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.
[Illustration: ANNE HYDE, DUCHESS OF YORK (From the original by Sir Peter
Lely)]
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."
This is one of the features in Clarendon's scheme of the constitution,
which essentially divide him from the modern view. But it was to be long
before the Privy Councilship became, as in modern usage, little more than
an honorary title; and it may be doubted whether a strict reading of the
constitution is not infringed by the change which this has involved.
Clarendon did not, of course, suppose that the Privy Council could place
itself above Parliament, or that it could pretend to guide the national
policy. Such a thing would have been as impossible in Clarendon's day as
it would be now. But he did conceive that the power of the executive
should receive all its authority from, and be subject to the supreme
guidance of, the most ancient and august body which was nominated solely
by the Crown. The prerogative of the Crown must be exercised through that
body; and this view was confirmed by the fact that after the Revolution
each Privy Councillor was made responsible for the decrees passed with his
assent. This was, indeed, the very contrivance by which the ancient
principle that the King could do no wrong was made compatible with a free
constitution. Clarendon's view, however antiquated, was thus, in truth, a
safeguard for liberty. A great officer of State was entrusted with the
duties and powers of his office. But he was not necessarily a member of
the Privy Council, and his powers were, in Clarendon's view, limited by
the supreme authority of that Council. That its portals should be
jealously guarded; that only men of the first weight should be admitted to
it; that its proceedings should be carefully regulated and should rest
upon sound legal principles--all these things made for government by the
personal agency of carefully chosen Ministers of the Crown, which it was
Clarendon's aim to preserve, instead of bureaucratic rule by a host of
minor officials. They also served as a powerful guarantee for
constitutional liberty and for immediate responsibility attaching to a
well-recognized body for any infringement of it. It is hard to fix
responsibility amongst the various grades of an official hierarchy. It is
easy to fix it upon a small group of leading men who have the
administration in their hands, who are bound to base their procedure on
well-understood rules, and who cannot transgress these rules in ignorance
or under the veil of obscurity.
Under the new _régime_ the Chancellor found the Privy Council filled
with Court favourites or ambitious intriguers of the type of Sir William
Coventry, who scorned precedent and was never so happy as when inveighing
against the trammels of the law. Clarendon was forced to submit to daily
encroachments upon regularity of procedure, which found encouragement from
the King. His personal dignity was injured, and his temper was daily
chafed, by the insults of those who carried their insubordination and
their flippancy to the Council Chamber, where he could ill brook their
presence; and they did so under cover of the secret sympathy of the King.
Day by day he found his own influence more surely undermined; and it was
none the less irksome because he saw the work of his life undone amidst
the gibes of a heartless cynicism.
It involves, however, no reflection upon the dignity or the capacity of
Clarendon if we are compelled to admit that the schoolboy baiting to which
he was exposed found no little encouragement from his own bluntness and
his stubborn resolution to stoop to none of the arts of courtiership.
There was a limit even to the patience with which Charles could listen to
the oft-repeated catalogue of his own moral defects; and perhaps
Clarendon's lessons might have been none the less effective had they been
conveyed with something more of tact. The strange thing is that he himself
saw, and faithfully recounts, the traps which were laid for him. But he
seems to have thought that these could best be dealt with by roughly
trampling on such devices and tearing his way headlong through such
snares. The struggle was sometimes not a little comic in aspect, in spite
of the background of tragedy. Upon some occasions the courtiers, with an
hypocrisy which Clarendon did not fail to suspect, would lament to him the
scandals of their master's life and the injury that these wrought to his
reputation and authority. When he urged that they should "advertise the
King what they thought and heard all others say," they professed that they
dared not speak to the King "in such dialect." Clarendon gave them credit
for some honesty in their refusal to condemn what they themselves
encouraged; and perhaps too readily assumed himself the task which they
refused. On one occasion, while he and Arlington--one would have thought
no very sympathetic pair for mutual confidences--were discussing the
license of the Court and the consequent injury to the Crown, their
conversation was interrupted by the King. Their trouble did not escape his
notice, and he asked the subject of their talk. The Chancellor candidly
declared--prefacing the declaration by a confession that he was not sorry
for the chance of making it--that
"they were speaking of his Majesty, and, as they did frequently, were
bewailing the unhappy life he lived, both with respect to himself, who, by
the excess of pleasures which he indulged to himself, was indeed without
the true delight and relish of any; and in respect to his Government,
which he totally neglected, and of which the kingdom was so sensible that
it could not be long before he felt the ill effects of it."
So he proceeded, pressing home the moral with all energy of denunciation,
and concluded by
"beseeching him to believe, that which he had often said to him, that no
prince could be more miserable, nor could have more reason to fear his own
ruin, than he who hath no servants who dare contradict him in his opinions
and advise him against his inclinations, how natural soever." The picture
was not a flattering one, and the prognostications were not soothing. To
play the part of such a Mentor is doubtless at times a duty, but it can
scarcely confirm the influence of him by whom it is discharged. The King
heard it "with his usual temper (for he was a patient hearer) and spake
sensibly, as if he thought that much that had been said was with too much
reason." Perhaps Clarendon might have chosen a better audience than a
proclaimed enemy like Arlington. The secretary had no mind for such
jeremiads, and was dexterous enough to turn the subject by falling into
"raillery, which was his best faculty, with which he diverted the King
from any further serious reflections." The King and he soon passed to
merriment at Clarendon's expense, and made the old jests against the
gravity of age, which made no allowance for the infirmities of youth.
Clarendon tells the close of the conversation with an almost naïve
candour. Their raillery, he confesses,
"increased the passion he was in, and provoked him to say that it was
observed abroad, that it was a faculty very much improved of late in the
Court, to laugh at those arguments they could not answer, and which could
always be requited with the same mirth amongst those who were enemies to
it, and therefore it was a pity that it should be so much embraced by
those who pretended to be friends;" and ended with "some other, too plain,
expressions, which, it may be, were not warily enough used."
Candour is no doubt a virtue, and Clarendon deserves honour for his bold
words. But to tell the King that he was at once a sluggard and a
debauchee; that he had lost the respect, and would probably soon forfeit
the obedience of his subjects; and to scold his jocular raillery by
painting him as courting the society and imitating the manners of
buffoons, was scarcely a tactful way of insinuating a lesson of caution
and establishing the confidence which makes a servant congenial to his
master. We must honour Clarendon for his manliness; but perhaps a little
less of the pedagogue might not have diminished his influence or impaired
the dignity of his character.
Charles knew how to hide any irritation under a smiling demeanour. But the
friction was there and it soon took plainer shape. Careless as he was, the
King had his share of Stuart punctiliousness, and the habits of the French
Court had taught him that royal favour ought to command respect, even for
those whose conduct had forfeited it according to the usual ethics of
social decorum. That respect his pride taught him to insist upon; and he
resented the boldness of the lampoons upon his Court which were now
circulated broadcast, not because they reflected on his morals, but
because they were a breach of good manners. One whose chosen associates
were men of habitual profanity and unabashed licentiousness; one who
believed religion to be nothing but disguised hypocrisy, and the chastity
of women nothing but a delusion artfully contrived--could not long condone
plain speaking for its manliness and sincerity, and could not conceive
that the profligacy of the royal courtesan deprived her of the observances
of formal courtliness. It was this last point which brought upon Clarendon
the King's first direct remonstrances. He told the Chancellor that "he was
more severe against common infirmities than he should be, and that his
wife was not courteous in returning visits and civilities to those who
paid her respect." Such neglect the King chose to interpret as an insult
to himself. It was clear to whom and to what it referred; Clarendon had
consistently declined to allow his wife to have any intercourse with Lady
Castlemaine. To the King's remonstrance
"he answered very roundly, that he might seem not to understand his
meaning, and so make no reply to the discourse he had made; but that he
understood it all and the meaning of every word of it; and therefore that
it would not become him to suffer his Majesty to depart with an opinion
that what he had said would produce any alteration in his behaviour
towards him, or reformation of his manners towards any other person. He
did beseech his Majesty," the Chancellor went on, "not to believe that he
hath a prerogative to declare vice virtue, or to qualify any person who
lives in a sin and avows it, against which God Himself hath pronounced
damnation, for the company and conversation of innocent and worthy
persons. Whatever low obedience, which was in truth gross flattery, some
people might pay to what they believed would be grateful to his Majesty,
they had in their hearts a perfect detestation of the persons they made
address to; for his part, he was resolved that his wife should not be one
of these courtiers."
The King could only reply "that he was wrong, and had an understanding
different from all men who had experience in the world."
Clarendon's are brave words, and we may well doubt whether the like were
ever addressed by a Minister of the Crown to the occupant of a throne
which still retained so much of the kingly prerogative as did that of
Charles. But do they leave us to seek for new grounds for Clarendon's
approaching fall? Do they not, indeed, prove that, but for his thorough
grasp of the essentials of sound administration, his predominant
forcefulness, and the urgent need of his wise and experienced guidance,
the King would have yielded to his own growing irritation, and that
Clarendon's fall would have come, and the eager longings of his enemies
have been gratified, far earlier than was the case?
Before we enter upon the last stage of Clarendon's ministry, so fateful
for the future history of England, it may be well to turn to another
aspect of his life, which is not without its use in helping us to estimate
his character. We have already seen how the high office which he held, and
for which his unswerving loyalty, his long service, and his ample
experience had so fully designated him, had been accompanied by exalted
rank in the nobility of England, which required him, according to the
fashion of the time, to maintain great state, and involved heavy
expenditure. He had inherited a fair estate; had married the daughter of
an ancient family, with no small dowry; and, in his early days, his
fortune had been increased, not only by further inheritances, but by the
lucrative practice of his profession. When he first entered Parliament, he
had before him the prospect of a prosperous career; and when he was
induced to enter the service of Charles I. it was possible for him to do
so without emolument and in full security that his own means would be
ample for his requirements. During the troubled years that followed these
means rapidly decreased. He could draw no revenue from his estates, and
during the long years of his banishment from the country he had been
reduced to the direst straits of poverty, and had been forced to subsist
on the scanty grants that could be made to him, and to others, from the
funds supplied to the King by those loyal supporters who could spare
something from their own impaired revenues. After the Restoration,
Clarendon found himself in possession of an office of which the
emoluments, without any of those malpractices or extortions which were
then too common, and which his enemies did not scruple to charge against
him, [Footnote: Hints and gossip as to such bribes and commissions were
inevitable in an age when they were only too common, and in the mouths of
men whose consciences were blunted by long practice. Such gossip readily
spread, as it is, in all places and in all ages, too apt to do. We may
safely discard the slanderous garrulity of Pepys, and just as safely the
ridiculous libel of Anthony a Wood, who tells us how one David Jenkyns, a
friend of Wood's and a good Royalist, would certainly have been made a
judge at the Restoration, if he "had paid money to the Lord Chancellor."
Anthony a Wood had no kindly feeling to a family from whom he received
such castigation as he did from the Hydes. Lies of that sort always
propagate themselves, like noisome weeds; it is the part of the wise to
neglect them until they are established by proof.] were still large. There
is not a tittle of evidence to disprove Clarendon's assertion, that he
confined himself to those revenues of his office which were strictly
legal; and to suppose otherwise would be to suppose him false to all those
ideals which were the foundation of his character, and to which his pride,
if nothing else, compelled him. Naturally he recovered the full use of his
private property, and some, at least, of the arrears due to him would
undoubtedly be paid. Very soon after the King's return a grant--in no
degree above his merits--of £20,000 was made to him by the King out of the
present sent by the Parliament. Clarendon found himself in the position of
a fairly wealthy man, and it was not unnatural that he should desire to
maintain that position which was commensurate with his rank. He knew
himself to be the founder of a family which must take its place in the
ranks of the great nobility of England, and must hold a conspicuous place
in her annals. To him, as to many men for whom the pettiness of personal
position weighs for little, the maintenance of that family in worthy
dignity became a legitimate object of ambition. [Footnote: Clarendon did,
indeed, as he was fully justified in doing, procure for some of his
relations posts for which there is no reason to judge them unsuitable. One
cousin, Alexander Hyde, became Bishop of Salisbury. Another, Robert Hyde,
became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1661. The brother of these
two, Henry Hyde, had been executed for his loyalty in 1650, and thereby
had established no mean claim to loyal gratitude. Clarendon, in this, did
no more than any one in his circumstances was not only entitled, but bound
to do.] To his historic sense a place amongst the nobility of his country
was attractive, and its stateliness was something which his imagination
clothed with more than merely superficial allurement. It was from no
selfish feeling and no vanity of personal display, that he conceived the
idea of leaving to those who were to come after him an inheritance
compatible with that position. It would be unjust to blame Clarendon
because he gave the scanty leisure, which his absorbing business permitted
him, to attaining that object. For years after the Restoration he had no
house of his own in London, and occupied one or other of the houses either
lent or hired to him by members of the great nobility who now looked upon
him as their equal. After his private affairs were on a more secure basis,
he began to build for himself. He chose a site near the top of St. James's
Street, just where Piccadilly began to melt into the fields beyond, and
there he constructed a mansion which he fondly hoped would carry on his
name for many a generation. It was conceived on ample lines and with all
that pride of architecture which his own cultured taste and the stately
ceremonial of the day made congenial to him. As in temperament and style,
so in his conception of the constitution, in his taste, and in the
ordering of his life, Clarendon was essentially an aristocrat; and it was
in harmony with that idea that the mansion which faced St. James's Palace,
[Footnote: It was flanked by Lord Berkeley's house to the west, and by
Burlington House to the east.] and was to bear the name of Clarendon
House, was now rising in all the bravery of ornament and amplitude of
design which were in keeping with its owner's taste; and that it should
earn the praise of Evelyn as likely to be the stateliest house in London.
[Footnote: "To my Lord Chancellor at Clarendon House," says Pepys, in his
_Diary_ for May 9, 1667. "Mightily pleased with the nobleness of this
house, and the brave furniture and pictures, which indeed is very noble."
He had been impressed with it as strongly in its early stages, and writes
in January, 1666: "It is the finest pile I ever did see in my life, and
will be a glorious house." The building was begun early in 1665. Evelyn is
not so complimentary. He thought it "a goodly pile to see, but had many
defects as to the architecture, yet placed most gracefully" (_Diary_,
Nov. 28, 1666). A longer passage from Evelyn's _Diary_, of a later
date, is quoted in the note on p. 324.
Pepys was greatly impressed with the view, to which he more than once
returned, from the roof of the house. "It is the noblest prospect that
ever I saw in my life; Greenwich being nothing to it" (Feb. 1665/6).] But
envious tongues and malicious gossip soon taught its builder that his
pride was vain, and that he could not indulge his fancy with the ease of
one who held obscurer rank. The crowd is fickle, and Clarendon took little
care to secure its lenient judgment. Already his mansion was nicknamed
Dunkirk House, and the quidnuncs told how it was built out of the bribes
which had made him contrive the sale of that port to France. To decorate
his mansion it was his ambition to collect a gallery of portraits, which
should represent all those who had foremost places in the eventful history
of his time. Such a design involved an expenditure very small compared
with the notions of the present day. Clarendon procured all the notable
portraits which were available. It is quite possible--and Evelyn admits
it--that when the statesman's foible became known; pictures were sold to
him at easy prices, or even presented as a compliment to the power and
position of the collector. It is absurd to suppose that Clarendon either
would or could have brought any pressure to bear upon the owners. But a
falling statesman is an easy aim for slander, and it was whispered that
the Clarendon collection was enriched by oppressive means. [Footnote: The
chief authority for this accusation against Clarendon is an ill-natured
insinuation by Lord Dartmouth, in his notes on _Burnet's History of His
Own Times_,--notes which were in MS. only, and which were not intended
for publication. It carries its own refutation, and Dartmouth could not
possibly have had any knowledge of the circumstances. Clarendon no doubt
received certain complimentary gifts. But we know that many private
collections were broken up and sold by impoverished Cavaliers, and such
pictures must at that time have been procurable at easy prices. Many of
the pictures were interesting as portraits, rather than as works of art,
although there were good specimens of Vandyke, Jansen, Kneller, and Lely
amongst the collection; and Clarendon was probably able to pursue his
hobby of collecting portraits of the outstanding men in English history at
no great cost.
In a letter to Pepys of August 12, 1689, Evelyn gives a list of pictures
in the collection of which he himself had advised the purchase, and some
of which, he admits, had been presented by those who "strove to make their
court" to the Chancellor, by such timely gifts, when his design was known.
They comprised portraits of all the leading men in the reigns of
Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I., and others were added from more
remote history, and from his own later contemporaries. It is interesting
to note that there were portraits of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Beaumont, and
Fletcher--"which was," adds Evelyn, "most agreeable to his Lordship's
general humour."
When Clarendon House was destroyed, the collection went to his country
house, at Cornbury, in Oxfordshire. On the death of Lord Rochester, in
1753, they were divided between his daughters, Jane, Countess of Essex and
Catherine (the famous "Kitty" of Pope and Gay), Duchess of Queensberry.
The first moiety is that now at the Grove, Watford; the second is that
which descended to the Douglas family, and is now at Bothwell Castle.] If
Clarendon's very natural ambition to bequeath a dignified home to his
family and to make it a treasure-house of portraits which represented a
great page in English history, was any weakness, it was one for which he
may well be pardoned, and for which he paid heavily. He lived to regret
the error into which a very human pride had led him. We must leave it to
sterner moralists to deal out censure upon a weakness which he shared with
other men of genius, who have found a solace in raising a stately monument
which they may bequeath to posterity, and which may preserve another
memory of them than that of their toils and their struggles and their own
personal ambitions. But in the case of Clarendon this weakness--of which
he himself clearly saw the error--had this additional disadvantage, that
it spread the belief that he had acquired wealth proportionate to such
architectural expenditure. Like many another man, Clarendon overbuilt
himself; and his miscalculation made his contemporaries suppose him the
possessor of a superfluity of ill-gotten wealth.