Clarendon had the satisfaction of finding that the summoning of Parliament, in the spring of 1667, to which he had been strongly opposed, and the legality of which he doubted, [Footnote: See ante, p. 206.] was after all rendered unnecessary by the near prospect of peace. But Clarendon's opposition to the proposal had increased, if possible, his unpopularity with the Commons, and suspicions had been rife that he desired to raise revenue without Parliamentary consent. The disasters which attended the last stages of the war did not allay the general discontent, and when the peace was at last signed on July 2lst, 1667, it found Court and Ministers alike under the cloud of popular jealousy. Only two months before Clarendon had lost the stay and support of that colleague, whose sympathies were closest to his own, the loyalty of whose friendship was most untainted, and upon whose character and high rank Clarendon could rely to balance the jealousy of his own promotion—too sudden not to offend the pride of the older nobility. With touching anxiety, Clarendon had sought to defend his old friend, now enfeebled by age and ill-health, from the unseemly efforts that had been made to remove him by those who sought to fill his place, but it may be doubted whether in doing so he acted in the real interests of Southampton's reputation. His desire to keep his old friend at his side was only natural. Both had passed through hard straits, and both—because Southampton was only the Chancellor's senior by a year—were now prematurely aged. Clarendon and he were the last of the old band who had rallied to the King in 1640, and a true instinct taught him that they must stand or fall together. All the most cherished memories of his life, all that was most sacred in his loyal devotion to his first master, all the vicissitudes of his fortunes, were associated in Clarendon's mind with the friendship which began when they were students together at Magdalen, and was cemented when they had been forced together, by the excesses of the party with which they had at first been in sympathy, to attach themselves to the Royalist side, at a time when that side had ceased to have any means of attracting the support of selfish ambition. They had alike been averse to the proceedings of the Court during the days when Parliamentary Government was suspended, [Footnote: Southampton had suffered severely in purse from the claims put forward by the Crown on his estates in Hampshire; and we have already seen how little Hyde sympathized with the rigour with which such claims were pressed.
This Thomas Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, was the son of the second Earl, whose name is immortalized as the patron and the friend of Shakespeare. It is interesting to remember that one of his daughters (he left no male heir) was the wife of William, Lord Russell, condemned and executed in 1683.] and had welcomed what they hoped would be a return to sounder methods when Parliament was again summoned. Both had seen much amiss in the government of Strafford, and had been glad to think that what they deemed his innovations would receive a check. Both had revolted against the proceedings of the Parliament, when these transgressed the law, and both resented the flagrant injustice which procured the judicial murder of Strafford. Southampton brought to the service of the King the prestige of high rank, the respect earned by a character which scorned intrigue, and a judgment too sound to be led astray by any violence of partisan passion. His loyalty was untainted and unswerving. [Footnote: Southampton is said to have kept watch over the body of the murdered King, during the night when it lay in Whitehall. It was he who told of the mysterious muffled figure that stole into the Hall during the night, and muttered the words, "Imperious necessity," and whom he always believed to have been Cromwell. After his master's death he compounded with the new Government for his delinquency, and lived in retirement. But he sent encouragement to Charles when a fugitive after the battle of Worcester, and continued, according to his abilities, to minister to his needs during the long exile.] Save to those who knew him intimately, his character was tinged with melancholy, and its impression was not lessened by the habitual gloom which his outward aspect wore. In the inner circle of his friends, he could indulge in a quaint humour, and was no unkindly companion. He was not the only one of Clarendon's contemporaries whose temperament was not proof against the depression born of the troubles of the time. Alike from the ungrudging admiration which Clarendon expresses for his life-long friend, from the captious criticism of those to whom his long tarrying on the stage was irksome, and from the irresponsible gossip of Pepys, we have a vivid picture of the veteran statesman as he appeared to his contemporaries. In outward carriage grave and distant, girt with that ample ceremony of manner which repelled familiarity; easy and prompt in debate, with that sense of self-confidence which permits a man to think on his feet, and to dispense with any niceties of diction; ready to rouse himself to prolonged and earnest labour, but by habit and preference indolent and a lover of his ease—they all present the same features in their portraits. He was a loyal friend, save when a nice sense of the respect due to his rank and character, provoked him to resentment against any fancied neglect; prudent and adroit in counsel, but perhaps lacking in the energy which was required to translate that counsel into action; steadfast, rather than alert, in vindicating the primary duty of sound finance. Clarendon is compelled to admit that "he was naturally lazy, and indulged over much ease to himself;" but he can tell us of the unwonted exertion of which Southampton showed himself capable during the treating at Uxbridge, when he worked continuously for twenty days on end, and curtailed his habitual ten hours of sleep to a maximum of five. His pride involved him in a passing quarrel with Prince Rupert, whose extravagant assertion of precedence provoked him, and whose challenge he accepted; but his sound judgment, and his well-tried rectitude were enough, after friends had interfered, to prevent the untoward meeting, and to bind him and the Prince in the bonds of an enduring friendship. Like Clarendon, a sound friend to the Church, he was, also like him, essentially a layman, not without distrust of the wisdom of political ecclesiastics. Because he was not disposed to underrate the force of the Presbyterian party, and was disinclined to provoke them to open revolt, the Bishops, according to Clarendon, were wont to impute to him disloyalty to the Church. Clarendon himself, confirmed enemy of Presbyterianism as he was, knew by experience on how flimsy grounds such charges might be brought. [Footnote: Pepys, in many lively passages, adds new touches to the portraiture of the Treasurer. On November 19, 1663, he is summoned to the Lord Treasurer's house, and finds him "a very ready man and certainly a brave subject to the King." Pepys is troubled only with the "long nails, which he lets grow upon a pretty short white hand." On September 9, 1665, he recounts the story of one of his gossips—how "the Lord Treasurer minds his ease, and lets things go how they will; if he can have his £8000 per annum, and a game at l'ombre, he is well." When the end comes, Pepys—while he admits that "the slowness and remissness of that great man" have done much harm—yet discerns that the prospect for the future is far gloomier by his loss. Even Coventry, when he was gone, could recall the Lord Treasurer whom he had so often thwarted as "a wise and solid though infirm man.">[
Southampton was not one of those personalities that stand out strongly upon the page of history. Born to great station, he accepted and fulfilled its responsibilities; but he was without initiative, and without that secret of personal force which dominates a generation and leads a party. As in the case of many a Minister, before and since, it is to be feared that what his enemies said was true—that Sir Philip Warwick, his secretary, was Treasurer in all but name. Pepys tells us of his own long interviews with Warwick, and it is clear that it was at these interviews, and not at formal conferences with the Lord Treasurer, that the finance of the navy was arranged. He pictures [Footnote: Diary, April 12, 1665.] in a few graphic words, the scene at one of these formal conferences.
"Strange to see how they hold up their hands crying, What shall we do? Says my Lord Treasurer, 'Why, what means all this, Mr. Pepys? This is all true, you say; but what would you have me to do? I have given all I can for my life. Why will not people lend their money? Why will they not trust the King as well as Oliver?'"
It is true comedy. But the flux of Pepys's gossippy confidences is a hard ordeal even for a Minister so worthy as Southampton to pass. Perhaps Pepys also gives us the best picture of his death, quaintly as it is expressed. [Footnote: Diary, May 19, 1667.]
"Great talk of the good end that my Lord Treasurer made; closing his own eyes, and setting his mouth, and bidding adieu with the greatest content and freedom in the world, and is said to die with the cleanest hands that ever Lord Treasurer did."
It is no dishonourable epitaph. The career that closed left no brilliant mark, but in its tenor, as in its ending, it is typical of the grave and balanced dignity, the loyalty to his Church, to his sovereign, to himself, that were distinctive of that race of the English nobility who were now to give place to a newer fashion. For us, the closing of that career is chiefly interesting, as it revives in Clarendon the memory of that older order to which he was so passionately attached, and as it carried away one of the few remaining barriers between him and friendless isolation.
The question of the succession to Southampton gave new subject of difference between the Chancellor and the King. Charles was determined, as he had been when there was a talk of Southampton's resignation, to replace the Treasurership by Commissioners, and had been persuaded by the faction opposed to Clarendon no longer to have one Minister supreme in finance. Again Clarendon remonstrated, and urged that this was a scheme fitted for a republic, and incompatible with the principles of monarchy. It seemed to him one more symptom of the substitution of an official bureaucracy for personal rule. It is no reflection upon his sincerity to admit that, in this, as in many of the principles to which he so obstinately adhered in these later days, he was sometimes moved rather by prejudice than by sound reason. He knew the rottenness of the Court, and the little trust that was to be placed in those who had gained Charles's ear; and that knowledge blinded him to the fact that inveteracy in opposition to prevailing views was no safe or prudent policy for him at this juncture. Himself a man risen from the middle class, he nevertheless held that the natural custodians of the executive power were men who by hereditary rank, and by outstanding position, could acquire, if not the confidence, at least the implicit obedience, of the people. Long association with men of the highest rank, had imbued him with their feelings, and made him the champion of their privileges. Familiar with the ignoble wiles and stratagems which impelled political adventurers, he clung, like many a man before and since, to the habits and the prejudices of a lifetime, and refused to admit any change operating in the spirit of the age. Amongst the forces opposed to him, he still looked with special dislike upon the active and indomitable spirit of Sir William Coventry. Coventry's ability Clarendon was compelled to admit; but he gave him perhaps too little credit for energy and foresight, and for undoubted administrative efficiency. We need not take Coventry altogether at Clarendon's valuation. The two men were out of sympathy, and Coventry was far from sharing that ungrudging loyalty to King and Church which Clarendon reckoned as the test of a sound citizen. Coventry irritated that love of discipline which was the habit of Clarendon's life. He belonged to a new generation, and did not conceal his contempt for that careful attention to precedent which was to Clarendon a second nature. His advancement had seemed to Clarendon unduly rapid, and his impetuous self-assertion, both in Parliament and in the Privy Council, provoked Clarendon's ire. His one actuating motive, in Clarendon's eyes, was boundless ambition, and he saw him only as the confederate of those who thought to govern at once King and Parliament, by dexterous parliamentary management, and by grasping at the machinery of administration. Coventry's later life proved that he was no eager seeker after office. Only a few months after Clarendon's fall, he stoutly opposed the insolence of Buckingham, and felt the effects of royal displeasure when Buckingham had regained his hold on the facile disposition of the King. He lost all his appointments; and even though, after a short detention in the Tower, he recovered his freedom and gained the cordial support of a powerful body of friends, he refused to range himself with any party, and declined all suggestions that he should again take office. Of his personal ability, of the respect which he inspired in others than Clarendon, and of his administrative efficiency, we have abundant evidence from other authorities, including both Evelyn and Pepys. He professed himself, in confidential conversation with Pepys, as inspired by no personal prejudice against Clarendon or Southampton. Even the fullest confidence in Clarendon's rectitude cannot blind us to the fact that neither he nor the Treasurer was now in the full vigour of his prime, that more direct and personal supervision of the details of administration than they could give was needed to restore either efficiency or confidence, and that Coventry might honestly believe this. It is no reflection on the loyalty with which Clarendon clung to a thankless task, if we admit that it might have fared better with him had he recognized sooner that the accomplishment of that task, as he had conceived it, was now hopelessly impossible. The truth is that Clarendon's memory still turned to a time, not so distant, when the relinquishment of office by a Minister meant a permanent breach with the Sovereign, suspicion of treason, the downfall of his fortunes, and also the hazard of his life. The change brought about by government by party, in which a Minister might retire from office, and none the less continue to play a high and influential part in the political history of his country, was slowly but surely coming. Had Clarendon recognized it, there seems to have been nothing to prevent his retiring from office, and still continuing to exercise a potent influence in the counsels of the nation. But he found no precedent in history for such a course. Retirement to him meant defeat, disgrace, and ruin. It may be doubted whether his own dogged tenacity, brave and conscientious as it was, did not itself give his ultimate retirement that added meaning. In adhering to the service of the King, he perhaps forgot that loyalty may only be wasted on an unwilling object, and that satiety is a prolific breeder of ingratitude.
Before the storm broke, there was another Court scandal—for it is worthy of no higher name-that stirred the turbid political waters, and further complicated the difficulties of Clarendon's position. The Duke of Buckingham, that strange personality—half statesman, half buffoon—who occupied no inconsiderable part of the stage in Charles's Court, managed to embroil himself in some extraordinary escapade, or some more than usually freakish piece of mischief, which for once stirred the ordinarily phlegmatic temper of the King. To probe its details would serve no good purpose; if it did not originate in, it was no doubt aggravated by, one of those entanglements common to the life of the bagnio, which Charles's Court so faithfully reflected. Some wrangle as to the enjoyment of the facile charms of one of the royal mistresses, or the disputed paternity of some bastard, very probably was the origin of an ignoble quarrel which presently reached the dimensions of an affair of State, occupied the attention of the Privy Council for no inconsiderable period, and involved a charge of treason, formulated and then abandoned with the reckless frivolity of the comic stage. We shall probably not be far wrong in ascribing the beginning of the trouble to Lady Castlemaine, who found her hold upon the royal favour threatened by some ill-timed intrigue of Buckingham. A charge of treason was brought against Buckingham, who was known to have at his command a rascally band of bullies and charlatans, who disturbed the streets of London, and whose outrages were not kept outside the precincts even of the Court itself. An assortment of sorry evidence was brought before the Council, and Buckingham was shown to have trafficked with astrologers and cut-throats, whose designs seemed to have threatened even the life of the King. He had permitted them to address him in language which indicated that he had cherished ambitions of hair- brained folly, if not of treasonable insolence, and which flattered him with thoughts of his boundless influence with the mob. The matter was brought to Clarendon's knowledge by the King; but the Chancellor endeavoured as far as possible to hold aloof from the squalid inquiry, which was pushed forward chiefly by Arlington and his sworn ally, the Lady Castlemaine. A warrant was issued for Buckingham's apprehension; and when he withdrew from the Court, a proclamation was published that charged him with treason, and required his surrender. The sheriff's messenger that followed him to his retreat in the country was openly defied, and Buckingham managed for weeks to elude the clutches of the law. The dignity of justice was degraded, and the King's warrant was mocked, as long as Buckingham thought he might rely upon the weakness of the King, and his fears of Buckingham's being provoked to reprisals which might attach new scandal to the Court. While the warrant was out against him, the Duke was bold enough to resort to Clarendon, and to invoke his aid in securing for him an interview with the King, in which he was confident that he might allay the passing anger. Clarendon could only advise his surrender, and assure him that nothing would be allowed to interfere with the even-handed administration of justice. Clarendon refused to denounce to Buckingham those who were his enemies, and evidently had no desire to secure for himself, by so doing, the gratitude or the alliance of such a man. The Duke at length found that it was either necessary or safe to surrender himself; and, in the examination which ensued, he showed all his usual insolence, and his confidence in his hold over the King. He treated the evidence as worthless, and forced Charles himself to admit that some of the correspondence had its origin in Court intrigue. The quarrel with Lady Castlemaine was composed, and from being bitter enemies, she and the Duke became sworn allies, who joined forces in denouncing Clarendon, and found abettors in those who had lately been the Duke's accusers. A man of much less than Clarendon's pride and dignity might well have despised such intrigues; but events soon proved how fickle was the support upon which he could rely in trusting to the gratitude of the King. The incident, as lightly closed as it had been recklessly begun, resulted only in knitting more closely the designs of those who were relentlessly pursuing the object of ending his power and procuring his downfall. No scruples were likely to stay the hands of the sorry band of conspirators.