[75] Orrery’s State Letters, ii. 51, and all his letters from July 3, 1667, to September, ib. pp. 203-285, and in State Papers, Ireland, July 12, 29, and 31. The treaty of Breda, ending the first Dutch War, was signed on July 21.
[76] Bishop French’s Narrative of the Earl of Clarendon’s Settlement and Sale of Ireland, Louvain, 1668. I have used the Dublin reprint of 1846. This tract is in the form of a letter ‘to a leading member in the House of Peers in England and much relied upon in the House of Commons,’ possibly to Buckingham. A MS. copy is calendared among State Papers, Ireland, under 1667, p. 543. French renewed his attack on Clarendon in the ‘Bleeding Iphigenia,’ 1674.
[77] Clarendon’s Life, Cont., pp. 81, 107, 277, 1197, 1324. His discourse by way of vindication, dated Montpelier, June 24, 1668, is in Miscellaneous Works, 2nd edition, 1751. The Life, written three or four years later, contains the same matter, but some expressions are softened: for instance, the ‘impudence’ of the Irish spokesmen in the former becomes ‘imprudence’ in the latter. The King to the Lords Justices, April 21, 1662, in State Papers, Ireland, is the warrant under which the 6000l. was paid, and Clarendon’s statements are supported by the letters printed in Lister’s Life of Clarendon, vol. iii. nos. 66, 109, 120. The money was levied under section 33 of the Act of Settlement.
[78] Ormonde to Arlington, September 3, 1667, as given in Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 352. Arlington’s answer, September 14, printed in Lister’s Life of Clarendon, iii. 470, and the King’s letter, September 15, printed in Ellis’s Original Letters, 2nd series, iv. 39.
[79] Letters from October 25, 1667, to September 24, 1668, in Carte’s Ormonde, ii. appx. pp. 41-64. Pepys’ Diary, May 3, 1668. Burnet, Own Times, i. 266.
[80] Ormonde to Ossory, May 19, 1668, to February 9, 1668-9, printed in appx. to Carte’s Ormonde, vol. ii. Pepys’ Diary, November 25 and December 5, 1668, and February 12, 1668-9. Ormonde to Archbishop Boyle, March 8, 1668-9, Carte MSS. vol. cxlvii.
[CHAPTER XLV]
ROBARTES AND BERKELEY, 1669-1672
Robartes Lord Lieutenant.
Lord Robartes was again chosen for the post which he had scorned to occupy eight years before. Perhaps the King’s main object was to get rid of him, for he must have been one of the most disagreeable men in England—morose, overbearing, and impracticable. Upon this point Clarendon, Burnet, and Anthony Hamilton are for once agreed, and, according to the last two, he was also something of a hypocrite. His knowledge of business, the popular opinion of his ability, and the reputation which he enjoyed among the Presbyterians made him a personage whom it was not safe to neglect. Charles announced the appointment at Council, speaking without his usual hesitation, and emphatically declaring his undiminished confidence in Ormonde. Robartes, who was present, accepted with civil expressions to the outgoing Viceroy, who answered in the same strain, acknowledging the other’s fitness and wishing him success. Pending the new Lord Lieutenant’s arrival in Ireland, Ossory was retained as the King’s Deputy by patent. ‘My Lord of Orrery,’ wrote the Duchess of Ormonde with very pardonable malice, ‘is as little satisfied with this change that is made, and the Duke of Buckingham, as if my Lord had continued; and I am of opinion that they will find cause, at the least I wish it may fall out so, and so I am sure do many more.’ Buckingham, however, had the satisfaction a little later of driving Coventry from office, and thus clearing the ground for what we still call the Cabal. Ormonde charged his son to treat the new Viceroy with proper respect, to silence the murmurs of his friends, and to take, if possible, more trouble than ever; ‘and if you can get the Tories suppressed, that His Majesty’s kingdom may be delivered up in as much peace and order, as I found it in war and confusion when I was first Lord Lieutenant.’ Robartes lingered long in England after his nomination, and his instructions were not settled for more than five months. The King thought of reserving military appointments to himself—probably Buckingham wished to have the jobbing in his own hands—but Ormonde successfully objected on the ground that this would be unfair to Robartes and derogatory to the great office which he himself had held twice and might hold again. The instructions about revenue matters, in which Ormonde’s enemies hoped to find some means of attacking him, were also modified at his suggestion.[81]