T II U 



416 



T II U 



The letter* written during Richard Cromwell's short 

 Piotcclorale, in the third voh, Mendon's State 



Paper*,' are lull ui' acknowledgments of Thurloc's influ- 

 with Kit-hard Cromwell, and of the importance at- 

 tached to him by the intriguing Royalist*. Thus, Cooper, 

 one of Hyde's spies, writes to him, February l;i. HiV.t, 

 :iwell is governed by Thurloe, whether for fear or 

 ! l,iiiiv. not ; but .sure it is. lu> hath power to dispose 

 him against the sense of right, or indeed his own interests. 

 Thurloe 's malice, I doubt, will never suffer him to do us 

 pood ' p. 4i"> i. Again Hyde writes to another of his 

 txgents, Brodrick, There is nothing we have thought of 

 more importance, or have given more in charge to our 

 friends inner the beginning of the parliament, than that 

 they should advance all charges and accusations against 

 Thurloe and St. John, who will never think of serving the 

 king: and if they two were thoroughly prosecuted, and 

 some of the members of the High Court of Justice, Crom- 

 well's spirits would fall apace ' (p. 428). ' It is strange,' 

 Hyde write* a month after, March 10, 1659, ' they have 

 not in all this time fell upon Thurloe and those other per- 

 sons who advanced Cromwell's tyranny ' (p. 436). Then 

 overtures to Thurloe to aid the king are thought of. ' I 

 do confess to you,' Hyde writes, ' I cannot comprehend 

 why Thurloe, and even his master St. John, should not be 

 very ready to dispose Cromwell to join with the king, and 

 why they should not reasonably promise themselves more 

 particular advantages from thence than from anything else 

 that is like to fall out ' (p. 449). After the dissolution of 

 the parliament, serious thoughts seem to have been enter- 

 tained of soliciting Thurloe's and St. John's aid (p. 177 . 

 Hut Thurloe afterwards becomes again an object of fear to 

 Hyde. During the government by the army, he writes. 

 ' I do less understand how Thurloe shapes, and i> in dan- 

 ger to be exempted out of the Act of Oblivion, and at the 

 same time employed in the greatest secrets of the govern- 

 ment, for I have some reason to believe that he meddles as 

 much as ever in the foreign intelligence ' (p. 532). 



On the 14th of January, 1660, Thurloe was succeeded in 

 his office of secretary of state by Scot, one of the repub- 

 lican party ; but he was reappointed on the 27th of Feb- 

 ruary. His patent as chief postmaster had been cancelled 

 in the interval, on the 2nd of February. (Common* Jnur- 

 nalt, vol. vii., p. 533.) In the movements that followed for 

 the restoration of Charles II., Thurloe made an offer of 

 his services to those who were bringing about that event. 

 Sir E. Hyde writes to Sir John Grenville, April 23rd, 1660, 

 ' \Ve have, since I saw you, received very frank overtures 

 from Secretary Thurloe, with many great professions of 

 resolving to serve the kinc. and not only in his own en- 

 deavours, but by the i; lends, who are easily 

 enough guessed at. This comes through the hands of a 

 person who will not deceive us, nor is easily to be de- 

 ceived himself, except by such bold dissimulation of the 

 other, which cannot at first be discerned. . . . The king re- 

 turned such an re fit, and desires to sec some 

 effects of his good affection, and then he will find his 

 service more acceptable.' (Thurtoe's Slate Papers, vol. 

 vii.. p. 807.) And Hyde goes on to instruct his correspond- 

 ent to consult Monk as to Thurloe's character, and as to 

 his power to be of use, supposing lie were sincerely will- 

 ing. On the ir.lli uf May Thurloe was accused by the 

 parliament of high treason, and ordered to be secured ; 

 uf .hme a vote was passed allowing him 

 ' liberty to attend the secretary of slate, at such times :i 

 [the House] shall appoint, and for so long a time as they shall 

 own his attendance for the service of the state, wit hoiit any 

 trouble or molestation during such his attendance, and iii 

 his going and returning to and from the seeietary ol 

 state, any former order of this House notwithstanding. 



After his release from Imprisonment, lie retired t<> Great 

 Milton in Oxfordshire, where he generally resided, except 

 in term-time, when I i his chamber* in l.im-oln's- 



Inn. It is said that he was often solicited l>y Charles II. 

 to resume public business, and always refused, telling the 

 king that he despaired of sen-ing him as he had 



.ell, whose rule was to seek out men for \ 

 not place* for men. (Birch's /.//-</ Thiirlo-; prefixed to 

 -rt, p. xix. , Thurloe died at J.incoln's-Inn on 

 the 21 



He had been twice married, and left four sons and two 



UfMen, all by his second wife, a sister of Sir Thomas 



Overbury. He WM possessed, during the days of power, 



of the manors of VVhittlesey - and \\ 1, 



Andrews, and the rectory of \Vli i the 



Isle of Ely, and of \Visliech Castle,' w'h tiilt. 



Hut alter the Restoration they reverted to the Bishop of 

 Kly. There is an entry in the Commons' Journals ol the 

 isth of May, KM! : -'.Mr. Thurloe |>ut out of 



the ordinance for assessment ot the islt >l.\iii., p. 



36.) Dr. Hirch says he had an estate of about 41MI/. a-ycar 

 at Astwood in Huckinghumshire. In a monumental in- 

 scription to the memory of his son-in-law in St. Paul's 

 Church, Bedford (<<,/,'* .1/NS., vol. iii., p. 43), Thurloe it 

 described as of Astwood, Bucks. 



Thurloe does not appear to have possessed any sinking 

 qualities, either moral or intellectual, to impress the minds 

 of his contemporaries ; and we know little else of him than 

 that he had great powers of business. Burnet describes 

 him as 'a very dexterous man at getting intelligence.' 

 (Hist, of his oicn Timet, i. 66.) From a story in Burnet 

 relative to Syndercombs conspiracy against Cromwell, 

 and from what is said by Pepys of Morland, when assistant 

 to Thurloe, who played Ins master false, and gained a 

 baronetcy from Charles II. for his treachery, it might 

 appear that he was not of a very genernns disposition, 

 or much liked by those who were under him. Morland 

 attributed his misconduct to 'Thurloe's bad usage of 

 him.' (Pepys, vol. i., p. 133.) [MoHi.\M>, SIR SAMI:KI..] 

 Burnet's story is, that Thurloe treated lightly information 

 which had been given him of the design on Crom- 

 well's life, and that when, on the subsequent discovery of 

 this design, Cromwell became aware that information had 

 been given to Thurloe, on which he had not acted, and 

 blamed Thnrloe lor his conduct, Thurloe availed himself 

 of his influence w ith the Protector to malign his informant ; 

 'So he (the informant) found,' says Burnet, ' how danger- 

 ous it was even. to preserve a prince so he called him 1 , 

 when a minister was wounded in the doing of it, and that 

 the minister would be too hard for the prince, even though 

 his own safety was concerned in it '(vol. i.. p. 79). 



Thurloe's 'State Papers,' 7 vols. fol.. 174'J. contain a 

 large mass of records of his official transactions, together 

 with a number of private letters and papers. They were 

 edited by Dr. Birch, who gives the following history of 

 Thurloe's papers : 'The principal part of this collection 

 consists of a series of papers discovered in the reign of 

 King William, in a false ceiling in the garrets belonging to 

 Seeietary Thurloe's chambcis, .No. xiii., near the chapel in 

 Liucoln's-Inn, by a clergyman who had borrowed those 

 chambers, during the long vacation, of his friend Mr. 

 Thomlinson, the owner of them. This elergvinan soon 

 after disposed of the papers to the Right Honourable John 

 Lord Somers. then lord high chancellor of Kngland. who 

 caused them to be bound up in (i? volumes in folio. 1 

 afterwards descended to Sir Joseph Jckyll, master of the 

 rolls; upon whose decease they were purchased by the 

 late Mr. Fletcher Gyles, bookseller.' They were published 

 by Mr. Gyles's executors. Dr. Birch, the editor, received 

 many other papers from diti'erent individuals, especially 

 from Lord Shelburne and the then archbishop of Canter- 

 bury, which he has iucoipoiated in the collection. For 

 historical purposes this is an invaluable collection. 



THl'RLOW, KinVAKl). LORD, was born in the year 

 1732. at Little Ashlield near Stowmarket in Suffolk, 'ills 

 father, Thomas Thurlow, was a clergyman, and held 

 . l\ the In ings of Little Ashliel'd, and of Strati 

 Mary's In Norfolk. After receiving the rudiments of his 

 education from his father, young Thurlow was sent t. 

 grammar-school at Canterbury at th 

 Donne, who sought (as Mr. Southey states in his Life of 

 Cow per' upon the authority of Sir Egerton 1! 

 gratify a malignant feeling towards the head-niaster. by- 

 placing under his care ' a daring, refractory, clever boy. 

 who would be sure to torment him.' The motive ascribed 

 to Donne is far-fetched, and seems improbable : but. there 

 is no doubt that Thurlow was educated at the ( 'anterbury 

 school, and that he continued there several years, and 

 until he was removed to Cains < .imbndgc. ll-.s 



character and conduct at the university did nut promise 

 any meritorious eminence in future life. He gained no 

 academical honours, and was compelled to leave Cam- 

 bridge abruptly in consequence of turbulent and indeco- 

 rons behaviour towards the dean of his college. Soon after 

 he quitted Cambridge he was entered as a member of the 

 Society of the Inner Temple. In Michaelmas term, 1754, 



