Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 2 of 3

by Henry Hallam

3. Sale of Dunkirk.—The eleventh article charged Lord Clarendon with having advised and effected the sale of Dunkirk to the French king, being part of his majesty's dominions, for no greater value than the ammunition, artillery, and stores were worth. The latter part is generally asserted to be false. The sum received is deemed the utmost that Louis would have given, who thought he had made a hard bargain. But it is very difficult to reconcile what Clarendon asserts in his defence, and much more at length in his Life (that the business of Dunkirk was entirely decided before he had anything to do in it, by the advice of Albemarle and Sandwich), with the letters of d'Estrades, the negotiator in this transaction on the part of France. In these letters, written at the time to Louis XIV., Clarendon certainly appears not only as the person chiefly concerned, but as representing himself almost the only one of the council favourable to the measure, and having to overcome the decided repugnance of Southampton, Sandwich, and Albemarle.[642] I cannot indeed see any other explanation than that he magnified the obstacles in the way of this treaty, in order to obtain better terms; a management, not very unusual in diplomatical dealing, but, in the degree at least to which he carried it, scarcely reconcilable with the good faith we should expect from this minister. For the transaction itself, we can hardly deem it honourable or politic. The expense of keeping up Dunkirk, though not trifling, would have been willingly defrayed by parliament; and could not well be pleaded by a government which had just encumbered itself with the useless burthen of Tangier. That its possession was of no great direct value to England must be confessed; but it was another question whether it ought to have been surrendered into the hands of France.

4. This close connection with France is indeed a great reproach to Clarendon's policy, and was the spring of mischiefs to which he contributed, and which he ought to have foreseen. What were the motives of these strong professions of attachment to the interests of Louis XIV. which he makes in some of his letters, it is difficult to say, since he had undoubtedly an ancient prejudice against that nation and its government. I should incline to conjecture that his knowledge of the king's unsoundness in religion led him to keep at a distance from the court of Spain, as being far more zealous in its popery, and more connected with the Jesuit faction, than that of France; and this possibly influenced him also with respect to the Portuguese match, wherein, though not the first adviser, he certainly took much interest; an alliance as little judicious in the outset, as it proved eventually fortunate.[643] But the capital misdemeanour that he committed in this relation with France was the clandestine solicitation of pecuniary aid for the king. He first taught a lavish prince to seek the wages of dependence in a foreign power, to elude the control of parliament by the help of French money.[644] The purpose for which this aid was asked, the succour of Portugal, might be fair and laudable; but the precedent was most base, dangerous, and abominable. A king who had once tasted the sweets of dishonest and clandestine lucre would, in the words of the poet, be no more capable afterwards of abstaining from it, than a dog from his greasy offal.

Clarendon's faults as a minister.—These are the errors of Clarendon's political life; which, besides his notorious concurrence in all measures of severity and restraint towards the nonconformists, tend to diminish our respect from his memory, and to exclude his name from that list of great and wise ministers, where some are willing to place him near the head. If I may seem to my readers less favourable to so eminent a person than common history might warrant, it is at least to be said that I have formed my decision from his own recorded sentiments, or from equally undisputable sources of authority. The publication of his life, that is, of the history of his administration, has not contributed to his honour. We find in it little or nothing of that attachment to the constitution for which he had acquired credit, and some things which we must struggle hard to reconcile with his veracity, even if the suppression of truth is not to be reckoned an impeachment of it in an historian.[645] But the manifest profligacy of those who contributed most to his ruin, and the measures which the court took soon afterwards, have rendered his administration comparatively honourable, and attached veneration to his memory. We are unwilling to believe that there was anything to censure in a minister, whom Buckingham persecuted, and against whom Arlington intrigued.[646]

A distinguished characteristic of Clarendon had been his firmness, called indeed by most pride and obstinacy, which no circumstances, no perils, seemed likely to bend. But his spirit sunk all at once with his fortune. Clinging too long to office, and cheating himself against all probability with a hope of his master's kindness when he had lost his confidence, he abandoned that dignified philosophy which ennobles a voluntary retirement, that stern courage which innocence ought to inspire; and hearkening to the king's treacherous counsels, fled before his enemies into a foreign country. Though the impeachment, at least in the point of high treason, cannot be defended, it is impossible to deny that the act of banishment, under the circumstances of his flight, was capable, in the main, of full justification. In an ordinary criminal suit, a process of outlawry goes against the accused who flies from justice; and his neglect to appear within a given time is equivalent, in cases of treason or felony, to a conviction of the offence; can it be complained of, that a minister of state, who dares not confront a parliamentary impeachment, should be visited with an analogous penalty? But, whatever injustice and violence may be found in this prosecution, it established for ever the right of impeachment, which the discredit into which the long parliament had fallen exposed to some hazard; the strong abettors of prerogative, such as Clarendon himself, being inclined to dispute this responsibility of the king's advisers to parliament. The Commons had, in the preceding session, sent up an impeachment against Lord Mordaunt, upon charges of so little public moment, that they may be suspected of having chiefly had in view the assertion of this important privilege.[647] It was never called in question from this time; and indeed they took care during the remainder of this reign, that it should not again be endangered by a paucity of precedents.[648]

Cabal ministry.—The period between the fall of Clarendon in 1667, and the commencement of Lord Danby's administration in 1673, is generally reckoned one of the most disgraceful in the annals of our monarchy. This was the age of what is usually denominated the Cabal administration, from the five initial letters of Sir Thomas Clifford, first commissioner of the treasury, afterwards Lord Clifford and high treasurer, the Earl of Arlington, secretary of state, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley, chancellor of the exchequer, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury and lord chancellor, and lastly, the Duke of Lauderdale. Yet, though the counsels of these persons soon became extremely pernicious and dishonourable, it must be admitted that the first measures after the banishment of Clarendon, both in domestic and foreign policy, were highly praiseworthy. Bridgeman, who succeeded the late chancellor in the custody of the great seal, with the assistance of Chief Baron Hale and Bishop Wilkins, and at the instigation of Buckingham, who, careless about every religion, was from humanity or politic motives friendly to the indulgence of all, laid the foundations of a treaty with the nonconformists, on the basis of a comprehension for the presbyterians, and a toleration for the rest.[649] They had nearly come, it is said, to terms of agreement, so that it was thought time to intimate their design in a speech from the throne. But the spirit of 1662 was still too powerful in the Commons; and the friends of Clarendon, whose administration this change of counsels seemed to reproach, taking a warm part against all indulgence, a motion that the king be desired to send for such persons as he should think fit to make proposals to him in order to the uniting of his protestant subjects, was negatived by 176 to 70.[650] They proceeded, by almost an equal majority, to continue the bill of 1664, for suppressing seditious conventicles; which failed however for the present, in consequence of the sudden prorogation.[651]

Triple alliance.—But whatever difference of opinion might at that time prevail with respect to this tolerant disposition of the new government, there was none as to their great measure in external policy, the triple alliance with Holland and Sweden. A considerable and pretty sudden change had taken place in the temper of the English people towards France. Though the discordance of national character, and the dislike that seems natural to neighbours, as well as in some measure the recollections of their ancient hostility, had at all times kept up a certain ill-will between the two, it is manifest that before the reign of Charles II. there was not that antipathy and inveterate enmity towards the French in general, which it has since been deemed an act of patriotism to profess. The national prejudices, from the accession of Elizabeth to the restoration, ran far more against Spain; and it is not surprising that the apprehensions of that ambitious monarchy, which had been very just in the age of Philip II., should have lasted longer than its ability or inclination to molest us. But the rapid declension of Spain, after the peace of the Pyrenees, and the towering ambition of Louis XIV., master of a kingdom intrinsically so much more formidable than its rival, manifested that the balance of power in Europe, and our own immediate security, demanded a steady opposition to the aggrandisement of one monarchy, and a regard to the preservation of the other. These indeed were rather considerations for statesmen than for the people; but Louis was become unpopular both by his acquisition of Dunkirk at the expense, as it was thought, of our honour, and much more deservedly by his shuffling conduct in the Dutch war, and union in it with our adversaries. Nothing therefore gave greater satisfaction in England than the triple alliance, and consequent peace of Aix la Chapelle, which saved the Spanish Netherlands from absolute conquest, though not without important sacrifices.[652]

Intrigue with France.—Charles himself meanwhile by no means partook in this common jealousy of France. He had, from the time of his restoration, entered into close relations with that power, which a short period of hostility had interrupted without leaving any resentment in his mind. It is now known that, while his minister was negotiating at the Hague for the triple alliance, he had made overtures for a clandestine treaty with Louis, through his sister the Duchess of Orleans, the Duke of Buckingham, and the French ambassador Rouvigny.[653] As the King of France was at first backward in meeting these advances, and the letters published in regard to them are very few, we do not find any precise object expressed beyond a close and intimate friendship. But a few words in a memorial of Rouvigny to Louis XIV. seem to let us into the secret of the real purpose. "The Duke of York," he says, "wishes much for this union; the Duke of Buckingham the same: they use no art, but say that nothing else can re-establish the affairs of this court."[654]

King's desire to be absolute.—Charles II. was not of a temperament to desire arbitrary power, either through haughtiness and conceit of his station, which he did not greatly display, or through the love of taking into his own hands the direction of public affairs, about which he was in general pretty indifferent. He did not wish, as he told Lord Essex, to sit like a Turkish sultan, and sentence men to the bowstring, but could not bear that a set of fellows should enquire into his conduct.[655] His aim, in fact, was liberty rather than power; it was that immunity from control and censure, in which men of his character place a great part of their happiness. For some years he had cared probably very little about enhancing his prerogative, content with the loyalty, though not quite with the liberality, of his parliament. And had he not been drawn, against his better judgment, into the war with Holland, this harmony might perhaps have been protracted a good deal longer. But the vast expenditure of that war, producing little or no decisive success, and coming unfortunately at a time when trade was not very thriving, and when rents had considerably fallen, exasperated all men against the prodigality of the court, to which they might justly ascribe part of their burthens, and, with the usual miscalculations, believed that much more of them was due. Hence the bill appointing commissioners of public account, so ungrateful to the king, whose personal reputation it was likely to affect, and whose favourite excesses it might tend to restrain.