The House was asked by some to thank the King "for removing the Chancellor," but it was thought premature to do so, and a committee was appointed to draft a reply. The King—so Clarendon's enemies represented— was offended by the omission, and the Court party pressed for a specific vote, which should endorse his action in the dismissal. That was carried after a keen debate, and by similar Court action it was pushed through the House of Lords. The Duke remonstrated, but was told by the King "that it should go the worse for the Chancellor if his friends opposed." We need not be surprised that Charles doubled the weakness of the coward by the allied blustering of the bully.
Again the King thought that he had satisfied the rancour of Clarendon's enemies, and had vindicated sufficiently the petty jealousy which he himself still felt at the memory of the Chancellor's sway. But he soon found that he had to satisfy more exigent taskmasters. Clarendon's power, they urged, was only scotched, not killed. His influence would soon be supreme, and "he would come to the House with more credit to do mischief." Grounds of accusation were greedily sought for, and readily supplied, [Footnote: Briefly stated, these were— 1. That the Chancellor had advised the King to dissolve the Parliament and said there could be no further need of Parliaments. That it would be best for the King to raise a standing army, and govern by that. 2. That he had reported that the King was a Papist in his heart. 3. That he had advised the grant of a Charter to the Canary Company for which he had received great sums of money. 4. That he had raised great sums of money by the sale of offices. 5. That he had introduced an arbitrary government into his Majesty's several plantations. 6. That he had issued quo warrantos against most corporations till they paid him good sums of money. 7. That he received large sums for the settlement of Ireland. 8. That he had deluded the King, and betrayed the nation in all foreign treaties. 9. That he had farmed the customs at under rates, in return for money. 10. That he had received bribes from the Vintners, to free them from penalties due. 11. That he had raised a great state, and got grants of Crown lands. 12. That he had advised the sale of Dunkirk. 13. That he had caused letters under the great seal to be altered. 14. That he had arbitrarily raised questions of titles to land. 15. That he had been the author of the fatal counsel of dividing the fleet in June, 1666. 16. That he had been in correspondence with Cromwell during the King's exile.] and these contrivances soon resulted in a violent harangue from Edward Seymour, who now made himself conspicuous in the attack upon the fallen Minister. It is not easy to trace the special source of Seymour's violence, but we can find sufficient to account for it in the character of the man himself. He was of illustrious descent, as the head of the great house of Seymour; [Footnote: Seymour was the direct representative of the great Duke of Somerset, the Lord Protector; but the Dukedom had, by special remainder, passed to a younger son, over the head of Edward Seymour's ancestor. "You are of the family of the Duke of Somerset," said William III. when he was first presented. "Pardon me, Sire," answered Seymour, "the Duke of Somerset is of my family." ] possessed of abundant wealth, and unbounded territorial interest in the west. But his birth and wealth were accompanied by overweening pride and ambition, and by a restlessness of rancorous temper that made him for more than a generation a thorn in the side of every successive Government. With high ability, he combined the character of a selfish voluptuary; and although possessed of great wealth, his support was always to be bought by the offer of a place, and he did not disdain the malpractices of a cozener in his eagerness to increase his store. After serving as Speaker, he remained in the Parliament, over which he had presided, as a captious and unruly partisan, forgetting alike dignity and honour in his factious virulence. Such was the spokesman chosen by Clarendon's enemies to frame the indictment. It was enough for Seymour that the task seemed likely to gratify his own ambition. His pride of birth and station no doubt gave a zest to the attack upon one who had raised himself from the smaller squirearchy to the place of foremost Minister. The Chancellor, he avowed vaguely, had designed to govern by a standing army. Seymour swore that he would produce ample proofs, and meantime he urged that a charge of treason should be laid against Clarendon in the House of Lords. The wiser spirits, and those who preserved some regard for the decencies of justice, refused to assent to a course so flagrantly illegal, upon the unsupported clamour of an arrogant youth.
After protracted debate a committee was appointed to examine precedents in cases of impeachment. On October 29th, it presented its report, and another keen debate ensued. Some argued that they should prefer a general impeachment, without adducing any special charge; others, like Maynard, argued that "common fame is no ground to accuse a man where matter of fact is not clear; to say an evil is done, and therefore this man hath done it, is strange in morality, more in logic." As a result, another committee was appointed to reduce the charge against the Chancellor into heads; and that committee then formulated their charges in seventeen heads. Again a debate ensued upon these charges. They were discussed seriatim, and the sixteenth head was reached without one being found to involve a charge of treason.
But the zealots had now gone too far to turn back. Another of the band, conspicuous for his profligacy even in a Court of libertines, Lord Vaughan, the son of the Earl of Carbery, [Footnote: With bitterness, which is perhaps pardonable, Clarendon gives him a line of unflattering portraiture: "A person of as ill a face as fame, his looks and his manners both extreme bad" (Clarendon, Life, iii. 317).] undertook to prove another charge. The Chancellor, he avowed, had discovered the King's secrets to the enemy. He was prepared to prove it, and, to stimulate the virulence of those who were bent on Clarendon's ruin, Vaughan passed the whisper along the benches, that this was in truth the source of the King's anger against him. Charles, it would seem, had dissembled the cause of his own jealousy to his Minister; he was content that it should be suggested as a new incentive to that Minister's foes. Opposition was trampled upon, and, with unseemly haste, on November 12th, Seymour was sent to the House of Lords to impeach the Earl of Clarendon at the bar, and to desire that his person be secured.
A new stage in the fight now began. The House of Lords, weak as, in Clarendon's opinion, it had often been in yielding to the encroachments of the Commons, yet contained many members who were not prepared to abandon the very semblance of justice, and of dignified procedure, either at the bidding of a Court clique, or before the unseemly rancour of a party in the House of Commons. They urged that the demand of the Commons should be peremptorily refused, and they maintained their ground so firmly before the blustering of those who were ready not only to commit, but to convict, the Chancellor, in obedience to the dominant faction, that the debate was perforce adjourned. The delay continued, and the dispute raged fiercely. To the persecution of the Chancellor there was now added the additional zest of a struggle between the two Houses, All business was suspended while the fight went on. The angry clique saw all their schemes threatened, the King found his cherished ease disturbed; by some means or other the wrangle must cease. To those who refused to bend to the storm, hints were conveyed that they were incurring the anger of the King. Desperate plans were discussed; and if other means failed, a guard of soldiers might be sent to arrest the Chancellor and convey him to the Tower. How far Charles was privy to these designs, it is impossible to say. Reverence for the law would be no potent motive either to him, or to the gang who had for the moment secured his confidence.
His friends urged Clarendon to make his escape. They saw the danger increasing, and they guessed that no ill-timed interruption would be placed in his way. Such an escape would relieve the King of a vexing situation, and would satisfy those enemies who might, by means of it, effectually destroy his reputation and his influence. An escape would doubtless have been construed as an evidence of guilt; but to give way to the malignity of his persecutors would at least have been better than life-long imprisonment, or death upon Tower Hill. To yield to such advice was not in keeping with Clarendon's character. He was eager to stand his trial. Rightly or wrongly, he did unquestionably feel absolute confidence in the support of his countrymen at large. Even were he proved to have been mistaken, and were the power of his enemies greater than he reckoned, he was yet ready to bear the consequences so long as his good name was secure. Were he to fly, he would abase his pride before his foes, and would give just ground for impugning his innocence. Nay, more, how could he trust that he would not be captured at the first attempt to escape? It might only be a trap laid by his enemies, who would bring him to trial with that frustrated attempt as their securest evidence of his guilt. Rumours were rife of the King's growing irritation, of the specific charges to be preferred, of the proposed constitution of the commission by which he was to be tried. The Duke of York, still faithful to the Chancellor's cause, resolved to seek an explanation from the King. He asked if his Majesty was determined either to have the Chancellor's life, or his condemnation to perpetual imprisonment. Charles repudiated with his usual facility, either idea, and swore that he wished the matter were ended. Had the Chancellor, asked the Duke, ever proposed to govern by an army? "Never," answered the King; "on the contrary, his fault was that he always insisted too much upon the law." The Duke asked again, if he might say as much to others. "With all my heart," said the King.
The statement of the King was creditable, and gave hopes to Clarendon's friends. But when the words were repeated, they were found to be disheartening to the conspirators, who thereupon carried their complaints to the King. "They had tried to serve him, and now knew not how to behave themselves." Their weapons would be gone, if the King indulged in such inconvenient candour. The messenger was repudiated by the King with just as much readiness as he had shown in giving his original assurances. The Duke remonstrated, and the King's only answer was "that he would be more careful hereafter what he said to him." The Duke might surely have learned that the King's candid truths were often uttered only to be repudiated when convenient.
Once more the petty scandals of licentious intrigue obtrude themselves at the most critical juncture of a grave historic drama. In no transaction where Charles was concerned could such sordid details be long absent. The King's fancy had shortly before been attracted by a new denizen of the "Lady's" drawing room, and he had become so infatuated with the charms of Miss Stuart, [Footnote: Frances Teresa Stuart, born in 1648, was the daughter of Dr. Walter Stuart, a cadet of the House of Blantyre. Her father, an ardent Royalist, fled from the vengeance of Parliament, and Frances was brought up at Paris, where her beauty and peculiar charm attracted even royal attention. When she joined the household of Queen Catherine in England, her loveliness captivated all hearts, and stirred the fire of passion even in such a jaded voluptuary as the King. Her subtle combination of virgin simplicity and adroit prudence only inflamed him the more. For once he was consumed by an ardent love, and tortured by a real jealousy. Hence his anger at the runaway match and all concerned in it.
Frances Stuart steered her course with safety through many quicksands, and died, not without honour, in 1702.] that he had seriously contemplated a divorce, which might enable him to offer her those terms of lawful marriage which could alone overcome her stubborn virtue, or her ambitious prudence. Whether any such designs were actually entertained or not, the amorous hopes of the King were speedily disappointed by the lady's marriage with the Duke of Richmond. The royal lover was ignominiously defeated in the only sort of rivalry which seriously touched him, and the pride of the jaded voluptuary was more easily wounded than the honour of the King. His vanity was ruffled, and nothing was easier for Clarendon's enemies than to inspire Charles with the belief that his Chancellor had arranged the marriage as the best means of stopping his licentious freak. The story was absolutely untrue; but the certainty that it had been conveyed to the King [Footnote: An accidental meeting of the King with Clarendon's eldest son, Lord Cornbury, at the door of Miss Stuart's lodging, contributed, it is said, to the King's belief of the Chancellor's agency in the matter. Ludlow can have had no personal knowledge of the circumstances. But he does not scruple to describe the marriage as a contrivance of Clarendon, "that old Volpone." Volpone was a character in one of Ben Jonson's plays.] induced Clarendon to write to Charles a letter which might well have stirred remorse even in a heart as hardened by selfishness as his—