“Where it was agreed between Anne Dutchess of York Plaintiffe and Edward Earl of Clarendon Defendant that the value of twenty pound lost in a wager between the parties aforesaid should be paid by that party to whom Hew May Esquire Judge of the Architects should adjudge it to be due. He the said Hew May having examined both parties and heard their severall witness doth hereby declare to all whom it may concern and doth order and decree that the said summe of twenty pound should be forth with paid by the right Honorable Edward Earl of Clarendon Defendant to the said Anne Dutchesse of York Plaintiffe and that it be paid within 8 daies after both parties shall have had a sight of this decree. It is further ordered by the said Hew May that forasmuch as the said Edward Earle of Clarendon Defendant hath put off and deferred the hearing of this cause term after term during the times of allmost 4 termes to the great dammage and cost of the said Anne Dutchesse of Yorke Plaintiffe it is therefore ordered that the said Earle of Clarendon Defendant shall pay defraye and discharge all the costs and charges whatsoever of this sute.

“Ordered that this decree be registered.”[[207]]

[207]. Clarendon State Papers (Bodleian).

Before very long, however, the heart for such things was wanting, even if the time was available.

It is a hard task to gauge the inveterate and bitter malignity which pursued the Chancellor to his final exile from England. Whatever were the faults in his public service and administration, it could at least be said of Edward Hyde that “he was in the Court of Charles II. almost the only man who lived chastely, drank moderately, and swore not at all,”[[208]] and that with his lifelong friends, Ormonde and Southampton, he “projected into this reign” “the high-toned virtues of the old Cavalier stock.”[[209]] These, and the friendship already mentioned—just as long and steadfast—with John Evelyn, should stand the memory of Clarendon in good stead, putting aside those brilliant gifts which he used so unsparingly in the service of his sovereign. Of these, Horace Walpole, no mean critic, declares that “for his comprehensive knowledge of mankind he should be styled the Chancellor of human nature.”

[208]. Encyclopædia Britannica. “Clarendon.”

[209]. “Charles II.” Osmund Airy.

The dark clouds were beginning to gather about Hyde as early as 1662, though possibly only the few persons who were conversant with all State secrets were cognisant of the fact. In one of de Wiquefort’s despatches he says of the Chancellor: “He has a strong party against him who will make the King jealous, and will be favourable to the Queen in order to oppose the Duchess of York.” If the party against Clarendon was strong, it must have been a small one at that time, but it is instructive to see that already two factions were in the forming, trying to establish a rivalry between the two ladies, though they themselves were entirely innocent in the matter, but at any rate no one was so likely to suffer between the contending parties as Clarendon himself. In 1663, Digby, Earl of Bristol, whose character should not have secured any particular confidence, attacked the Chancellor, bringing against him a charge of high treason which, however, at that period fell to the ground.[[210]] But as time went on the deep-laid prejudice against him spread and spread like a canker. He had unhappily tried the unsuccessful experiment of hunting with the hounds and running with the hare, for he had endeavoured to reconcile the Presbyterian malcontents by the Act of Indemnity and the Romanists by the Act of Uniformity, thereby satisfying neither party. In this way he had unfortunately succeeded in making enemies in all directions. He was “steady for the Church against Dissenters and Papists alike,”[[211]] and consequently both parties hated him. His blameless life, too, was a tacit reproof of the vices of the Court, and his chief foe, Buckingham, took full advantage of the fact.[[212]] He and his boon companions were accustomed to say to the King, with a sneer: “There goes your school master!”[[213]] But it was above all the irrepressible Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine, beautiful, unscrupulous, evil in thought and deed, who joined with others no less guilty in hounding the Chancellor to his disgrace and so depriving the King of a minister who, if not perfect, had at any rate done him and the realm great and lasting service. Meanwhile, while all their discontent and malice were seething under the surface, but not yet openly active, Clarendon, in execution of the plan he had entertained from the time of the Restoration, set about building his new house in 1664. We have previously seen that he established himself temporarily at Worcester House in the Strand, and that it was there that both his daughter’s marriage and the birth of her elder son took place, but he had never intended to remain there, and it was not very long before he acquired a site which suited him. At the time of the public announcement of Anne’s marriage, York House at Twickenham, originally York Place, was given to her father, who was accustomed to stay there when the King was at Hampton Court, and the Duchess’ daughter Anne, afterwards queen, was born there.[[214]] But it was in London itself that the Chancellor proposed to build his new house, and he received a grant from the King of certain Crown property. It lay west of Burlington House, on the site of Bond Street, Stafford Street and Albemarle Street, extending eastwards to Swallow Street, its western boundary being, however, uncertain. There, then, was built Clarendon House,[[215]] facing the top of St James’s Street, and occupying the whole site of Stafford Street. It stood back from Piccadilly, then newly named, having projecting wings with a turret in the centre, and Evelyn calls it, with some probable exaggeration “the first palace in England.”[[216]] It is said that 74 Piccadilly was built of a portion of the materials.

[210]. Chalmers’ Biographical Dictionary.

[211]. Ibid.