"He renounced his Majesty's protection or interposition towards his preservation. He feared no censure, if his Majesty should reveal all that he had counselled him in secret. If any one could charge him with a crime, he was ready to undergo the punishment."
Such words as these are strange, to be uttered by a falling Minister to his King, when that King is trying to cloak his own meanness by a pretence of a single-minded desire to save that Minister; they would be stranger still if they had been used by a man conscious of any guilt. But Clarendon did not stop there; he turned the tables fiercely upon the King.
"He doubted very much that the throwing off an old servant who had served the Crown in some trust near thirty years (who had the honour by the command of his blessed father, who had left good evidence of the esteem he had of his fidelity, to wait upon his Majesty when he went out of the kingdom, and, by the great blessing of God, had the honour to return with him again; which no other counsellor alive could say), on a sudden, without any suggestion of a crime, nay, with a declaration of innocence, would call his Majesty's justice and good nature into question."
Charles had pretended to be working for his servant's safety, and in accordance with what he thought that he desired. That servant brushes aside his subterfuges, renounces his protection, and plainly tells him that the course he proposes to follow will stamp him as an ungrateful master, and drive every honest man to abandon his service. No wonder that the King seemed "very much troubled." He pleaded the power of Parliament, and how he was "at their mercy." Clarendon could only advise him not to act the coward. He had a warning in the fate of Richard II. of what faint- heartedness in a King might bring. In his last thrust Clarendon forgot—as he himself admits—the bounds of prudence. "In the warmth of this relation, he found a seasonable opportunity to mention the Lady with some reflections and cautions, which he might more advisedly have declined." The close of his final interview was perhaps an ill-chosen moment for wounding the King's pride by another reference to the foul-mouthed termagant, who now swayed the Court, and trampled on her royal lover with the usual insolence of the pampered courtesan.
The visit of the King and the Duke to Clarendon's chamber at Whitehall, where the interview took place, lasted two hours, and at its end the King rose in silence and retired ill-pleased. Meantime the tongues of the Court gossips were busy. When the conference closed, the garden was filled with a crowd of courtiers, eager to watch the countenance of the King. As the Chancellor left the presence of his master, "the Lady, the Lord Arlington, and Mr. May, [Footnote: Bab May, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, and minister to Charles's pleasures. See ante, p. 244.] looked together out of her open window with great gaiety and triumph, which all people observed." The fallen Minister could spare a moment's attention, to mark the dramatic fitness of the scene. [Footnote: Clarendon, Life, iii. 291. Pepys gives us the scene with more detail (Diary, August 27). "Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, tells me how this business of my Lord Chancellor's was certainly designed in my Lady Castlemaine's chamber; and that, when he went from the King on Monday morning, she was in bed, though about twelve o'clock, and ran out in her smock into her aviary looking into Whitehall Garden; and thither her woman brought her her nightgown; and stood joying herself at the old man's going away; and several of the gallants of Whitehall, of which there were many staying to see the Chancellor's return, did talk to her in her bird cage; amongst others Blancfort (the Marquis de Blanquefort), telling her she was the bird of Paradise.">[
Two or three days passed, during which the plot ripened amidst the gossip of the quidnuncs. To those of his more sober-minded counsellors, who spoke for the Chancellor, the King professed much kindness for him, but "he had made himself odious to the Parliament, and was no more capable to do him service." The Lady, Arlington, and Bab May still honoured him by their fervent denunciation, and by their sure prediction of his speedy fall. Evelyn visited him the day after his interview with the King, and "found him in his bedchamber, very sad." "He had enemies at Court," Evelyn goes on, "especially the buffoons and ladies of pleasure, because he had thwarted some of them and stood in their way; I could name some of them." The next day Evelyn dined with him, and found him "pretty well in heart, though now many of his friends and sycophants abandoned him." Clarendon knew the world too well to be surprised or grieved by such abandonment, or to allow it to affect his fortitude.
The Duke of York, none of the most adroit or persuasive of advocates, still stood his friend, and endeavoured to bend the purpose of the King. Sir William Coventry, always—although afterwards he disclaimed it to Pepys—one of the most pronounced of Clarendon's enemies, found it necessary to resign his post of secretary to the Duke, and the place was filled by one whom Clarendon suggested. It may be doubted whether the change was meant as more than an outward sign to Clarendon that he still retained his son-in-law's respect. The fight between his friends and enemies still proceeded apace. When the Duke of York attempted to stem the tide against him, Charles only replied, "that he had gone too far to retire; that he should be looked on as a child if he receded from his purpose." Selfishness and love of ease blunted Charles's judgment; they did not interfere with that obstinacy which was a dominant trait in the family character. Only two days later he took the decisive step, and sent Secretary Morrice with a warrant under the sign manual, to demand the seal.[Footnote: The seal was entrusted to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, as Lord Keeper.] The Chancellor delivered it "with all expressions of duty to the King." If Charles felt the stings of conscience for his sorry action, he could comfort himself with the congratulations of the Court pandar, Bab May. That worthy fell upon his knees, kissed the King's hand, and told him "that he was now King, which he had never been before." [Footnote: See Pepys, Diary, November 11, 1667.] It was an odd change, from the dignified loyalty of Clarendon to the fulsome flattery of Bab May. Even the scanty pride that had survived in one degraded by sottish debauchery might have been nauseated by the contrast.
Clarendon was mistaken if he thought that compliance with the King's request had either satisfied the rancour of his enemies, or secured for him the King's support. At first he hoped the storm was over, and after an interval sufficient to show that he was conscious of no guilt, and sought to hide himself from no inquiry, he intended to retire to the country, and live as a private gentleman. He had no fear either of Parliament or of his countrymen, and was ready to abide their question. He heard that the King dreaded his assumption of the part of leader of a Parliamentary opposition, and hastened to assure him that he had no such intention. His friends still resorted to his house, and those who respected themselves declined, at the bidding of an ignoble clique, to lessen the signs of their respect for him. The King had not courage enough to forbid such demonstrations; but at the instigation of his new confidants he sulked and uttered vague hints, to which Clarendon's enemies gave open and more definite utterance. They had secured the cordial alliance of Buckingham, by persuading him that Clarendon had been at the root of his recent prosecution. Thus reinforced they resolved to make their vengeance more complete.
The King had induced Clarendon to yield, as the only means by which the wrath of Parliament could be stayed, and that had undoubtedly been the pretext put forward to the King by Arlington, and those who acted with him. But now they went further. So long as Clarendon remained at liberty, they dreaded his influence, and persuaded the King that he would spread suspicion and disaffection, and would obstruct every design of the Government. Charles was weak enough to believe a slander, which no one who has studied Clarendon's life and character can for one moment accept, and which Clarendon himself had expressly repudiated. When the Duke of York expostulated, Charles shuffled and prevaricated after his wont. "All might have been quiet, if only the Chancellor had been more practicable; but he had delayed so long, that now the King was compelled 'in the vindication of his honour,' to give some reason for what he had done." Those who praised the Chancellor so loudly were reflecting upon himself. But if he were freed from these inconvenient demonstrations, the Chancellor would not suffer, and he would use his sons as kindly as ever, Charles was not rancorous, but his gleams of good nature only mark his cowardice more strongly.
In his Speech at the opening of Parliament on October loth, the King attempted to smooth matters over. "There had been miscarriages;" but he "had altered his counsels;" "what had been done amiss had been by the advice of the person whom he had removed from his counsels, and with whom he should not hereafter advise." No man ever betrayed a faithful servant with more consummate self-abasement.