful to the people, and in reality, a danger to those very powers.
Law, which Hyde regarded as the keystone of the arch, was, he might fondly
fancy, fixed on a surer foundation. The sound principles which, as he had
once hoped, had been attained in the early days of the Long Parliament,
were again in sight. Parliamentary government had been vindicated, and yet
the dignity and influence of the Crown were safe. As trusted Minister of
the Crown, it might be his task to buttress securely the elaborate and
delicate mechanism of a free and constitutional monarchy, resting upon the
aid of Parliament, but secured in all amplitude of loyalty and reverence.
A few years--nay, rather a few months--served to show him how far the
reality was to fall short of his ideal.
How did matters really stand between Charles and his people? Weariness,
full as much as loyalty, was the operative cause of the mood that brought
about the Restoration. Only a few weeks before, the gaunt and serried
ridges of national conflict stood out as threatening as ever. The grim
rocks of Episcopalianism and Presbytery, of Independence and Anabaptism,
of divine right and republicanism, stood opposed to one another. Suddenly,
almost like a dream, the wave of a new and over-mastering impulse had
risen and submerged them all. For the moment it was strong and deep enough
to overpower all other currents. On its smooth surface, Charles had
floated back to the throne. But the favouring wave had only covered for a
time--it had not swept away--the rocks underneath. These were soon to be
once more exposed.
Charles had accepted the tribute of adulation with the smooth smile, the
superficial good-nature, the half-contemptuous courtesy, and the inherent
insincerity, of the cynic. His ruling passion was the innate selfishness
of the libertine. For constitutional principles, or even for any settled
ideas of government, he knew and cared nothing. If he had any ideal of
kingly power, it was framed according to the model of the French Court,
and was shaped to suit the gratification of his own tastes, and the
satisfaction of his appetites. The constitution was best neither as it
extended the limits of his own power, nor as it met the aspirations of his
people, but as it ensured the security of a sensual Court, and did not
interfere with his own love of ease. To this all thought of kingly
prerogative or of parliamentary influence, all care for the privileges of
the Church or of toleration, were alike subservient. The Minister who
desired to govern according to settled principles, and who based his
confidence on Charles, was building on the veriest quicksand. And yet of
all Ministers, Hyde was the one in whom temperament, tradition, taste and
sad experience, had most implanted the belief in rigid adherence to
principle. The ill-effect of such a conjunction could not be long
postponed.