INCREASING BITTERNESS OF HIS FOES
In the midst of thickening troubles at home and abroad, in Court, in the
city, and in the provinces, Parliament met on the 2lst September, 1666.
The new session was destined to bring sharply to an issue more than one of
the questions in regard to which long-drawn friction had vexed the soul of
Clarendon, and as it proceeded it was to reveal more clearly the designs
of those who had striven so persistently to fret irritations and sow new
seeds of dissension between him and the King. Their success, ignoble as it
was, and little profitable either to the Crown, the kingdom, or
themselves, was soon to be achieved.
Parliament met under the oppression of gloom caused by the Fire. Whitehall
and Westminster were safe, but scarcely a mile distant the smoke which
rose from the desolated city had hardly died away. "They saw," said the
King in his opening address, "the dismal ruins the Fire had made; and
nothing but a miracle of God's mercy could have preserved what was left
from the same destruction." He was forced once more to apply for their
assistance to meet the vast expense of the war, to which no end could be
foreseen. The disasters of the kingdom had doubled the insolence of their
enemies; and nothing could save the country but a vigorous effort to show
the world that, in spite of these disasters, it was still equal to its own
defence. It was a crisis which sorely needed all the energy of firm and
united statesmanship; and very scantily was that need supplied. The
interruption of credit; the bankruptcy of many of the leading citizens;
the general paralysis that had fallen upon commerce--all these made it
hard to say how money could be raised, and Clarendon notes, with none of
the satisfaction that the truth of his prophecy might have brought, that
the Appropriation Proviso had resulted in the check, rather than in the
boasted increase, of the supply of funds. There was, indeed, "a faint vote
procured," that they would give a supply proportionate to the wants of the
Crown; but no sum was fixed, and after this first vague resolution the
matter hung in suspense, and even a Parliament that was so strongly
loyalist found it needful to delay and insist upon conditions before any
new supply was voted. Their loyalty had now a strong vein of stubbornness.
The country gentlemen could no longer blind themselves to the scandals of
the Court, and the intractable mood bred by these scandals could be
skilfully turned to their own purposes by Clarendon's enemies. What had at
first been only dilatoriness soon developed into sharp criticism and angry
remonstrance, for which Clarendon knew that there was only too good
ground. It was an ill time to press for new supplies when the national
resources were drained to the dregs. If the King needed more after the
lavish grants of recent years, there must have been mischief afoot which
should be probed to the bottom. All those through whose hands the money
had passed must give a strict account of it.
A Bill was introduced for the appointment of Audit Commissioners, who were
to examine all accounts and report to Parliament any defaulters, whose
punishment Parliament was to determine. So strongly was the country party
bent upon this financial inquest that it was difficult to withstand their
zeal in the hunt for malpractices. The naval administration was chiefly in
their view, and their threats caused much searching of heart amongst those
whose consciences told them that their methods could hardly meet the
perilous light of day. A certain amount of corruption was an ordinary
incident of all administrative dealings. Pepys had no wish to be
dishonest, and was, indeed, a fairly incorrupt official, according to the
ideas of the day. Many times he had withstood flagrant waste, and he was
vigilant in promoting sound economies. But a barefaced system of secret
commissions, which he honestly records in the faithful pages of his
_Diary_, was universally practised, and the only admitted scruple was
that such commissions should not be allowed to operate so as to permit a
flagrantly dishonest contract. Subject to this, he evidently thought
himself neglectful of his rightful interests if he did not make the most
out of every transaction, and he piously invokes the blessing of Heaven
upon the unsavoury business, as, with unctuous complacency, he counts up
his gains. But, however such things may be condoned by the prevailing
practice they have an ugly appearance when exposed to the public gaze, and
Pepys was sorely alarmed both for himself and his principals at the
prospect of a strict investigation. Others besides Pepys were involved.
Ashley's administration of the prize-money had been expressly set free
from any auditing authority except that of the King; and under the
protection of this proviso he had expended the proceeds not only with the
sanction, but at the instigation of Charles, on objects which could not be
made public without exposing the Crown to the contempt of the nation, and
making the resistance of the country party more obstinate and more
outspoken. Charles took alarm, and consulted the secret committee of the
Privy Council on the subject. He was determined, he said, to defend his
Ministers against an inquiry conducted on methods for which there was no
precedent, and under which no man would be safe. He trusted that the Bill
would receive no support in the Commons; that if it passed the Commons it
would be rejected by the Lords; but in any case, he was resolved never to
give it his assent. The committee appeared to assent to these bold words,
and to see in the proposal a dangerous menace to the prerogative of the
Crown; and Clarendon, obeying his natural dislike of such encroachments,
confirmed the view of the King, hoped that he would abide by his
resolution, and promised his own vigorous opposition to any such Bill in
the Lords.
It is hard to find any adequate ground, either in policy or in justice,
for Clarendon's resistance to this proposal. He had himself nothing to
fear from it. He had no part in the details of naval administration, and
those who were chiefly threatened had no claim to his protection. He had
been strongly opposed to Ashley's appointment to administer the prize-
money, and he could not but know that the investigation would ruin
Ashley's reputation. Had he boldly placed himself at the head of the
country party and made himself the foremost champion of financial purity,
he might have established a firm hold upon the affections of all that was
best in the nation, and he might have trusted to their loyalty and his own
to prevent any serious blow to the prerogative of the Crown and the
respect due to the King. As a fact, he did assent, subsequently, to the
nomination by the Crown of an audit commission, and it does not seem as if
a simple alteration of procedure would have seriously affected the
substance of the matter. Of his failure to act thus, his increasing age,
his infirmities of health, the anxieties by which he was oppressed, and
the lack of powerful and confidential allies may have largely been the
cause. But we must remember also the ruling principles in Clarendon's
conception of the constitution, and his own deep-seated prejudices. He was
unwilling to stoop to injure an enemy by a weapon which might diminish the
prerogative of the Crown. He never sought the position of leader of a
party, which would thus have been forced upon him, and he felt that
position to be incompatible with his own loyalty as servant of the Crown.
He disliked the idea of Parliamentary tactics; and all his past experience
identified such tactics, in his mind, with the beginnings of rebellion. It
was not given to him to see so far into the future as to conceive that an
independent Minister might be the strongest buttress of the Crown.
But the tactics from which he recoiled were put into practice, with less
than his honesty, but with much more skill in stratagem, by those who
sought to accomplish his fall. The very courtiers whose influence was
accountable for the scandals which stirred the indignation of the country
party, made themselves the trusted friends of the parliamentary
opposition, and carefully nursed it for their own purposes. The
irresponsible and flighty genius of Buckingham made him, for the moment,
the chosen patron of those who were murmuring against the abuses of the
Court, stimulated him to organize and conciliate the Parliamentary faction
that grumbled against the waste of the national resources, and induced him
to cast aside for the time the habits of a profligate voluptuary, and
throw himself with ardour into the labours of Parliamentary debate.
Rivalry in debauchery had made him, for a season, the object of the King's
personal dislike, and had involved him in a bitter contest with Lady
Castlemaine; and this tempted him to adopt the uncongenial part of a
moralist, who found it convenient to cultivate the friendship of the
strictest sectaries, and to pose as the saviour of the kingdom. It was not
the first, nor the only, antic by which he made himself, as Zimri, the
easy butt of Dryden's satire. He became the prime favourite of the people,
and his power with the mob seemed to make him the rival of the King. It
added to the zest with which he pursued this new freak, that it helped him
to satisfy private and personal piques. In particular the Duke of Ormonde
had become the object of his almost insane jealousy. Ormonde's lofty
character, his consistent loyalty, his influence in the counsels of the
King, above all, his vast power as a great territorial magnate, had
wounded the vanity of Buckingham; and he was able to evoke against
Ormonde, as an Irish peer, the jealousy of those English nobles who
thought themselves unduly eclipsed by the great possessions, and high
official rank, of a peer of a lower order--that of the Irish nobility.
It was largely in obedience to this personal jealousy, that Buckingham had
made himself the prominent promoter of a Bill of singular injustice to the
sister kingdom. It was conceived that the importation of Irish cattle was
a serious injury to the English agricultural interest, and was enriching
the Irish at the expense of the English proprietors; and it was therefore
proposed to forbid any such importation. That it involved practical ruin
to Ireland, and promised to lay the seeds of deep-rooted hatred, mattered
nothing to those who had their own selfish objects to pursue, or who had
private grudges to satisfy. It was only natural that the Bill found ready
assent amongst some honest men, who were earnestly desirous to relieve the
agricultural interest, suffering heavily under the pressure of taxation,
and who had something else than private venom to indulge. The bitter
complaints of Ireland could not be expected to weigh for much. It remained
to be seen whether the short-sighted selfishness, which was sedulously
fostered in order to gratify personal spleen, would be allowed to inflict
upon a nation, united under the same Crown, this scandalous injustice. At
first it was proposed that the embargo should extend to Scotland also; but
at a later stage this was dropped.
[Illustration: JAMES BUTLER, DUKE OF ORMONDE. (_From the original by Sir
Godfrey Kneller._)]
The King was not deceived as to the injustice of the Bill, and in its
earliest stages he professed that his conscience would never allow him to
give it his assent. He urged the Council "to give such a stop to this Bill
that it might never be presented to him; for if it were, he must
positively reject it." It was not the first, nor the last, pronouncement
of the King that was to turn out an empty threat.
The Council did not unanimously accept the opinion of the King. Those whom
he consulted took diverse views of the Bill, and some even who doubted its
policy were not prepared to face the opposition of the English
agricultural interest. Amongst the members of both Houses of the English
Parliament there was a deeply-seated jealousy of Ireland, inherited from
the days of her resistance to English power, and sharpened by fervent
opposition to her Roman Catholic predilections. The promoters of the Bill
soon found themselves backed up by a solid phalanx of English prejudice,
which held the Commons staunch to their support of its provisions.
Buckingham and Ashley learned that their championship added to their hold
upon the nation, and gave them a new chance of inflicting a defeat at once
upon the King, and upon his older Minister. Clarendon fully recognized the
iniquity of the Bill, and welcomed the stalwart resistance which the King
avowed that he would give to it. [Footnote: It is odd to remark how the
incurable prejudice of Whig historians blinds them to the real bearing of
the Bill, and forces them, in their desire to avoid any agreement with
Clarendon, to find some excuse for it. "It is by no means clear," writes
Mr. Christie, the biographer of Ashley, "that special circumstances did
not counsel an exception to the general rules of political economy." So
easily are fundamental principles made to bend to the exigencies of
personal advocacy!] But the result was to prove to him once more how
little reliance could be placed on any apparently settled conviction of
the King.
The House of Commons had now become too stubborn to yield to any arguments
of justice; and that the King and his Ministers opposed the Bill only
added to the obstinacy with which it was pressed. There was now a
deliberate opposition to the Crown, and of the two Bills--that about Irish
cattle, and that for a commission of audit--the first was "driven on with
more fury, and the other more passionately spoken of." Any support which
the party of the Court could reckon on, rapidly diminished; and even its
adherents applied to the King for permission to record their votes in
favour of the Bill. [Footnote: _Life_, iii. 141.] Again Sir William
Coventry, who, to Clarendon's mind, was the evil genius in every plot,
appeared upon the scene. He persuaded the King of the strength of the
supporters of the Bill, and the small prospect of any supply until the
House was satisfied that it would pass. Perhaps, he added, if the friends
of the Court withdrew their opposition to the Irish Bill, they might thus
be able to elude the threatening provisions of the Bill for the audit of
accounts. [Footnote: _Ibid._, p. 142.]
Under such inducements, Charles's conscientious opposition to the Bill
soon disappeared. His henchmen in the House received new orders, and
amidst the plaudits of Buckingham's sycophants, this iniquitous Bill
passed through the House of Commons. The triumph only made the Commons
insist with the more vigour upon the Bill for the audit of accounts. Again
the King yielded to pressure, to the alluring prophecies of abundant
supplies as the reward of surrender, and to the dire threats of exposure
of Court scandals if the will of the House were thwarted. The result was a
new surrender, and the Accounts Bill followed the other to the House of
Lords.
The scene of the struggle was now changed, but it was evident that the
persistence of opposition was in no way checked, and that a fierce
struggle between Parliamentary power and the royal prerogative was
threatened in the immediate future. To Clarendon, the opposition in the
House of Commons centred in these two Bills. Taken together, they roused
his unrelenting hostility, the one because it was founded upon no
constitutional precedent, and was dangerous to the royal prerogative, the
other because it was conceived in a spirit of reckless animosity, and was
flagrantly unjust to Ireland. Up to a certain point, the King had
cordially agreed with that view; but once more that fickle support went
for nothing; a few threats and allurements disposed of Charles's
conscience as well as of his judgment. For him precedent did not count;
the royal prerogative meant only what secured for himself an easy life,
and the prospect of supply; and as for injustice to Ireland, the burden of
conscientious scruples was easily transferred to other shoulders. A strong
will and a scrupulous conscience were inconvenient equipments for a
Minister of Charles II.
But it was still Clarendon's duty to do his best to save the King from
treacherous plotters, as well as from the consequences of his own fickle
waywardness. There was one way which occurred to Clarendon, and which he
seems to have urged upon the King without success. The Parliament had now
sat for six years, and perhaps contact with the constituencies might prove
a solvent of their irksome obstinacy, and also of those dangerous
combinations which were threatening to foil all schemes of sound policy.
Might it not be that the sound loyalty of the nation would send to
Westminster a Parliament, not servile or subservient, but less truculent
and intractable, than the present? Whatever the soundness of his opinion--
and it may perhaps be doubted if a new election would have been a safe
expedient for the King--it obtained scanty support. The little clique of
intriguing courtiers thought that it portended danger to their own
influence. Some who had proved ineffective asserters of the views of the
country party were alarmed for their seats; the King was easily persuaded
that many of his own most obedient placemen might disappear. Buckingham
and his friends managed even to
alarm the bishops, by predicting a majority for the enemies of the Church.
Clarendon never found that the ecclesiastical mind was one upon which, as
a statesman, he could place any reliance. They judged now as far from the
mark as usual, and yielded to the persuasions of his foes. Clarendon was
fain to be content with the existing House of Commons; and the fight was
now to be how far the Lords would bow to the imperious demands of that
House, and allow themselves to be managed by the little band of
malcontents, whose main object was to make the present administration
impossible.
In the House of Lords the leading part in pushing forward the Irish Cattle
Bill was taken by the Duke of Buckingham. His new-found ardour for
political intrigue had changed for the moment his habits of life as a
voluptuary. Under the impulse of his present irritation, his usual haunts
were abandoned, and he spent laborious days in the House, the first to be
present, and the last to disappear. [Footnote: The usual hour for the
meeting of Parliament was early, and Clarendon complains of the laxity
which, of recent years, had made the hour as late as ten o'clock A.M. The
House of Lords had of late shown so little zeal for work that they
frequently adjourned after a few minutes. But now, in the excitement of
the discussion on the Irish Bill, they again sat early, and did not
adjourn till four o'clock, or even "till the candles were brought in."] He
had the eager support of Ashley, inspired like him, by jealousy of
Clarendon and Ormonde, and bringing to the unholy partnership a lack of
principle equal to that of Buckingham, and far greater powers of
concentration, and of persistent strategy. With two such protagonists, the
debates in the House of Lords lost their usual repose and dignity, and
became scenes of turmoil and almost of personal violence. [Footnote:
Clarendon tells us an amusing story of a fracas which occurred between
Buckingham and Lord Dorchester, during a conference between the Houses.
The two peers, who were avowed enemies, chanced to sit together, and each
endeavoured, it would seem, to claim more space than was convenient to the
other. From hustling they came to blows, and Lord Dorchester had the
misfortune to lose his wig in the shuffle. But "the Marquis had much of
the Duke's hair in his hands to recompense for the pulling off his
periwig, which he could not reach high enough to do to the other"
(_Life_, iii. 154). The matter was settled without bloodshed, and
both peers were sent to cool their tempers by a short detention in the
Tower. We are apt, on doubtful grounds, to think that the debaucheries of
Charles's Court were redeemed by elegance of manners. As a fact, the
morals which Dr. Johnson ascribes to Lord Chesterfield's Letters were
often joined, in that Court, to manners which would have shocked the
dancing master of his apothegm.] Buckingham on one occasion provoked a
scene by insolently stating "that whoever was against that Bill had either
an Irish interest or an Irish understanding." The remark, as well as
Buckingham's habitual arrogance, aroused the wrath of Lord Ossory,
Ormonde's eldest son, and a challenge was the consequence. Buckingham, who
did not, to the other attributes of finished courtier, add that of
personal courage, contrived to miss the rendezvous, and, with a lack of
spirit which men of less bravado could hardly have equalled, and which
might have made him blush before his own swashbucklers, he proceeded to
lay before the House a narrative of the case. Both parties, it was held,
had been to blame, and both were, as usual, to pass a short period of
penance in the Tower. But Buckingham's enemies contrived, under the rules
of the House, to inflict an insult upon him, which might have stirred the
blood of a Quaker, not to speak of that which flowed in the veins of this
model gentleman. It was unjust, they urged, that any punishment should
fall upon the Duke. He had done his best to prevent the encounter, and had
prudently mistaken the rendezvous. His friends, not unnaturally, thought
"that it would be more for his honour to undergo the censure of the House
than the penalty of such a vindication."
But apart from these comic accompaniments, the debate upon the Bill in the
Lords raised grave constitutional questions. Clarendon opposed the Bill as
radically unjust, and economically wrong. But he found in it also much
that encroached upon the prerogative. Cases might easily occur where a
remission of the Act was imperatively required in the public interest, and
in special exigencies, and the usual course was to give such dispensing
power to the Crown, just as it is now given under many statutes, by the
machinery of an Order in Council. But the prejudices of the promoters of
the Bill were too virulent to be satisfied with anything less than the
strict and universal application of the embargo; nor did they scruple to
suggest that new restraints were required upon the power of the Crown. All
that Clarendon and his friends in the House of Lords could do, was to
insist that some of the clauses most offensive to the prerogative, and
most opposed to precedent, should be expunged from the Bill before it was
returned to the House of Commons.
The struggle then entered upon a new phase, involving another
constitutional principle. The Commons were prepared to agree to the
omission of Scotland from the Bill;
but in regard to all else, they refused to accept the amendments of the
Lords. The two Houses were in sharp conflict, and for a time it appeared
as if the disagreement could result only in the loss of the Bill. Its
friends had no wish to see this catastrophe, and a conference between the
Houses was therefore arranged. The result was not such as to encourage
those who wished for the settlement of a vexed question, or who hoped that
prudent counsels would be brought to bear on a constitutional difficulty.
To the irritation which the country party had conceived against the Court,
and to the obstinate determination that the royal prerogative should yield
to the will of Parliament, there was now added a bitter fight between the
two Houses; and here again Clarendon's long-cherished opinions forced him
to take the unpopular side. Once more the habits of a lifetime refused to
disappear before an unwarranted, and, as he thought, dangerous innovation.
We may doubt whether he duly estimated the forces to which he was opposing
himself, or rightly gauged the direction in which men's minds were moving.
We may say, with full confidence, that he chose his part with singular
indifference to what was politically or personally expedient. Neither now
nor at any other time did Clarendon yield to anything but his own
conscientious convictions. Nature had not so framed him as to give him the
faculty of making these convictions any more palatable by his methods of
enforcing them. He recognized this fully himself.
"In all the debate upon this Bill, and upon the other of accounts, the
Chancellor had the misfortune to lose much credit in the House of Commons,
not only by a very strong and cordial opposition to what they desired, but
by taking all occasions which were offered by the frequent arguments which
were urged of the opinion and authority of the House of Commons, and that
it was fit and necessary to concur with them, to mention them with less
reverence than they expected. It is very true he had always used in such
provocations to desire the Lords to be more solicitous in preserving their
own unquestionable rights, and most important privileges, and less tender
in restraining the excess and new encroachments of the House of Commons."
[Footnote: _Life_, iii. 163.]
He listened with ill-concealed irritation to assertions of supreme power
on the part of the Commons, which aroused echoes of the old days of the
Long Parliament. His cherished hope was not for an absolute monarchy, but
for such maintenance of the royal prerogative as might assure the delicate
balance of the constitution; and he saw that the degradation of the Lords
to a mere chamber for registering the determination of the House of
Commons was a first step in throwing that delicate balance out of gear.
"His opinion was that the late rebellion could never be extirpated and
pulled up by the roots, till the King's regal and inherent power and
prerogative should be fully awarded and vindicated;" and that prerogative
to his mind was associated with the maintenance of adequate authority in
the House of Lords. It was not given to him to recognize how deeply that
rebellion had struck its roots, and how sure it was that from these roots
would grow a strong plant of Parliamentary power, and of predominance of
the Representative House, which it was now too late to extirpate. He saw
that the irregularities of administration, and the proneness of
irresponsible men "to meddle and interpose in matters out of their own
sphere, to give their advice in matters of peace and war, to hold
conferences with the King, and offer their advices to him," were
inevitably breaking down that scheme of the Constitution to which his life
had bound him. He was by no means inclined to flatter the House of Lords,
or to exempt them from blame for much that he thought mischievous. They
had neglected their business, their discharge of their functions had been
careless and perfunctory, their meetings had been short, and their
intervention in public affairs scanty, "while the other House sat, and
drew the eyes of the kingdom upon them, as the only vigilant people for
their good." Clarendon's constitutional ideals might be mistaken; but he
was under no mistake as to the process by which they were being
undermined. He saw how fatal was the error by which the peers insisted
upon special personal privileges which lessened the esteem of their order.
He protested against that claim of exemption from arrest for debt, which
they sought to extend to their menial servants, and which led to such
exemptions being often sold by these servants to bankrupt citizens, to the
scandal of the law. It was this petty personal arrogance of the peers
which gave the House of Commons their opportunity, of which they were not
slow to make use, and in doing so they were encouraged even by those
members of the House of Peers who found their personal aims advanced by
fostering the obstinacy of the House of Commons opposition. It was his
misfortune thus to offend the sticklers for privilege in the House of
Lords, while the House of Commons were coming to consider him as the prime
obstacle in the way of their newly asserted independence. His enemies
rejoiced in such clumsy tactics, while his friends vainly desired him "to
use less fervour in these argumentations." In describing these
contentions, he uses of himself almost the very words which he had applied
to Laud in the old days when Clarendon had urged his patron to be more
careful how he gave unnecessary occasion of offence. [Footnote: Clarendon
himself remarks "that he was guilty of that himself of which he used to
accuse Archbishop Laud, that he was too proud of a good conscience"
(_Life_, iii. 266).]
"He was in that, as in many things of that kind, that related to the
offending other men, for his own sake un-counsellable; [Footnote:
_i.e._ according to Clarendon's idiom, less amenable to advice than
it would have been in his own interest to be.] not that he did not know
that it exposed him to the censure of some men who lay in wait to do him
hurt, but because he neglected those censures, nor valued the persons who
promoted them."
It was a sturdy attitude no doubt; but the Court of Charles was hardly a
scene in which it could be assumed with safety. In that tainted atmosphere
blunt-spoken sincerity could scarcely breathe.
Clarendon had attempted to make the House of Lords a buttress to the royal
prerogative. A sardonic fate taught him that the weakest support upon
which he could rely was the King, for whose power he was ready to
sacrifice his own popularity, and hazard his fortune and even his life.
His enemies could always appeal to the King's love of ease, and to his
dread of troublesome interference with his pleasures and his lavish
expense. It was on these ignoble motives that they now relied. The Irish
Bill must be passed, or supplies would not be forthcoming, the threatening
murmurs of the people would take shape in action, and the luxuries and the
debaucheries of Whitehall would no longer be left in peace. So Charles's
conscientious objections again disappeared. The Lords who were in the
confidence of the King were bidden to abate their opposition; the Commons
had their way, the injustice to Ireland was forgotten, and the Bill was
passed. Charles and his flatterers persuaded themselves that the surrender
was the fruit of sagacious policy; they gave full rein to their sarcastic
humour in the ridicule of Clarendon and the belated obstinacy of his
loyalty to the constitution.
Charles gave his assent to the Irish Bill on January 18th, and in his
Speech on that occasion he announced to Parliament their speedy
prorogation, and recalled to their minds with some emphasis the forgotten
business of supply. This appeal had a good effect, and for very shame the
House placed the King in the position to discharge some of his seamen's
arrears of pay, and to put some portion of his fleet in fighting trim.
[Footnote: In the speech of thanks for this grant the Chancellor persuaded
the King to express his hope that provisos like that of the Appropriation
Bill would in future be dropped. It was a reflection on Sir W. Coventry's
plan, and as such was taken by Coventry himself. (See Pepys, April 1,
1667.)] Parliament was prorogued on February 8th, and the King had the
satisfaction of reminding the Commons that the Bill for the audit of
accounts had never been presented to him, and that he proposed himself to
issue a commission for the purpose. We can scarcely doubt that this last
resolution was adopted by the advice of Clarendon himself. He disliked the
encroachment of the Commons, but it was no part of his desire to keep the
light of day from the scandals of financial administration. Such a
commission, not extorted from the King as an insult, but resting upon his
own authority, might perform a necessary and useful work, and care was
taken in the selection of commissioners to give no suspicion of weakness
or partiality. Before it could do effective work, Clarendon had ceased to
guide the nation's policy.
The pressure of Parliamentary opposition was for the time removed. But the
troubles of the King's Minister were by no means at an end. The war
dragged on its course, our resources were nearly drained, the navy was
reduced to inefficiency, our foes were encouraged to new efforts by our
disasters. We have already [Footnote: Chapter XXI.] seen the insults which
England was yet to undergo before the relief of a not very creditable
peace was won, and to what dire necessities the Treasury was reduced for
lack of funds. We have learned how, at that juncture, [Footnote: Chapter
XXI.] Clarendon differed from the other advisers of the King, was adverse
to convoking Parliament, and suggested the unwelcome device of a loan to
tide over the emergency. Peace came at last. But it brought no
satisfaction to the nation, and no recompense for her vast expenditure. It
left the relations between Clarendon and the King sadly strained, and it
did not soften the growing unpopularity of the Minister with the country
party, or bring oblivion of his sharp passages with the House of Commons.
On the contrary, it is precisely from this moment that Clarendon dated the
rise of that storm that was to "destroy all his prosperity, and shipwreck
all his hopes." The cloud had indeed been thickening, and the waves had
been gathering new force, for months and even years. Clarendon professes
his knowledge of the plots that had long been undermining his power.
All that he means by dating the storm from this period, is that the long
threatened tempest now burst in its full force. But the struggle was to be
maintained, not without hopes, for a few months more.
Clarendon had the satisfaction of finding that the summoning of
Parliament, in the spring of 1667, to which he had been strongly opposed,
and the legality of which he doubted, [Footnote: See _ante_, p. 206.]
was after all rendered unnecessary by the near prospect of peace. But
Clarendon's opposition to the proposal had increased, if possible, his
unpopularity with the Commons, and suspicions had been rife that he
desired to raise revenue without Parliamentary consent. The disasters
which attended the last stages of the war did not allay the general
discontent, and when the peace was at last signed on July 2lst, 1667, it
found Court and Ministers alike under the cloud of popular jealousy. Only
two months before Clarendon had lost the stay and support of that
colleague, whose sympathies were closest to his own, the loyalty of whose
friendship was most untainted, and upon whose character and high rank
Clarendon could rely to balance the jealousy of his own promotion--too
sudden not to offend the pride of the older nobility. With touching
anxiety, Clarendon had sought to defend his old friend, now enfeebled by
age and ill-health, from the unseemly efforts that had been made to remove
him by those who sought to fill his place, but it may be doubted whether
in doing so he acted in the real interests of Southampton's reputation.
His desire to keep his old friend at his side was only natural. Both had
passed through hard straits, and both--because Southampton was only the
Chancellor's senior by a year--were now prematurely aged. Clarendon and he
were the last of the old band who had rallied to the King in 1640, and a
true instinct taught him that they must stand or fall together. All the
most cherished memories of his life, all that was most sacred in his loyal
devotion to his first master, all the vicissitudes of his fortunes, were
associated in Clarendon's mind with the friendship which began when they
were students together at Magdalen, and was cemented when they had been
forced together, by the excesses of the party with which they had at first
been in sympathy, to attach themselves to the Royalist side, at a time
when that side had ceased to have any means of attracting the support of
selfish ambition. They had alike been averse to the proceedings of the
Court during the days when Parliamentary Government was suspended,
[Footnote: Southampton had suffered severely in purse from the claims put
forward by the Crown on his estates in Hampshire; and we have already seen
how little Hyde sympathized with the rigour with which such claims were
pressed.
This Thomas Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, was the son of the
second Earl, whose name is immortalized as the patron and the friend of
Shakespeare. It is interesting to remember that one of his daughters (he
left no male heir) was the wife of William, Lord Russell, condemned and
executed in 1683.] and had welcomed what they hoped would be a return to
sounder methods when Parliament was again summoned. Both had seen much
amiss in the government of Strafford, and had been glad to think that what
they deemed his innovations would receive a check. Both had revolted
against the proceedings of the Parliament, when these transgressed the
law, and both resented the flagrant injustice which procured the judicial
murder of Strafford. Southampton brought to the service of the King the
prestige of high rank, the respect earned by a character which scorned
intrigue, and a judgment too sound to be led astray by any violence of
partisan passion. His loyalty was untainted and unswerving. [Footnote:
Southampton is said to have kept watch over the body of the murdered King,
during the night when it lay in Whitehall. It was he who told of the
mysterious muffled figure that stole into the Hall during the night, and
muttered the words, "Imperious necessity," and whom he always believed to
have been Cromwell. After his master's death he compounded with the new
Government for his delinquency, and lived in retirement. But he sent
encouragement to Charles when a fugitive after the battle of Worcester,
and continued, according to his abilities, to minister to his needs during
the long exile.] Save to those who knew him intimately, his character was
tinged with melancholy, and its impression was not lessened by the
habitual gloom which his outward aspect wore. In the inner circle of his
friends, he could indulge in a quaint humour, and was no unkindly
companion. He was not the only one of Clarendon's contemporaries whose
temperament was not proof against the depression born of the troubles of
the time. Alike from the ungrudging admiration which Clarendon expresses
for his life-long friend, from the captious criticism of those to whom his
long tarrying on the stage was irksome, and from the irresponsible gossip
of Pepys, we have a vivid picture of the veteran statesman as he appeared
to his contemporaries. In outward carriage grave and distant, girt with
that ample ceremony of manner which repelled familiarity; easy and prompt
in debate, with that sense of self-confidence which permits a man to think
on his feet, and to dispense with any niceties of diction; ready to rouse
himself to prolonged and earnest labour, but by habit and preference
indolent and a lover of his ease--they all present the same features in
their portraits. He was a loyal friend, save when a nice sense of the
respect due to his rank and character, provoked him to resentment against
any fancied neglect; prudent and adroit in counsel, but perhaps lacking in
the energy which was required to translate that counsel into action;
steadfast, rather than alert, in vindicating the primary duty of sound
finance. Clarendon is compelled to admit that "he was naturally lazy, and
indulged over much ease to himself;" but he can tell us of the unwonted
exertion of which Southampton showed himself capable during the treating
at Uxbridge, when he worked continuously for twenty days on end, and
curtailed his habitual ten hours of sleep to a maximum of five. His pride
involved him in a passing quarrel with Prince Rupert, whose extravagant
assertion of precedence provoked him, and whose challenge he accepted; but
his sound judgment, and his well-tried rectitude were enough, after
friends had interfered, to prevent the untoward meeting, and to bind him
and the Prince in the bonds of an enduring friendship. Like Clarendon, a
sound friend to the Church, he was, also like him, essentially a layman,
not without distrust of the wisdom of political ecclesiastics. Because he
was not disposed to underrate the force of the Presbyterian party, and was
disinclined to provoke them to open revolt, the Bishops, according to
Clarendon, were wont to impute to him disloyalty to the Church. Clarendon
himself, confirmed enemy of Presbyterianism as he was, knew by experience
on how flimsy grounds such charges might be brought. [Footnote: Pepys, in
many lively passages, adds new touches to the portraiture of the
Treasurer. On November 19, 1663, he is summoned to the Lord Treasurer's
house, and finds him "a very ready man and certainly a brave subject to
the King." Pepys is troubled only with the "long nails, which he lets grow
upon a pretty short white hand." On September 9, 1665, he recounts the
story of one of his gossips--how "the Lord Treasurer minds his ease, and
lets things go how they will; if he can have his £8000 per annum, and a
game at _l'ombre,_ he is well." When the end comes, Pepys--while he
admits that "the slowness and remissness of that great man" have done much
harm--yet discerns that the prospect for the future is far gloomier by his
loss. Even Coventry, when he was gone, could recall the Lord Treasurer
whom he had so often thwarted as "a wise and solid though infirm man."]
Southampton was not one of those personalities that stand out strongly
upon the page of history. Born to great station, he accepted and fulfilled
its responsibilities; but he was without initiative, and without that
secret of personal force which dominates a generation and leads a party.
As in the case of many a Minister, before and since, it is to be feared
that what his enemies said was true--that Sir Philip Warwick, his
secretary, was Treasurer in all but name. Pepys tells us of his own long
interviews with Warwick, and it is clear that it was at these interviews,
and not at formal conferences with the Lord Treasurer, that the finance of
the navy was arranged. He pictures [Footnote: _Diary_, April 12,
1665.] in a few graphic words, the scene at one of these formal
conferences.
"Strange to see how they hold up their hands crying, What shall we do?
Says my Lord Treasurer, 'Why, what means all this, Mr. Pepys? This is all
true, you say; but what would you have me to do? I have given all I can
for my life. Why will not people lend their money? Why will they not trust
the King as well as Oliver?'"
It is true comedy. But the flux of Pepys's gossippy confidences is a hard
ordeal even for a Minister so worthy as Southampton to pass. Perhaps Pepys
also gives us the best picture of his death, quaintly as it is expressed.
[Footnote: _Diary_, May 19, 1667.]
"Great talk of the good end that my Lord Treasurer made; closing his own
eyes, and setting his mouth, and bidding adieu with the greatest content
and freedom in the world, and is said to die with the cleanest hands that
ever Lord Treasurer did."
It is no dishonourable epitaph. The career that closed left no brilliant
mark, but in its tenor, as in its ending, it is typical of the grave and
balanced dignity, the loyalty to his Church, to his sovereign, to himself,
that were distinctive of that race of the English nobility who were now to
give place to a newer fashion. For us, the closing of that career is
chiefly interesting, as it revives in Clarendon the memory of that older
order to which he was so passionately attached, and as it carried away one
of the few remaining barriers between him and friendless isolation.
The question of the succession to Southampton gave new subject of
difference between the Chancellor and the King. Charles was determined, as
he had been when there was a talk of Southampton's resignation, to replace
the Treasurership by Commissioners, and had been persuaded by the faction
opposed to Clarendon no longer to have one Minister supreme in finance.
Again Clarendon remonstrated, and urged that this was a scheme fitted for
a republic, and incompatible with the principles of monarchy. It seemed to
him one more symptom of the substitution of an official bureaucracy for
personal rule. It is no reflection upon his sincerity to admit that, in
this, as in many of the principles to which he so obstinately adhered in
these later days, he was sometimes moved rather by prejudice than by sound
reason. He knew the rottenness of the Court, and the little trust that was
to be placed in those who had gained Charles's ear; and that knowledge
blinded him to the fact that inveteracy in opposition to prevailing views
was no safe or prudent policy for him at this juncture. Himself a man
risen from the middle class, he nevertheless held that the natural
custodians of the executive power were men who by hereditary rank, and by
outstanding position, could acquire, if not the confidence, at least the
implicit obedience, of the people. Long association with men of the
highest rank, had imbued him with their feelings, and made him the
champion of their privileges. Familiar with the ignoble wiles and
stratagems which impelled political adventurers, he clung, like many a man
before and since, to the habits and the prejudices of a lifetime, and
refused to admit any change operating in the spirit of the age. Amongst
the forces opposed to him, he still looked with special dislike upon the
active and indomitable spirit of Sir William Coventry. Coventry's ability
Clarendon was compelled to admit; but he gave him perhaps too little
credit for energy and foresight, and for undoubted administrative
efficiency. We need not take Coventry altogether at Clarendon's valuation.
The two men were out of sympathy, and Coventry was far from sharing that
ungrudging loyalty to King and Church which Clarendon reckoned as the test
of a sound citizen. Coventry irritated that love of discipline which was
the habit of Clarendon's life. He belonged to a new generation, and did
not conceal his contempt for that careful attention to precedent which was
to Clarendon a second nature. His advancement had seemed to Clarendon
unduly rapid, and his impetuous self-assertion, both in Parliament and in
the Privy Council, provoked Clarendon's ire. His one actuating motive, in
Clarendon's eyes, was boundless ambition, and he saw him only as the
confederate of those who thought to govern at once King and Parliament, by
dexterous parliamentary management, and by grasping at the machinery of
administration. Coventry's later life proved that he was no eager seeker
after office. Only a few months after Clarendon's fall, he stoutly opposed
the insolence of Buckingham, and felt the effects of royal displeasure
when Buckingham had regained his hold on the facile disposition of the
King. He lost all his appointments; and even though, after a short
detention in the Tower, he recovered his freedom and gained the cordial
support of a powerful body of friends, he refused to range himself with
any party, and declined all suggestions that he should again take office.
Of his personal ability, of the respect which he inspired in others than
Clarendon, and of his administrative efficiency, we have abundant evidence
from other authorities, including both Evelyn and Pepys. He professed
himself, in confidential conversation with Pepys, as inspired by no
personal prejudice against Clarendon or Southampton. Even the fullest
confidence in Clarendon's rectitude cannot blind us to the fact that
neither he nor the Treasurer was now in the full vigour of his prime, that
more direct and personal supervision of the details of administration than
they could give was needed to restore either efficiency or confidence, and
that Coventry might honestly believe this. It is no reflection on the
loyalty with which Clarendon clung to a thankless task, if we admit that
it might have fared better with him had he recognized sooner that the
accomplishment of that task, as he had conceived it, was now hopelessly
impossible. The truth is that Clarendon's memory still turned to a time,
not so distant, when the relinquishment of office by a Minister meant a
permanent breach with the Sovereign, suspicion of treason, the downfall of
his fortunes, and also the hazard of his life. The change brought about by
government by party, in which a Minister might retire from office, and
none the less continue to play a high and influential part in the
political history of his country, was slowly but surely coming. Had
Clarendon recognized it, there seems to have been nothing to prevent his
retiring from office, and still continuing to exercise a potent influence
in the counsels of the nation. But he found no precedent in history for
such a course. Retirement to him meant defeat, disgrace, and ruin. It may
be doubted whether his own dogged tenacity, brave and conscientious as it
was, did not itself give his ultimate retirement that added meaning. In
adhering to the service of the King, he perhaps forgot that loyalty may
only be wasted on an unwilling object, and that satiety is a prolific
breeder of ingratitude.
Before the storm broke, there was another Court scandal--for it is worthy
of no higher name-that stirred the turbid political waters, and further
complicated the difficulties of Clarendon's position. The Duke of
Buckingham, that strange personality--half statesman, half buffoon--who
occupied no inconsiderable part of the stage in Charles's Court, managed
to embroil himself in some extraordinary escapade, or some more than
usually freakish piece of mischief, which for once stirred the ordinarily
phlegmatic temper of the King. To probe its details would serve no good
purpose; if it did not originate in, it was no doubt aggravated by, one of
those entanglements common to the life of the bagnio, which Charles's
Court so faithfully reflected. Some wrangle as to the enjoyment of the
facile charms of one of the royal mistresses, or the disputed paternity of
some bastard, very probably was the origin of an ignoble quarrel which
presently reached the dimensions of an affair of State, occupied the
attention of the Privy Council for no inconsiderable period, and involved
a charge of treason, formulated and then abandoned with the reckless
frivolity of the comic stage. We shall probably not be far wrong in
ascribing the beginning of the trouble to Lady Castlemaine, who found her
hold upon the royal favour threatened by some ill-timed intrigue of
Buckingham. A charge of treason was brought against Buckingham, who was
known to have at his command a rascally band of bullies and charlatans,
who disturbed the streets of London, and whose outrages were not kept
outside the precincts even of the Court itself. An assortment of sorry
evidence was brought before the Council, and Buckingham was shown to have
trafficked with astrologers and cut-throats, whose designs seemed to have
threatened even the life of the King. He had permitted them to address him
in language which indicated that he had cherished ambitions of hair-
brained folly, if not of treasonable insolence, and which flattered him
with thoughts of his boundless influence with the mob. The matter was
brought to Clarendon's knowledge by the King; but the Chancellor
endeavoured as far as possible to hold aloof from the squalid inquiry,
which was pushed forward chiefly by Arlington and his sworn ally, the Lady
Castlemaine. A warrant was issued for Buckingham's apprehension; and when
he withdrew from the Court, a proclamation was published that charged him
with treason, and required his surrender. The sheriff's messenger that
followed him to his retreat in the country was openly defied, and
Buckingham managed for weeks to elude the clutches of the law. The dignity
of justice was degraded, and the King's warrant was mocked, as long as
Buckingham thought he might rely upon the weakness of the King, and his
fears of Buckingham's being provoked to reprisals which might attach new
scandal to the Court. While the warrant was out against him, the Duke was
bold enough to resort to Clarendon, and to invoke his aid in securing for
him an interview with the King, in which he was confident that he might
allay the passing anger. Clarendon could only advise his surrender, and
assure him that nothing would be allowed to interfere with the even-handed
administration of justice. Clarendon refused to denounce to Buckingham
those who were his enemies, and evidently had no desire to secure for
himself, by so doing, the gratitude or the alliance of such a man. The
Duke at length found that it was either necessary or safe to surrender
himself; and, in the examination which ensued, he showed all his usual
insolence, and his confidence in his hold over the King. He treated the
evidence as worthless, and forced Charles himself to admit that some of
the correspondence had its origin in Court intrigue. The quarrel with Lady
Castlemaine was composed, and from being bitter enemies, she and the Duke
became sworn allies, who joined forces in denouncing Clarendon, and found
abettors in those who had lately been the Duke's accusers. A man of much
less than Clarendon's pride and dignity might well have despised such
intrigues; but events soon proved how fickle was the support upon which he
could rely in trusting to the gratitude of the King. The incident, as
lightly closed as it had been recklessly begun, resulted only in knitting
more closely the designs of those who were relentlessly pursuing the
object of ending his power and procuring his downfall. No scruples were
likely to stay the hands of the sorry band of conspirators.