CLARENDOX 



277 



in the Commons, till, in May 1042, he slipped away, 

 and followed ( 'harles into Yorkshire. Ho witnessed 

 Kil^'i'hill ; in h;i: \\.-i- knighted, and made Chan- 

 cellor of the Kxchei|iiei ; in .March 1(4."> attended 

 tin- I'rineeof Wales t4> tin- we-t uf England; and 

 with him a twelvemonth later passed on to Scilly 

 and Jersey. In Scilly, on 18th May li>46, he com- 

 nieneeil hi- history ; in Jersey he tarried two whole 

 \e.-irs. From Novemtar 1649 till March 1651 h 

 was engaged in a fruitless embassy to Spain ; next 

 for nine years lie filled the office ofa 'Caleb Balder- 

 stone 1 in the needy, greedy, factious little court of 

 <'harles II., sometimes with 'neither clothes nor 

 lire to preserve him from the sharpness of the 

 season, and with not three sous in the world to 

 buy a fagot.' 



Charles had made him High Chancellor in 1658, 

 and at the Restoration he was continued in that 

 dignity, in November 1660 being created Baron 

 Hyde, and in the following April Earl of Clarendon. 

 To this period belongs the strangest episode in all 

 hi- autobiography. In November 1659 nis daughter 

 Anne (1638-71), then lady-in-waiting to the Prin- 

 cess of Orange, had entered into a secret marriage- 

 contract with the king's brother, James, Duke of 

 York ; and nine months later they were privately 

 married at her father's house. He, on learning the 

 news, if news indeed it was, burst into a passion of 

 the coarsest invective against her it were more 

 charitable to suppose he was acting a part, not 

 really less jealous for his daughter's honour than 

 for the dignity of the royal house. Anyhow, people 

 fancied that in Catherine of Braganza he purposely 

 selected a barren bride for the king, that so his own 

 daughter might some day come to the throne. Nor 

 as chief minister was ne otherwise popular. A 

 bigoted churchman, a thorough Conservative, and 

 always a lawyer, he would fain have restored things 

 to the status quo of twenty years earlier. He loved 

 a Papist little better than a sectary, so would have 

 nought of Charles's toleration. He looked sourly 

 on Charles's vices, yet stooped to impose Charles s 

 mistress on Charles s queen. He could not satisfy 

 the Cavaliers, who contrasted his opulence with 

 their own broken fortunes ; he did more than 

 enough to irritate the Puritans. The sale of Dun- 

 kirk, the Dutch war, the very Plague and Great 

 Fire, all heightened his unpopularity ; and though 

 in 1663 he weathered Lord Bristol's frivolous charges 

 against him, in August 1667 he fell an easy un- 

 lamented victim to a court cabal. The great seal 

 was taken from him ; impeachment of high-treason 

 followed ; and on 29th November, at Charles's 

 bidding, lie quitted the kingdom for France. All 

 but murdered at Evreux by some English sea- 

 men, at last the old man settled at Montpellier, 

 where and at Moulins he spent nearly six tranquil 

 years. Then moving to Rouen, he sent a last 

 piteous entreaty that Charles would permit him to 

 ' die in his own country and among nis own chil- 

 dren ; ' nay, at Rouen must he die, on 9th Deceml>er 

 1674. No monument marks his grave in West- 

 minster Abbey. 



Men's estimates of Clarendon have varied widely. 

 Southey calls him 'the wisest, most upright of 

 statesmen ;' George Brodie, 'a miserable sycophant 

 and canting hypocrite.' The truth lies somewhere 

 between the two verdicts, but Southey's is much 

 the truer of the two. The failings and merits of 

 the statesman are mirrored in his great History of 

 the Rebellion in England (3 vols. 1704-7), witli its 

 supplement and continuation, more faulty and less 

 valuable the History of the Civil War in I rein ml 

 ( 1721 ), and the Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon 

 (3 vols. 1759). An apology more than a history, a 

 vindication of himself and of Charles I., it is not, 

 does not profess to be, impartial ; it suppresses the 

 truth, where the truth seemed unfavourable ; and 



it is grossly inaccurate the result of a fal'iU- 

 memory. But, Mr Green notwithstanding, it doe* 

 not 'by delilwrate and malignant falsehood' pervert 

 the whole action of Clarendon's adversaries ; care- 

 less and ungenerous he might be, wilfully dishonest 

 he was not. And what though his style be prolix 

 ami redundant, though it 'suffocate us by the 

 length of its periods, his splendid stateliness, his 

 anecdotic talent, his development of motives, and, 

 above all, his marvellous skill in j>ortraiture ( shown 

 lest in the character of his dear friend Falkland), 

 have rendered the history a classic, imperishable 

 where dry-as-dust chronicles have perished. The 

 lest and latest edition is that by W. Dunn Macray 

 (6 vols. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1889). We have, 

 besides, twenty-five essays by Clarendon, his Con- 

 templations on the Psalms (l>egun in 1647, and 

 finished, like the Life, during nis second exile), 

 several controversial writings, and 3 vols. of hit 

 State Papers (1767-86; calendared, 1872-76). 



See Ranke's able analysis of the History ; works cited 

 under CHARLES L and CHARLES II. ; the Hon. Agar- 

 Kllis's Historical Inquiry respecting the Character of 

 Clarendon ( 1827 ) ; Lady Theresa Lewis's Lives of the 

 Friends and Contemporaries of Clarendon (3 vols. 1852) ; 

 two articles by Mr Peter Bayne in the Contemporary 

 Review (1876); and the Life of Clarendon, by T. H. 

 Lister (3 vols. 1838). 



Clarendon, GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK 

 VILLIERS, EARL OF, a great English diplomatist, 

 was born in London, 12th January 1800. He was 

 a descendant of that Thomas Villiers, second son of 

 the Earl of Jersey, who married the heiress of the 

 last Lord Clarendon of the Hyde family ( 1752), and 

 was made Baron Hyde (1756) and EaVl of Claren- 

 don (1776). Having studied at Cambridge, he 

 early entered the diplomatic service, and in 1833 

 was appointed ambassador at Madrid, where he 

 acquired great influence, which he employed 

 in helping Espartero to establish the govern- 

 ment of Spain on a constitutional basis. On 

 the death of his uncle, the third earl of the 

 second creation, without issue, in 1838, he suc- 

 ceeded to the title, and in 1840 was made 

 Lord Privy Seal under Melbourne. When the 

 Whig ministry was broken up in 1841 he became 

 an active member of the opposition ; but warmly 

 supported Sir Robert Peel and his own brother, 

 Charles Pelham Villiers, in the agitation for the 

 abolition of the corn laws. Under Lord John 

 Russell's premiership he became President of the 

 Board of Trade in 1846, and the following year was 

 appointed Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He entered 

 upon his duties in troublous times. The insurrec- 

 tionary follies of Smith O'Brien and his coadjutors 

 might have set the whole country in a blaze but 

 for the prompt and decisive measures which the 

 new viceroy adopted, and which soon restored 

 general tranquillity. At the same time, his tact 

 and impartiality contributed to allay and reconcile 

 the exasperations of party, though it did not avert 

 the litter hatred of the Orangemen. He was 

 thanked in the speech from the throne in 1848, and 

 next year received the coveted honour of the garter. 

 When the Russell cabinet resigned in 1852, Claren- 

 don was replaced by the Earl of Eglinton, but on 

 the formation of the Aberdeen ministry next year 

 was intrusted with the portfolio of the Foreign 

 Office. It was thus upon his shoulders that i lie 

 responsibility for the Crimean war actually fell. 

 Mr Roebuck s resolution in 1855 cost him his office, 

 which, however, he soon resumed at Palmerston's 

 desire, and he sat at the Congress of Paris. Lord 

 John Russell was Foreign Secretary from 1859 to 

 1865, but became Premier on Palmerston's death, 

 when Clarendon returned to the Foreign Office. 

 Next year he retired with his colleagues, to resume 

 the same office in Gladstone's government in 1868, 



