Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon — Volume 02

by Sir Henry Craik

CHAPTER XVII

SCOTTISH ADMINISTRATION

The Chancellor had declined the suggestion that he should change his present office for the doubtfully constitutional one of Prime Minister. He would fain have confined himself to his legal duties, and have only interfered by general advice in regard to matters of administration. But, as a fact, such abstention was not possible. A thousand questions had to be settled; if any consistency of policy were to be maintained the influence of one guiding spirit must be felt. Order had to be reduced out of chaos, and some semblance of business methods must be observed. If that could be done by any one, it must be by the Chancellor. It forced him into many uncongenial spheres. Amongst these none was more out of the reach of his sympathy than the turbid stream of Scottish politics.

Under the rule of Cromwell all that had been distinctively national, either in religion or civil Government in Scotland, had been rudely and unsparingly crushed under foot. English law was administered by English deputies. The pretensions of Presbyterian autocracy had, for the time at least, been effectually curbed. English garrisons terrorized the country. The nobility and the commonalty alike had been disciplined into obedience with a rigour that speaks volumes for Cromwell's coercive power. A very moderate representation in such English Parliaments as had occasionally been summoned by Cromwell, was all that was permitted to Scottish claims. In the death of the Protector and the fall of his successor all parties in Scotland alike saw the birth of new hopes. All were alike monarchical in sympathy, and made speed to avow that sympathy, as soon as Monk withdrew his adherence to a Commonwealth. But, beyond that, what shape was the Restoration to take in Scotland? Were the older cavaliers to be uppermost, and with them was Episcopacy to be restored? Or was Presbytery to assume its former domination, and to dictate to the sovereign the terms on which he was to be permitted to reign? The whole thing came too suddenly for any settled plan to be formed. At Breda no such terms were even discussed for Scotland as were embodied in the Declaration for England. Repression in Scotland had produced its natural fruit, a host of men for whom politics meant little else than adroit deception and cunning intrigue. Political morality was at its lowest ebb, and amongst the motley crew it is hard to pick out one man whose standard of decency of life or honesty of principle can face even lenient criticism.

The various claimants addressed themselves, very early in the day, to Hyde. In adversity he had learnt to suspect the honesty of Scotsmen, had been alienated from them by their religious views, and dreaded the obstinacy of their political independence. He was not likely to welcome its revival now that the Cromwellian yoke was removed; and all the overtures that came from them were to his mind open to suspicion of duplicity. Even at Breda he found himself courted by different applicants for his favour. The chief of these was the Earl of Lauderdale, who, in spite of his former close association with the Covenanters, and his pretence of rigid Presbyterianism, had solid claims to Royalist consideration. He had supported the present King during the rigorous days of his nominal reign in Scotland, had marched with him to Worcester, and had been kept a prisoner by Cromwell since 1651. Such titles to consideration Lauderdale was eminently fitted to turn to good use. Under an uncouth exterior, with a clumsy frame and a gross countenance, further disfigured by a tongue too big for his mouth, Lauderdale concealed a power of crafty insinuation in which he repeated some of the dexterity of his kinsman of a former generation, Maitland of Lethington, known in the Courts of Elizabeth and James VI. as "the Chameleon." To natural talent Lauderdale added a scholarship and linguistic acquirements which were rare in his age. Intellectually he towered above his contemporaries. Creeds and principles, for which his countrymen were ready to do battle or to die, were for Lauderdale mere playthings in the game of intrigue. The Covenant, the orthodox standards of Presbyterianism, nay even the foundations of religion, were subjects of his mockery. The liberties of his country were only useful to him as a specious pretence, which might be roughly trampled on when the opportunity came. To Hyde he had always been an object at once of suspicion and dislike. At times during the days of the royal banishment they had come to an open rupture. Now Lauderdale was full of flattery to the Chancellor. He recognized, as the products of wisdom, schemes of Hyde's which he had before derided. He endeavoured to appease Hyde and he managed to capture Charles. He derided the Covenant; laughed at his own folly in formerly supporting it; confessed his repentance for his days of rebellion; was convinced of the sound loyalty, and episcopalian compliance of his country. But, only, caution was necessary. Nothing must be done too quickly. And Lauderdale alone was fitted to advise as to time and opportunity.

Hyde had other applications from Scotland. Lauderdale had some strong adherents. The old Earl of Crawford had just claims to consideration. He was a stout fighter and a strong and faithful Royalist, whose Presbyterian sympathies did not shake his loyalty. His son-in-law, the Earl of Rothes, had attracted the friendship of Charles, and his coarse profligacy had not yet had time to weigh down his reputation. The Earls of Tweeddale and Kincardine were both respectable in comparison with many of their political associates, and if they did not bring great talents to their party, they at least were not the source of flagrant scandal to any cause to which they adhered. All these represented that section of the nation which did not drop its Presbyterianism with its assumption of increased Royalist zeal, and which claimed to have made ample atonement for any former rebel sympathies by the efficacy of its new adherence to the cause of the Crown. They all belonged to the party which supported Lauderdale.

But there was a very different faction which was bitterly jealous of Lauderdale and his party. These were the older Royalists, who had never been tainted with Cromwellian sympathies, and who had forgotten any former acceptance of the Covenant which might now have been brought up against them. They reflected with almost greater bitterness the jealousy with which the older English cavaliers regarded those who had gained their influence at Court by a belated, and, it might be held, selfish, adherence to the Restoration schemes. Amongst them were the Earl of Glencairn, who had kept strictly aloof from the late régime, and had withdrawn to the Highland fastnesses from the reach of Cromwell's troops; the Earl of Middleton, a rough soldier of fortune, who had none of the dexterity nor of the learning of Lauderdale; and Sir Archibald Primrose, who supplied to his party some of the eloquence and political experience which his companions lacked.

For the moment all parties vied with one another in a common desire to pose as the enemies of Argyle. He was looked upon, by all alike, as the craftiest and most powerful enemy of monarchical power. The carefully limited deference—approaching closely to thinly veiled insolence—which he had shown towards the King during his stay in Scotland, was now recalled as at once overbearing and deceitful. His grasping ambition, and the marvellous dexterity with which he had overreached all parties in turn, made him the object of a common hatred and jealousy—perhaps of a common fear. All these passions might now be satisfied by an obtrusive assumption of heartiness in resenting his former treatment of the King, and his early sympathy with the rebels. As Clarendon himself says, [Footnote: Life, i 425.] "They were all, or pretended to be, the most implacable enemies to the Marquis of Argyle; which was the 'Shibboleth' by which the affections of that whole nation were best distinguished."

The two most interesting figures in Scotland during the twenty years just past had unquestionably been Montrose and Argyle. The first had been well known to Clarendon, and the spell of Montrose's heroism and romance had earned his enthusiastic admiration. Argyle had been the object of his suspicion from days long past; and striking as were Argyle's abilities, his character was as little fitted to rouse enthusiasm in Clarendon as it was to command the veneration of posterity. Montrose and Argyle offered the strangest contrast. The one was a type of high-souled chivalry; a consummate strategist, whose genius was inflamed by the very hopelessness of the cause for which he fought. His was no half-hearted loyalty, and in his later years he had been proud to sacrifice himself for the causes that were dear to Clarendon's soul. To Clarendon, Montrose was the one conspicuous example of the unselfish Scottish Royalist, and Argyle was regarded not only as the contriver of Montrose's death, but as the insulter of his latest hours. Argyle was the most finished type of crafty politician, pursuing a selfish game of duplicity. His insinuating manners and the superficial humour with which he could cloak his designs did not in any degree compensate for the ugly taint of personal cowardice which could not but be distasteful to an age of fighting men. With extraordinary skill Argyle had managed to conciliate popular support, while he remained the one overpowering territorial magnate in Scotland, whose unquestioned sway over the western islands was as dangerous to popular liberties as to the authority of the Crown. Clarendon fitly paints him in the words with which Virgil describes Drances:—

"Largus opum, et lingua melior, sed frigida bello
Dextera, consiliis habitus non futilis auctor,
Seditione potens."

But unfitted as he was to shine in camp or to attract enthusiasm, Argyle none the less commands our respect by the abilities which raised him far above the crowd of smaller men around him. He was under no delusion as to the extent of hatred which his power had bred, and as to the vengeance to which Montrose's death prompted all who had been Montrose's friends. But he could still base hopes upon his own dexterity, and he faced the danger with a courage which showed that his lack of warlike prowess did not prove him altogether a coward. He repaired to London and sought to throw himself at the feet of the King, hoping to recover some of that personal influence which he had managed to exert even in the irksome days before the fight at Worcester. He was met by a solid front of irreconcilable hostility, and instead of being received at Court he found himself a prisoner in the Tower. From thence he was sent to Scotland to await his trial at the hands of those who were determined on his final ruin. There was no Act of Indemnity to protect him, and he knew well that no party in the State was prepared to sacrifice its own interests for his preservation. Standing at bay against his foes at home; deserted by those amongst whom he had once exercised supreme sway; betrayed by the treachery of Monk, who did not scruple to send to Scotland some compromising letters which involved Argyle in plots against the King, Argyle was at length reduced to one last resource. He knew the dominating influence of Clarendon, and he knew also that, although his enemy, Clarendon was not likely to press a mean advantage or to act under the influence of personal revenge. To him he turned when all other hope was gone; and in a letter, [Footnote: Printed by Lister, vol. iii., p. 129, from the Bodleian MSS.] which must have been written after Hyde was created Earl of Clarendon, in April, 1661, he appeals to the Chancellor's well-known wisdom and justice against those who—

"From a pretence of zeal to his Majesty's service have been so prodigal of their informations against me," and who desired "to lay the blame at one man's door (though more innocent than many others) rather than put it where it ought justly to lie." "Although," he proceeds, "I lay no claim of merit upon any of my endeavours for his Majesty's service, being no more nor my duty, yet, I may say, I was ever faithful and sometimes useful, and never disloyal to his Majesty or his interest, though I might be carried away in a spate by human imbecillity. What assistance your Lordship shall be pleased to contribute in bringing me within the compass of his Majesty's mercy, shall be acknowledged as a perpetual obligation upon the family of your Lordship's most humble servant, ARGYLE."

He had already offered a price for mercy by promising to communicate "somewhat that would highly concern his Majesty's service."

Even those to whom his actions and his character have no attraction, must acknowledge that in these words Argyle advances no undignified appeal. Whether Clarendon would have aided that appeal it is impossible to say. Argyle's power, he might not unreasonably have judged, would have been incompatible with any settlement leaving adequate authority to the Crown. But however that might have been, Clarendon's intervention was never called for. Within forty-eight hours of the sentence of a court in which the influence of his enemies was dominant, and before there was time to appeal to London, Argyle was executed. Montrose was avenged; and just as his greatest rival fell, his own scattered quarters were gathered from the ports where they had been exposed, and buried in an honoured grave. The two great protagonists were gone, and Clarendon had to manage Scottish affairs through lesser men.

In that task he was handicapped by one serious disadvantage—his own absolute ignorance of the country and its conditions, and as its natural consequence an impenetrable lack of sympathy. To him Scotland was simply the home of deep-rooted and obstinate rebellion. Her Church represented to Clarendon the sternest and most repulsive form of Presbyterianism, the very antithesis of all Clarendon's ecclesiastical ideals. The national character was to him a mere amalgam of obstinacy and unblushing treachery. Her territorial nobility were to him a selfish caste, who had bargained away all their real influence over their countrymen in their greedy race after plunder. Their religious zeal was to him—and that on no mistaken grounds—merely a hypocritical cloak for coarse and besotted profligacy, not less vicious and much more degraded than the more flaunting and luxurious licentiousness of the English Court. Of the fundamental aims of the nation, of the deep-seated traits of their character, he was profoundly ignorant. At once turbulent and mean-spirited, pharisaical and profligate; poverty-stricken and yet proud; bigoted in its beliefs, and yet careless of all the decencies of religion—such is the aspect which Scottish national character bore to Clarendon. To a superficial and distant observer there was not a little which justified such a judgment; and in the case of Clarendon it was buttressed by a solid mass of honest, however perverse, prejudice.

The agents in the Government of Scotland were the Earl of Middleton, Lord Commissioner; the Earl of Glencairn, Lord Chancellor; the Earl of Rothes, President of the Council; the Earl of Crawford, Lord Treasurer; the Earl of Lauderdale, Secretary of State; and Sir Archibald Primrose, Lord Register. They were split into two bitterly opposed factions, that of the older Royalists, and that of more recent adherents, who were tainted with suspicions of intractability at once in Church and State. The first was led by Middleton; and he was no match in dexterity for Lauderdale, who led the opposite party. Clarendon had to manage an ill-harnessed team. By sympathy and former friendship he was inclined to the older Royalists; but he often found them untrustworthy agents. And we must remember that in English politics he was by no means of opinion that the King should look with suspicion on recent converts.

The first question to be settled was that of Indemnity. No previous stipulation prescribed it; but Clarendon was too shrewd not to perceive the certain ill-consequences of a terrorism of vengeance. The influence that chiefly worked against any complete Indemnity was the ignoble desire of those in power to profit by the slower process of forfeitures. Lauderdale did all he could to push forward a settlement of the terms of Indemnity; Middleton and his adherents delayed it, and endeavoured to compound with delinquents in a spirit of barefaced huckstering. A second question related to the maintenance of the English garrisons in Scotland. As a curb upon the national spirit of rebellion, Clarendon thought that, although they were monuments of Cromwellian rule, the garrisons were essential. He did all he could to maintain them; but Lauderdale was able to carry the King with him in their abolition on the plea of their injury to national pride, and their certain result in national discontent, and Clarendon's advice was set aside. The popularity which thereby resulted was a strong asset in Lauderdale's favour.

A question of even more importance was that of the method of administration. Although the Scottish Parliament was restored, Clarendon was no favourer of unrestricted Home Rule, and rightly discerned its dangers at once to the Crown and to responsible Government. He insisted that the Committee of Privy Council, which dealt with Scotland, should meet in London, and that six English Privy Councillors should be members of it. Here, again, it was an easy matter for Lauderdale to urge the offence that would thus be given to Scottish feelings. His real motive for resistance was the curb that would thus be placed on that power which he was plotting to engross in his own hands. Had it been preserved, that council would have formed a defence of Scottish liberties; its tincture of impartial statesmanship would have checked the growth of the petty local tyrants, and limited their influence. For two or three years Clarendon was able to maintain this independent council; it was only when his vigilance failed, and when his attention was otherwise engaged, that Lauderdale's pertinacity was rewarded, and a pernicious system of local tyranny admitted. [Footnote: It is not unimportant to note that even Burnet's Scottish sympathies and confirmed Whiggism did not prevent his outspoken preference for Clarendon's plan over that of Lauderdale.]

But the central point of combat was that regarding the restoration of the Episcopal form. It was only natural that Clarendon, from his own tastes and traditions, as well as from the memory of his first master's desires, should have placed this object first. Even at Breda, Sharp—afterwards Archbishop of St. Andrews—had obtained audience of Clarendon, and as the accredited agent of Middleton and Glencairn, had shown a readiness to transfer his own allegiance from Presbyterianism to Episcopacy. Clarendon's sympathy led him to give to Sharp a trust that was little merited, and he became, through Sharp's means, involved in an intricate maze of double-dealing which sought to lull the suspicions of the Presbyterians to sleep, while secretly paving the way for a complete Episcopal restoration. Sharp's dominating motive was unabashed personal ambition. He was ready to make compromising concessions in points of principle, in order to obtain the outward recognition of Episcopacy, and the re-establishment of the Episcopal sees. Clarendon knew well, from old experience, the danger of exciting national susceptibilities, and was wise enough to urge caution to his subordinates; but cautious and wary statesmanship was the last thing to be expected from the double dealing of Sharp, or in the drunken counsels of Middleton and his adherents.

Meanwhile Lauderdale, while he did not hesitate to decry the Covenant, and to make eager profession of his own recantation of its bigotry, urged that no premature steps should be taken for restoring Episcopacy. That it would come in time he had no doubt; but it would be the height of folly to arouse susceptibilities that might easily be soothed by cautious dealing into a peaceable acceptance of the ecclesiastical forms that were approved at Court.

[Illustration: JOHN MAITLAND, DUKE OF LAUDERDALE. (From the original by
Sir Peter Lely, in the National Portrait Gallery.)]

But Middleton and his adherents were now determined to carry matters with a high hand. Clarendon must have chafed to see a policy, with which in general he agreed, pressed with a recklessness that was certain to defeat itself. An Act was passed rescinding at one stroke all Acts passed since 1633. Burnet's phrase about it is, for once, scarcely too strong. "It was a most extravagant Act, and only fit to be concluded after a drunken bout." In that it agreed only too closely with other projects devised by Middleton and his convivial band. Lauderdale protested; and this time, if we are to believe Burnet, Clarendon found himself obliged to side with the Scottish Minister whom he most profoundly suspected.

In this course matters proceeded. In 1662, by an Act drafted by the suspicious hand of Sharp, Episcopacy was restored, but restored under auspices that reflected little credit on the statecraft that guided its restoration. The details of Scottish political intrigue—culminating in a deadly struggle of irresponsible tyranny with all the forces of enthusiastic religious frenzy—do not belong to Clarendon's life. But he could view their progress, so far as he himself was concerned in it, with nothing but disappointment. He was powerless to break down what he believed to be the narrow-minded obstinacy of national prejudice. He saw that the apparent triumph of Episcopacy was achieved by agents who made themselves contemptible in the eyes of their countrymen, and that it was bought at the price of arousing indomitable and stubborn resistance. He saw his own more immediate adherent, Middleton, playing into the shrewder hands of the far abler Lauderdale, by every error of tactics, by perverse neglect of the simplest rules of statecraft, by blundering deceptions and undisguised self-seeking. Again and again he found that the King, who, after all, cared but little for the distinctions between the sects of Protestantism, was alienated from the work by the folly of his own agents. By a strange freak of miscalculation Middleton and his friends thought to end Lauderdale's influence by excluding him from the Indemnity, and pronouncing him incapable of holding office. It was an easy matter for Lauderdale to turn the tables upon them. They incurred the censure both of Charles and of Clarendon. Before Clarendon's fall came, the triumph of Lauderdale over his rivals was assured; but before Clarendon's life ended he might have learned to what a height of self-aggrandizement, and of unscrupulous oppression, the popular wiles of that astute tactician had helped him to attain. Had Clarendon been blessed with agents wiser than Middleton and more honest than Archbishop Sharp, the Government of Scotland might have been consolidated; the bitterness, to which her religious fanaticism was goaded, might have been assuaged; and one of the darkest pages in her annals, which was to follow within the next few years, might have been left unwritten. The Union might have been brought about thirty years earlier than it was, and it might not have bequeathed so many seeds of jealousy, and so much offence to national pride.