Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon — Volume 02

by Sir Henry Craik

Before following further the events which were to shape his policy as Minister, it is well to turn to others which had a more immediate personal concern for him. The first of these struck home to his feelings as a father, and was to have far-reaching consequences in a wider field. Separated though he was, during most of the long years of exile, from his family, Hyde had none the less kept the warmest domestic affections. These affections were now to be hardly tried; and the manner in which he bore the trial was strangely characteristic both of the man and of the age.

We have already seen how Anne Hyde, his eldest daughter, had, during the years of exile, attracted the favour of the Princess of Orange, the eldest sister of Charles II. When a vacancy occurred amongst her Maids of Honour, the Princess had offered the post to Anne Hyde. The offer, however flattering, did not attract her father, who dreaded, for his daughter, the slippery paths of Court life and appreciated the envy which such an appointment might excite. He knew that the Queen-Mother, with her usual desire for domination, would wish to choose her daughter's confidants, and he strove, as far as respect for the Princess would permit, to avoid the pitfalls that it might involve for his daughter. He pleaded the consideration that the appointment might not be acceptable to Queen Henrietta; but the Princess had insisted upon her exclusive right to select her own household. Driven from this refuge he had alleged the difficulty of separating mother and daughter, and agreed to refer the decision to his wife in full confidence that she would share his own fears. But if she had doubts they were overcome, and to Hyde's surprise, she cordially accepted the gracious offer of the Princess. [Footnote: Amongst the Bodleian papers there is a submissive letter from Anne Hyde to her father, dated October 19th, 1654, in which she states her readiness to accept any decision which he may make, and to accept the new life, much as she dreads the parting from her mother (Calendar of Clarendon Papers, vol. ii. p. 401.)] Anne Hyde possessed no special charm of person, and had no claim to rank amongst the beauties of the Court. But she was gifted with much sprightliness and humour, and although the scandals that assailed her virtue were triumphantly refuted she was frank enough not to hide such attraction of manner as she possessed, nor harshly to reject advances. She soon made a deep impression on the morose spirit of the Duke of York, and in the autumn of 1659, there was a secret but solemn contract of marriage between them, and they regarded themselves as man and wife. It was not till September 3rd, 1660, that they were secretly married at Worcester House, the residence of Hyde, although her father knew as little as any one of the contract; and on September 22nd their eldest son was born. Already the Duke had confided the secret to his brother, the King, and Charles received it with that complacent humour that redeemed many of his faults.

Before this, Hyde had welcomed his daughter to her English home with special joy. "He had always had a great affection for her; and she, being his eldest child, he had more acquaintance with her than with any of his children." [Footnote: Life, i. 377.]

He had a project of marriage for her, which he deemed advantageous, and according to the notions of the days of his own youth, such arrangements were best made by parents. Other views had become current since these days, and the Chancellor's matrimonial schemes were rudely shattered.

It was not surprising that rumours as to the marriage were rife, although they did not reach the Chancellor's ears. His absorption in his work perhaps prevented him from gaining that confidence in his own family which an idler man would have commanded. Such stories were soon spread abroad by the gossip of the Court, and shrewd observers guessed the truth. Ashley Cooper, on one occasion soon after the Restoration, quitting the dinner- table of the Chancellor, in the company of Lord Southampton, declared to him that he was convinced that Anne Hyde was married to one of the brothers. The half-suppressed respect with which her mother treated her, and carved to her of every dish, had revealed the state of affairs to him. Pepys and Burnet repeat to us the tittle-tattle of the circles in which they moved, and the various estimates which were made as to the effect of the impending disclosure upon the Chancellor's power. The ambition which made her mother accept for Anne the post of Maid of Honour to the Princess of Orange, now made her an abettor in the scheme, which she evidently concealed from her husband.

Charles had imbibed too much of the vagrant humours of his own Court in exile to feel any tragic indignation over his brother's confidences. We can fancy what view would have been taken of such a daring breach of royal etiquette, either at the Court of James I., or of Charles I., where lesser matrimonial crimes had received the punishment of life-long imprisonment. But alien as such bygone theories were to the temperament of Charles II., yet even he felt that the complication was awkward. The humour of the situation might appeal to him; but he knew his Chancellor well enough to be sure that such a revelation would come as a thunderbolt to him. Hyde's principles were those of the older generation. The intrigue would be hateful to him no less as treason to the Crown than as a trespass upon the good name and dignity of his own family. That ideal of simplicity and directness which he regarded as the very essence of domestic morality had been blurred and marred within his own home by the taint of that poison which he believed to threaten the perversion of English life. From its encroachments he would fain have kept his own household free; but it was in that household that he saw that poison first assert itself, and even encroach upon the royal dignity which, by tradition and by principle, was to Hyde a sacred thing. Charles correctly gauged the storm that was brewing. In his perplexity he sent for Ormonde and Southampton, the Chancellor's dearest friends, and bade them broach to him the revelations of the Duke.

The meeting accordingly took place. Ormonde told the Chancellor "that he had a matter to inform him of that he doubted would give him much trouble," and advised him to compose himself to hear it. He then gave him the news: "That the Duke of York had owned a great affection for his daughter to the King, and that he much doubted that she was with child by the Duke, and that the King required the advice of them and of him what he was to do."

The result was, as they had good reason to expect, and as they did expect. "The manner of the Chancellor's receiving this advertisement made it evident enough that he was struck with it to the heart." Most fathers would have felt such indignation; but to appreciate Hyde's feelings, we must remember at once the ideas of the time with which Hyde's memories dwelt, and the distinctive features of his own character. The monarchy for which he had wrought and suffered, and which he would fain have seen restored in all its ample dignity, even if curbed by the supreme authority of the law, and by the balance of the constitution, was one which, even in the days of his own manhood, had been draped in "the divinity that doth hedge a King." For him, behind the frivolous and wayward personality of Charles II., there loomed, clear and distinct, the imperishable stateliness and dignity, and the unapproachable pride, of his father.

That presence, made sacred by martyrdom, was enshrined in Hyde's heart of hearts, and shaped his ideals. His aim was to restore the monarchy to all its former dignity and stateliness, secured and not weakened by constitutional limitations. But if this were to be accomplished, there must be no stain on the royal prestige by an alliance with a family which was little above bourgeois rank. What he would have deemed worthy of dire punishment in another, now presented itself to him as something in which his own family was primarily involved. It was in violent antagonism to all his traditions and convictions; and men like Hyde do not lightly suffer a shock to their convictions.

We must not forget that there was another and even more natural cause for his anger. Because Hyde's family held no high place among the nobility of England, it did not follow that he had no legitimate ground for family pride. He belonged to the proudest stock in existence—the ancient yeomanry of the land. Men of his race had held high and responsible office, and their name was without a taint. The Chancellor could not but realize that his own work had even already made history, and that it had secured for his family name a high and permanent place in the annals of England. He had no mind to learn the lesson of a new and foreign fashion, and to find in left-handed alliances with royalty a flimsy pretext to consideration and a stepping-stone to power. It must be noted, also, that in the story, as presented to him, there was a mere tale of unguarded love, and that his daughter's honour was to be at the hazard of any arrangement that might be patched up on grounds of policy and convenience. He might not unreasonably deem that honour which was to be so preserved was scarcely worth preserving. His soul abhorred the fetid turpitudes that stained the purlieus of the Court, and if he served in that Court, he was determined that his own character, and that of his family, should not be besmeared. Hyde was no strait-laced moralist. He had been familiar in his earlier days with a society that was by no means puritanical, and he could discern fine points of character, and find attractive friendships, amongst men whose morality was avowedly lax. But it was the vulgar obscenity of Charles II.'s Court that moved his contempt; and he was suddenly brought face to face with the announcement that his own family was involved in it, and that, too, in circumstances which must inevitably give rise to the suspicion that laxity of morals was allied with the sordid promptings of selfish ambition. For a man so proud as he, it was the chief tragedy of his life.