511 



HYDE, EDWARD, EARL OF CLARENDON. 



HYDE, EDWARD, EARL OP CLARENDON. 



643 



bore the greatest share of business, and was believed to possess the 

 greatest influence. The measures he recommended were tempered 

 with sagacity, prudence, and moderation." " The chancellor was a 

 witness of the Restoration : he was with Charles at Canterbury in his 

 progress to London, followed bis triumphal entry to the capital, and 

 took his seat on the 1st of June (1660) as speaker of the House of 

 Lords : he also sat on the same day in the Court of Chancery." He 

 retained the office of chancellor of the exchequer until the king could 

 fiud a fit person to succeed him. Thus from a powerless and poverty- 

 stricken guardian of an exiled king he suddenly rose to be the " first 

 in place, favour, and authority, among the ministers of a monarch, 

 who, while invested by the public with sovereign power, still evinced 

 towards him the deference of a pupil." 



The part that Hyde took in the principal measures that occupied 

 the parliamenta assembled after the Restoration may be learned from 

 Lord Clarendon's ' Life,' written by himself, in Mr. Lister's ' Life of 

 Clarendon,' and 'Burnet's 'History of his own Times.' We pass to 

 the narration of an event of immediate personal importance and 

 interest to the chancellor which occurred in the autumn of 1660. 

 Anne Hyde, his daughter, who was in the household of the Princess 

 of Orange, during a visit to the queen at Paris had contracted an 

 attachment to the Duke of York, the result of which was a secret 

 marriage, solemnised in September, in time to legitimatise their first 

 child, born on the 22nd of the following month. This marriage was 

 offensive, not only at court, but also to the chancellor, " who broke 

 out," as he tells as, " into an immoderate passiou against the wicked- 

 ness of his daughter." It was at first doubtful whether this unpopular 

 marriage might not tend to diminish the favour a'nd power of the 

 chancellor. These doubts however were soon removed. The king 

 entertained no suspicions of artifice or collusion on the part of Hyde, 

 and to prove that he entertained none, created him a baron, under 

 the title of Lord Hyde of Hindon. On the occasion of the coronation, 

 which took place in April 1661, the further dignity of the earldom of 

 Clarendon was conferred on him, and he received from the king a 

 gift of 20.00W. 



The principal events which now took place were, the king's 

 marriage with Catherine of Portugal, the negociation of a loan from 

 the King of France, and the sale of Dunkirk. Clarendon took an active 

 part in bringing each of these events to pass : his authority and station 

 required that in all important matters his opinions and decision should 

 be expressed. Whatever may be thought of his share in the pro- 

 motion of the king's unhappy marriage, or in the sale of Dunkirk, 

 there can be no second opinion as to big deep culpability in sanctioning 

 Charles in becoming a dependent borrower from the king of France. 



The opposition of the chancellor to the king's inclination to Roman 

 Catholicism, as well as to other wishes he had formed, diminished his 

 share of royal favour, and gave opportunity to his enemies to cabal 

 against him with a greater probability of accomplishing his overthrow, 

 than had ever been reasonably entertained. Among these enemies 

 was the Earl of Bristol, a bold, ambitious, intriguing man, who 

 sought to aggrandise himself at Clarendon's expense. Bristol, who 

 was politically embarrassed to such an extent that he could only 

 extricate himself by gome desperate effort, thinking that Clarendon 

 might be successfully attacked, drew up articles of impeachment, and 

 accused him of high treason, in the House of Lords. " The Lords 

 referred the charges to the Judges ; the Judges unanimously returned 

 an answer that the charge had not been regularly and legally brought 

 in, inasmuch as a charge of high treason cannot be originally exhi- 

 bited to the House of Peers by any one peer against another ; and that 

 if the charges were admitted to be true, yet there is not any treason 

 in them." " The Lords resolved unanimously, that they concurred 

 with the Judges. Bristol absconded, and a proclamation was issued 

 for his apprehension ; and thus ridiculously and utterly failed this 

 rasli attempt to assail the character and power of Clarendon." 



Clarendon still continued the principal conductor of the public 

 affairs, and such was the condition of the kingdom in politics both 

 domestic and foreign, the poverty of the exchequer, the difficulty of 

 raising supplies, the profligacy of the court and the king's absolute 

 neglect of business on the one hand, the relation of England to foreign 

 powers and the Dutch war on the other, that he had difficulties of 

 no ordinary magnitude to contend with. Discontent was general 

 throughout the country ; the war with Holland was unpopular, and 

 the terms of peace which followed it were still more so. These 

 feelings of irritation and disgust were vented upon Clarendon, and the 

 public, without regard to justice, heaped upon him the odium of every 

 measure and event. 



" The war, which he had originally opposed," says Mr. Lister ; " the 

 division of the fleet, which he had not suggested ; even the want of 

 royal issue, which he could not have foreseen (the queen having lately 

 miscarried), were all laid to his charge. Old topics of complaint were 

 revived by the pressure of a calamity with which those topics had no 

 :tiou ; and in the midst of the panic and rage of the populace, at 

 the alarming news that the Dutch were at Qravtsend, they broke the 

 windows of Clarendon's house, and painted a gibbet on his gate, 

 accompanied with this rude rhyme, 

 " Three sights to be seen : 

 Dunkirk, Tangicrs, and a barren queen." 



The vulgar belief thnt he had appropriated to his own use the 



revenues of the state was fostered by a standing eyesore, a magnificent 

 house that he had built, and which in derision was caller! Dunkirk 

 House, Tangier Hall, and such significant nicknames. At court ths 

 king's profligate associates used all the means in their power to foster 

 and nourish his long-conceived dislike to his principal counsellor ; and 

 by the persuasion of Lady Castlemaine, Buckingham, the chancellor's 

 greatest enemy, was restored to office. The influence of Clarendon wag 

 successfully undermined : by the king's command he resigned the 

 great seal on the 30th of August 1667 ; and in such a manner was he 

 held up as an object for persecution, that it became evident that some 

 proceedings would be instituted against him. The Commons, angry 

 with him for many causes, but more especially for his recommendation 

 of their dissolution, met in October, when a resolution was passed, 

 " that it be referred to a committee to reduce into heads the charges 

 against the Earl of Clarendon." Seventeen articles of impeachment 

 were drawn up, and, after some discussion, an accusation was agreed 

 upon and forwarded to the Lords ; it was rejected however, " because 

 the House of Commons only accused him of treason in general, and 

 did not assign or specify any particular treason." Upon this refusal 

 to commit, a serious contest arose between the two houses ; and great 

 excitement prevailed. To compose these animosities by withdrawing 

 the object of contention, the friends of Clarendon advised him to quit 

 the kingdom. After some hesitation he consented to their proposal ; 

 and on the 29th of November 1667, he sailed for Calais, leaving behind 

 him an address written to the Lords, exculpating himself from the 

 charges made against him, of which his flight might otherwise have 

 been thought to be an acknowledgment. " A bill for banishing and 

 disenabling Lord Clarendon was passed by the Lords on the 12th of 

 December, and by the Commons on the 18th. By this bill, unless he 

 returned and surrendered himself before the 1st of February, he was 

 to be banished for life ; disabled from ever again holding any office ; 

 subjected, if he afterwards returned to England, to the penalties of 

 high treason ; and rendered incapable of pardon without the consent 

 of the two Houses of Parliament." 



The public life of Clarendon was now at an end ; he was permitted 

 somewhat reluctantly by the king of France to reside within his 

 kingdom . At Evreux he narrowly escaped assassination at the hands 

 of some English sailors ; from Evreux he went to Bourbon, thinking 

 to derive benefit to his health from the mineral waters ; from Bourbon 

 he removed to Montpelier ; from Montpelier to Moulins, where, in the 

 enjoyment of the society of his children, he commenced the continua- 

 tion of his ' Life.' In the spring of 1674 he procured a house at 

 Rouen, which was his last residence. Repeated attacks of gout had 

 enfeebled hi* frame and constitution, and his malady continually 

 increased: at length he expired on the 9th day of December 1674, in 

 the sixty-fifth year of his age. His body was brought to England, 

 and, according to the statement of Anthony Wood, was buried on the 

 north side of Henry VIL's chapel in Westminster Abbey. No monu- 

 ment has been erected, and no inscription marks the place of interment 

 A statue of him has however been raised in that part of the new 

 palace at Westminster known as St. Stephen's Hall. 



By his second wife, who died in 1667, at the time that difficulties 

 were multiplying around her husband, he had six children, four sons 

 and two daughters. Henry, the second earl of Clarendon, died in 

 1709; Lawrence, created earl of Rochester, died in 1711; Edward 

 and James died unmarried ; Anne married James, duke of York, and 

 was the mother of Queen Mary and Queen Anne; Frances was married 

 to Thomas Keightly, of Hertingfordbury. 



Clarendon's abilities were great. As a minister he was wanting 

 more in courage and firmness than in sagacity aud foresight : it was 

 his " disposition to be too much contented with temporary expe- 

 dients and to be too little mindful of remote consequences." He was 

 pure according to tho standard of the times. "He had one great 

 merit," says Mr. Lister, in his studied and careful character of this 

 great man, " rare and valuable at all times, but peculiarly no afr such 

 a period as the Restoration. He was not disposed (except perhaps 

 when the interests of the church were concerned) to govern in the 

 spirit of a partisan. He aimed at appearing, not the leader of a 

 political faction, but the minister of the nation a minister to whom 

 royalist and republican might equally look up for justice." His 

 industry was remarkable, and of his oratory Pepys says (vol. iii., p. 62), 

 " I am mad in love with my lord chancellor, for he do comprehend 

 and speak out well, and with the greatest easiness and authority that 

 I ever saw a man in my life." 



As a judge there are but scanty materials for the estimation of his 

 character : the judicial functions of a chancellor were at this time 

 very subordinate to the political : high legal attainments were not 

 considered essential qualifications. We do not find that he was 

 negligent of the duties and improvement of his court. 



In private life he was a warm and constant friend, and strict 

 observer of moral duties, in an age when vice was openly countenanced 

 and preferred. Haughtiness and irritability of temper were his prin- 

 cipal failings. In his ' History of the Rebellion,' and in his ' Life ' 

 of himself, there are many inaccuracies. In the latter he appears to 

 have trusted chiefly to the recollection of a somewhat fallacious 

 memory. We must refer to Mr. Lister's ' Life of Clarendon ' for an 

 account of his writings. (Lister, Life of Clarendon ; Life of Claren- 

 don, by himself; Burnet, Own Times; Diaries of Evelyn and Pepys.) 



