Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon — Volume 02

by Sir Henry Craik

The struggle then entered upon a new phase, involving another constitutional principle. The Commons were prepared to agree to the omission of Scotland from the Bill;

but in regard to all else, they refused to accept the amendments of the Lords. The two Houses were in sharp conflict, and for a time it appeared as if the disagreement could result only in the loss of the Bill. Its friends had no wish to see this catastrophe, and a conference between the Houses was therefore arranged. The result was not such as to encourage those who wished for the settlement of a vexed question, or who hoped that prudent counsels would be brought to bear on a constitutional difficulty. To the irritation which the country party had conceived against the Court, and to the obstinate determination that the royal prerogative should yield to the will of Parliament, there was now added a bitter fight between the two Houses; and here again Clarendon's long-cherished opinions forced him to take the unpopular side. Once more the habits of a lifetime refused to disappear before an unwarranted, and, as he thought, dangerous innovation. We may doubt whether he duly estimated the forces to which he was opposing himself, or rightly gauged the direction in which men's minds were moving. We may say, with full confidence, that he chose his part with singular indifference to what was politically or personally expedient. Neither now nor at any other time did Clarendon yield to anything but his own conscientious convictions. Nature had not so framed him as to give him the faculty of making these convictions any more palatable by his methods of enforcing them. He recognized this fully himself.

"In all the debate upon this Bill, and upon the other of accounts, the Chancellor had the misfortune to lose much credit in the House of Commons, not only by a very strong and cordial opposition to what they desired, but by taking all occasions which were offered by the frequent arguments which were urged of the opinion and authority of the House of Commons, and that it was fit and necessary to concur with them, to mention them with less reverence than they expected. It is very true he had always used in such provocations to desire the Lords to be more solicitous in preserving their own unquestionable rights, and most important privileges, and less tender in restraining the excess and new encroachments of the House of Commons." [Footnote: Life, iii. 163.]

He listened with ill-concealed irritation to assertions of supreme power on the part of the Commons, which aroused echoes of the old days of the Long Parliament. His cherished hope was not for an absolute monarchy, but for such maintenance of the royal prerogative as might assure the delicate balance of the constitution; and he saw that the degradation of the Lords to a mere chamber for registering the determination of the House of Commons was a first step in throwing that delicate balance out of gear. "His opinion was that the late rebellion could never be extirpated and pulled up by the roots, till the King's regal and inherent power and prerogative should be fully awarded and vindicated;" and that prerogative to his mind was associated with the maintenance of adequate authority in the House of Lords. It was not given to him to recognize how deeply that rebellion had struck its roots, and how sure it was that from these roots would grow a strong plant of Parliamentary power, and of predominance of the Representative House, which it was now too late to extirpate. He saw that the irregularities of administration, and the proneness of irresponsible men "to meddle and interpose in matters out of their own sphere, to give their advice in matters of peace and war, to hold conferences with the King, and offer their advices to him," were inevitably breaking down that scheme of the Constitution to which his life had bound him. He was by no means inclined to flatter the House of Lords, or to exempt them from blame for much that he thought mischievous. They had neglected their business, their discharge of their functions had been careless and perfunctory, their meetings had been short, and their intervention in public affairs scanty, "while the other House sat, and drew the eyes of the kingdom upon them, as the only vigilant people for their good." Clarendon's constitutional ideals might be mistaken; but he was under no mistake as to the process by which they were being undermined. He saw how fatal was the error by which the peers insisted upon special personal privileges which lessened the esteem of their order. He protested against that claim of exemption from arrest for debt, which they sought to extend to their menial servants, and which led to such exemptions being often sold by these servants to bankrupt citizens, to the scandal of the law. It was this petty personal arrogance of the peers which gave the House of Commons their opportunity, of which they were not slow to make use, and in doing so they were encouraged even by those members of the House of Peers who found their personal aims advanced by fostering the obstinacy of the House of Commons opposition. It was his misfortune thus to offend the sticklers for privilege in the House of Lords, while the House of Commons were coming to consider him as the prime obstacle in the way of their newly asserted independence. His enemies rejoiced in such clumsy tactics, while his friends vainly desired him "to use less fervour in these argumentations." In describing these contentions, he uses of himself almost the very words which he had applied to Laud in the old days when Clarendon had urged his patron to be more careful how he gave unnecessary occasion of offence. [Footnote: Clarendon himself remarks "that he was guilty of that himself of which he used to accuse Archbishop Laud, that he was too proud of a good conscience" (Life, iii. 266).]

"He was in that, as in many things of that kind, that related to the offending other men, for his own sake un-counsellable; [Footnote: i.e. according to Clarendon's idiom, less amenable to advice than it would have been in his own interest to be.] not that he did not know that it exposed him to the censure of some men who lay in wait to do him hurt, but because he neglected those censures, nor valued the persons who promoted them."

It was a sturdy attitude no doubt; but the Court of Charles was hardly a scene in which it could be assumed with safety. In that tainted atmosphere blunt-spoken sincerity could scarcely breathe.

Clarendon had attempted to make the House of Lords a buttress to the royal prerogative. A sardonic fate taught him that the weakest support upon which he could rely was the King, for whose power he was ready to sacrifice his own popularity, and hazard his fortune and even his life. His enemies could always appeal to the King's love of ease, and to his dread of troublesome interference with his pleasures and his lavish expense. It was on these ignoble motives that they now relied. The Irish Bill must be passed, or supplies would not be forthcoming, the threatening murmurs of the people would take shape in action, and the luxuries and the debaucheries of Whitehall would no longer be left in peace. So Charles's conscientious objections again disappeared. The Lords who were in the confidence of the King were bidden to abate their opposition; the Commons had their way, the injustice to Ireland was forgotten, and the Bill was passed. Charles and his flatterers persuaded themselves that the surrender was the fruit of sagacious policy; they gave full rein to their sarcastic humour in the ridicule of Clarendon and the belated obstinacy of his loyalty to the constitution.

Charles gave his assent to the Irish Bill on January 18th, and in his Speech on that occasion he announced to Parliament their speedy prorogation, and recalled to their minds with some emphasis the forgotten business of supply. This appeal had a good effect, and for very shame the House placed the King in the position to discharge some of his seamen's arrears of pay, and to put some portion of his fleet in fighting trim. [Footnote: In the speech of thanks for this grant the Chancellor persuaded the King to express his hope that provisos like that of the Appropriation Bill would in future be dropped. It was a reflection on Sir W. Coventry's plan, and as such was taken by Coventry himself. (See Pepys, April 1, 1667.)] Parliament was prorogued on February 8th, and the King had the satisfaction of reminding the Commons that the Bill for the audit of accounts had never been presented to him, and that he proposed himself to issue a commission for the purpose. We can scarcely doubt that this last resolution was adopted by the advice of Clarendon himself. He disliked the encroachment of the Commons, but it was no part of his desire to keep the light of day from the scandals of financial administration. Such a commission, not extorted from the King as an insult, but resting upon his own authority, might perform a necessary and useful work, and care was taken in the selection of commissioners to give no suspicion of weakness or partiality. Before it could do effective work, Clarendon had ceased to guide the nation's policy.

The pressure of Parliamentary opposition was for the time removed. But the troubles of the King's Minister were by no means at an end. The war dragged on its course, our resources were nearly drained, the navy was reduced to inefficiency, our foes were encouraged to new efforts by our disasters. We have already [Footnote: Chapter XXI.] seen the insults which England was yet to undergo before the relief of a not very creditable peace was won, and to what dire necessities the Treasury was reduced for lack of funds. We have learned how, at that juncture, [Footnote: Chapter XXI.] Clarendon differed from the other advisers of the King, was adverse to convoking Parliament, and suggested the unwelcome device of a loan to tide over the emergency. Peace came at last. But it brought no satisfaction to the nation, and no recompense for her vast expenditure. It left the relations between Clarendon and the King sadly strained, and it did not soften the growing unpopularity of the Minister with the country party, or bring oblivion of his sharp passages with the House of Commons. On the contrary, it is precisely from this moment that Clarendon dated the rise of that storm that was to "destroy all his prosperity, and shipwreck all his hopes." The cloud had indeed been thickening, and the waves had been gathering new force, for months and even years. Clarendon professes his knowledge of the plots that had long been undermining his power.

All that he means by dating the storm from this period, is that the long threatened tempest now burst in its full force. But the struggle was to be maintained, not without hopes, for a few months more.