Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon — Volume 02

by Sir Henry Craik

Some settlement must be reached—that it should be good or bad was of less importance than that it should be fixed. Commissioners were set to work. But either they were too closely interested themselves in the decisions to be reached, or, having no personal interest, they were slack in their attendance. Those on the spot were too apt to be partial; others were sent from England, and their methods were rough and ready. The available land was squandered in lavish grants to courtiers, and amongst others Lady Castlemaine managed to secure an ample share. It was in vain that the Chancellor declined to pass such grants; the recipients found means to get them passed by the Courts in Ireland.

The best that could be made of a bad business was to hurry on some decision, before the means of even partially satisfying the most urgent claims were dissipated by the King's reckless prodigality.

Meanwhile the administration of Ireland, after the transference of Lord Robartes, was entrusted to three Lords Justices—Sir Maurice Eustace, the Irish Chancellor; Lord Broghill (created Lord Orrery); and Sir Charles Coote, created Earl of Montrath. The first was a worn-out old man. The second was a dexterous manager, who knew how to captivate friends and how to outwit enemies; the third was "proud, dull, and very avaricious." Both Orrery and Montrath had their own ends to serve, and were bitter enemies; and when Montrath died, as Hyde expresses it, "they who took the most dispassioned survey of all that had been done, and of what remained to be done, did conclude that nothing could reasonably produce a settlement, but the deputing one single person to exercise that government." The Duke of Albemarle had now reaped all the advantage that he could hope for from his post of titular Lord-Lieutenant. His own estate had been secured, and as an Irish landlord he desired a firm administration. He was not prepared to undertake the task himself, and made his suit to the King that the Duke of Ormonde should be sent in his place. To the mind of the King, this seemed to offer the best prospect of a settlement, and he and Albemarle together persuaded Ormonde to accept the charge before the Chancellor was consulted. To Hyde it seemed a plan fraught with dangers and difficulties on every side. In such a case, he was, as he was himself aware, too much inclined to express his views with somewhat uncourtly directness. When the King asked for his opinion of Ormonde's appointment, he could find no more diplomatic answer than that "the King would do very ill in sending him, and the Duke would do much worse if he desired to go." Charles took the easiest course for one who wishes to push aside unpalatable advice: "the matter was decided, and there was nothing for it but to prepare instructions." Hyde was not to be turned aside; Ormonde, he urged, was needful to the King in London, and would be useless in Ireland. Hyde did not even take the trouble to make his objections palatable to Ormonde. The Duke, he said, had since his return from exile led a life of ease and indulgence, and was now unfit for the laborious task of Irish administration. With still less of courtier-like complaisance, Hyde urged that, however good the appointment might have been "when the Duke was full of reputation, and the King was more feared and reverenced than presumed upon," it was otherwise now when the Duke had withdrawn from business and "let himself fall to familiarities with all degrees of men," and when the King had been exposed to all manner of importunities, had received all men's addresses and made promises without deliberation, had become so desirous to satisfy all men that he was irresolute in all things. He must first fix his own resolutions, and then only could the Lord Lieutenant do him service, or save him from scorn and affronts. [Footnote: Life, ii. 55.]

However sound the advice, Hyde's fashion of expressing it could scarcely be called conciliatory; and even the easy humour of the King must have found it hard to brook such plain speaking from his Minister. It was fortunate, however, that Charles's sense of humour was sufficient to save his vanity from suffering under contradiction, except when his own personal ease was at stake. He might resent reflections on his behaviour to a mistress, but his pride was not wounded by being told that his statecraft was folly; it took at least a long course of such plain- speaking from his trusted Minister before his patience was exhausted. Ormonde, too, received from Hyde advice that was quite as candid.

"He would repent his rash resolution; he would not influence Irish affairs in Dublin as much as he could have done in London; his absence would give his enemies the opportunity of slander that they desired; he and the King suffered from the same infirmity in equal degree—'an unwillingness to deny any man what they could not but see was impossible to grant, and a desire to please everybody, which whosoever affected should please nobody.'"

Hyde's friends, as well as his master, had need to practise an almost stoical imperturbability of temper.

It gives us a key to Hyde's attitude towards Irish affairs that he breaks the chronological order of his narrative to tell the story to the end. It was a subject that vexed and wearied him, and in regard to which he was conscious only of work incompletely done; of business from which he vainly strove to hold aloof, and of a huddled settlement from which his soul revolted. He hurries on to the end of the whole transaction, which at last deprived him of his most trusted ally and his most cherished friend. Ireland stole away from him Ormonde, whose support had done so much to uphold him in the dangerous currents of the Restoration. It was four years and a half after the Restoration that, in the autumn of 1664, Ormonde crossed to Ireland. The clouds were already gathering about the Chancellor's course, and the loss of his closest friend increased the gloom, and brought the threatening dangers nearer.

It was after Ormonde's entry upon the Lieutenancy that the third and final settlement of the Land Commissioners was arrived at. The latest Commissioners had allowed themselves to be swayed powerfully by the Irish interest, and had raised, in the same proportion, the antipathy of the English. Very weariness forced the combatants at length to a compromise. The soldiers and Adventurers consented to abate one-fourth of their claims; with this the most urgent of the Irish claims were appeased, and the baneful unrest was at last ended.

Clarendon closes the sorry story of the Irish settlement by a disclaimer of any share in Irish affairs, further than that which fell to him as a member of the inner Council. Perhaps his influence was greater than he is ready to admit; but Ireland certainly received no larger share of his attention than necessity forced upon him. He is careful to give us a succinct account of the one incident which involved him, almost against his will, in some sort of personal interest in Irish property.

In the early days of the Restoration, when the question as to the disputed settlements was only at its first stage, overtures had been made to Hyde, which it was fancied might earn from him some mercenary favour for those who might be the intermediaries, It was proposed that a special grant of land might be made to him, or that a sale might be effected in his favour on nominal terms, which would make it almost equal to a free gift. It was consistent with all his action in such matters that these overtures met with a peremptory refusal from Hyde. If he was to be of use in effecting a settlement, he must have no title of his own to bias his inclinations. Rather later, but when negotiations were still in their earlier stages, certain sums raised upon Irish land were assigned for the King's use, "to be disposed of to those who had served him faithfully, and suffered in so doing." The grants were passed as a matter of official routine, without the knowledge of the Chancellor. About two years later, Orrery, who was an adept in the art of posing as the chosen instrument of convenient favours, wrote to the Chancellor informing him that certain sums were standing at his credit, and inquiring to whom they should be paid. Hyde had no doubt that a mistake had been committed, and asked Ormonde, as Lord Lieutenant, to inform him what the announcement meant. Orrery wrote again more explicitly, stating that £12,600 had been paid in to his use, and that another sum of the same amount would be received in the course of six months. "To whom," he asked again, "was the money to be paid?"