Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon Part 3

"If it were true, he was well prepared to advise what was to be done; that he had much rather his daughter should be the duke's wh.o.r.e than his wife; in the former case n.o.body could blame him for the resolution he had taken, for he was not obliged to keep a wh.o.r.e for the greatest prince alive; and the indignity to himself he would submit to the good pleasure of G.o.d. But if there were any reason to suspect the other, he was ready to give a positive judgment, in which he hoped their lordships would concur with him; that the King should immediately cause the woman to be sent to the Tower, and to be cast into a dungeon under so strict a guard, that no person living should be admitted to come to her; and then that an Act of Parliament should be immediately pa.s.sed for the cutting off of her head, to which he would not only give his consent, but would very willingly be the first man that should propose it."

"And who ever knew the man," adds Hyde, in all the leisure of reminiscence, and of exile, "will believe that he said all this very heartily."

A strange and frenzied utterance, indeed, to come from a father's lips! No wonder that, on the King entering the room, Southampton should have made the comment, "That his Majesty must consult with soberer men; that he (pointing to the Chancellor) was mad, and had proposed such extravagant things, that he was no more to be consulted with." We can only try to judge the words with such leniency as we may, bearing all the circ.u.mstances in mind.

The tidings had first come to Hyde as an announcement of his daughter's dishonour. After that first blow had fallen, a new aspect was given to the case, by the avowal of his friends that his daughter had covered her dishonour by a formal marriage, and by becoming a partic.i.p.ant in a plot, which, to the mind of Hyde and his contemporaries, was of a treasonable character. The Act which prevented any member of the royal family from contracting a marriage without the formal a.s.sent of the King was not pa.s.sed until the following generation. But its absence from the Statute Book was due only to the fact that such an offence against the dignity of the Crown was forbidden under weightier sanction, and the treason it involved admitted of no doubt. The days were past when the crime of a secret marriage within the royal line could be punished, as in the case of Lady Arabella Stuart, by life-long imprisonment; but it did not follow that to one nurtured on these traditions the crime had lost its heinousness. It struck a deadly blow at that ideal of the royal dignity which it was Hyde's chief aim to restore. By a freak of frivolous licentiousness, he saw the foundations of his life's work sapped. Into none of the love affairs of Charles II. and his brother did the tragedy of pa.s.sion ever enter. Like the rest, this was a bit of vulgar, commonplace intrigue. It was scarcely wonderful that the revelation of its sordid details stirred to frenzy that temper the heat of which Hyde himself so often laments.

But the resolution of the Chancellor, frantic as it might appear, was not to be shaken. The King personally called for his advice, and it was repeated to exactly the same effect. He would rather, he said, submit to the disgrace than that it should be repaired by the Duke's making her his wife:

"the thought whereof," he said, deliberately, "I do so much abominate, that I had much rather see her dead, with all the infamy that is due to her presumption." "I beseech you," he said to the King," to pursue my counsel, as the only expedient that can free you from the evils that this business will otherwise bring upon you."

With still greater freedom he went on, noticing that the King did not relish his advice.

"I am the dullest creature alive, if, having been with your Majesty so many years, I do not know your infirmities better than other men. You are of too easy and gentle a nature to contend with those rough affronts which the iniquity and license of the late times is like to put upon you before it be subdued and reformed. The presumption all kind of men have upon your temper is too notorious to all men, and lamented by all who wish you well; and, trust me, an example of the highest severity in a case that so nearly concerns you, and that relates to the person who is nearest to you, will be so seasonable, that your reign, during the remaining part of your life, will be the easier to you, and all men will take heed how they impudently offend you."

Whatever we may think of the Chancellor's advice, it was unquestionably sincere. Hyde was not the man to make a show of severity merely in order to clear himself of the suspicion of being privy to the plot. It is hardly necessary to say that, as a practical matter, his advice was extravagantly absurd. Charles's sense of humour, if nothing else, would have saved him from any such proposal. The day was gone when the machinery of English law could be used to magnify an intrigue of gallantry into the dignity of tragedy. Anne Hyde's head was perfectly safe; and had any other suggestion ever been made public it would have been laughed out of Court. Her character might, indeed, have been ruined; she might have been denied recognition as a wife; and steps might have been taken for her quiet seclusion from public life. But a State trial would have been a grotesque absurdity; and Charles was acute enough to take the frenzied advice of his honest Minister at its just value.

Meanwhile the Chancellor tried to put into operation within his own house his drastic views of parental authority. His daughter was commanded "to keep her chamber, and not to admit any visitors." Even the remonstrances of the King and the Duke of York did not avail to make him abate this exercise of his rights. It is not surprising that his severity was rendered nugatory, and that his daughter found means of admitting her husband's visits "by the administration" (as Hyde quaintly puts it) "of those who were not suspected by him, and who had the excuse, that they knew that they were married." Lady Hyde evidently thought that there were better ways of arranging matters than the dungeon and the block.

But there were other exalted personages to be placated, and they were less likely to take a lenient view. The Princess of Orange could scarcely be expected to see with equanimity her protegee and maid of honour advanced to a position superior to her own. Queen Henrietta was not apt to tolerate any invasion of her rights. Both these ladies were soon to visit England, and between them poor Anne Hyde stood little chance of a welcome within the guarded circle of royalty.

It was partly to smooth the way for the alliance, and partly out of no unnatural grat.i.tude, that Charles now declared his intention of conferring a peerage on the Chancellor, and gave him a grant of 20,000 out of the amount which Parliament had sent to him at the Hague. Hyde had previously refused the peerage, as likely to provoke jealousy; but now the juncture seemed opportune, and he accepted it with grat.i.tude. On November 6th, he took his seat in the House of Lords as Baron Hyde of Hindon. [Footnote: Hindon is a small village in Wilts, surrounded by down lands, and situated a few miles from Hatch House, the home of Lawrence Hyde, and from Dinton, the Chancellor's birthplace. Until the Reform Bill of 1832, it returned two members to Parliament.]

But this moderate step of advancement in no way mitigated the sense of the degradation of the alliance felt by the Princess and the Queen. Henrietta was not in the habit of veiling her feelings in any language of moderation; and her anger was shown at once, by action and by words. Once more she allowed full swing to the fury of her temper against the Chancellor, who had experienced it before. Her irritation was speedily observed, and the baser spirits that haunted the Court readily discerned and welcomed a means by which they could earn a degrading grat.i.tude.

Scandals were soon propagated against the virtue of Anne Hyde, and they were forced upon the ears of the Duke by those who were his intimate and trusted friends, and who professed themselves impelled, forsooth, by conscience and loyalty, to betray to him their own share in the infidelities of his wife. It is a picture of revolting turpitude, and not the least strange feature about it is the tolerance with which that turpitude was treated, in a society, and at a Court, where honour and manliness were professedly esteemed, and where, even if morality was little regarded, a standard of polite manners was supposed to be observed.

According to Hyde's own account, there was one man only who took upon himself the degrading task of fabricating lies which might satisfy the prejudices of the Queen, and might afford to the Duke a convenient pretext for breaking his plighted faith. This was Sir Charles Berkeley, [Footnote: Sir Charles Berkeley was the nephew of Sir John Berkeley, created Lord Berkeley of Stratton (see ante, p. 40). This Charles Berkeley received, by the doting favour of the Duke, promotion of which he was entirely unworthy. He was given high command in the Fleet, and created first Lord Hardinge, and then Earl of Falmouth. Few regretted the cannon-ball that ended, in 1665, his brief and ign.o.ble career.]captain of the Duke's guard, and notable, even in that dissolute Court, for his pre-eminence in licentious disorder. He, at least, was prepared to publish himself in two of the most contemptible characters which human nature knows--the seducer who proclaims his stolen love, and the wretch that accepts the cast-off mistress of his patron. The author of the "Memoires de Grammont," adds Lord Arran, [Footnote: With regard at least to Lord Arran, the son of Hyde's own chosen friend, Ormonde, we prefer to believe that the Grammont scandal is a falsehood.] Jermyn, Talbot and Killigrew--whom he characterizes as "all gentlemen of honour"--in making up a vile crew of conspirators. But whether the infamy was that of one man, or was shared amongst these gentlemen of honour, it prevailed for a time to shake the faith of the Duke, who was further persuaded, against the evidence of his own ears, that it was the Chancellor's intention to insist upon his daughter's rights, and to appeal to Parliament. That threatened opposition, the Duke met by cowardly bl.u.s.ter, which the Chancellor was easily able to rebuff by an indignant denial of such tales. For the injury the Duke had done him, he said, he was answerable to "One Who is as much above him as his highness was above him." The Chancellor's sense of proportion is curious, but may perhaps be condoned as of a piece with the fulsomeness of the day.

"He was not concerned," he added, "to vindicate his daughter from any of the most improbable scandals and aspersions; she had disobliged and deceived him too much for him to be over-confident that she might not deceive any other man, [Footnote: Brabantio's words were doubtless ringing in his ears: "She has deceived her father, and may thee."] and therefore he would leave that likewise to G.o.d Almighty, upon Whose blessing he would always depend, whilst himself remained innocent and no longer."

The Duke had the grace to see that he was in the wrong, and that, whatever the truth of Berkeley's story, he had no grievance against the Chancellor.

Anne Hyde's attraction consisted, not in personal charms, but in a sprightliness of humour, and in no inconsiderable mental gifts; and she certainly played her cards well at this juncture. When her fate was at its crisis; a.s.sailed by the vilest and most unscrupulous calumny; the object of her father's indignation, and of her husband's suspicion; the mark of the Queen's violent jealousy--she kept her head, and managed to reach harbour safely. The royal family was visited by other griefs. The Duke of Gloucester and the Princess of Orange both died of smallpox within a few days of one another. Queen Henrietta found that her comfortable return to France was unlikely, if she came back in avowed hostility with her sons.

For her, even the violence of her temper never obscured what was for her personal advantage; and her jealousy of a plebeian daughter-in-law began to wane. She no longer swore that "when that woman entered Whitehall by one door, she would leave it by another." By degrees she became less obstinate; and the propagator of the scandal found that his lies were likely to cost him dear. With the changed atmosphere, Berkeley learned that safety lay in recantation; and, with undiminished shamelessness, he now sought reconciliation with the new d.u.c.h.ess, the victim of his doubly loathsome lies. With craven hypocrisy he represented to the Duke that these lies had been the fruit only of over-eager solicitude for his master's peace. Now that the marriage was to be recognized, he confessed the baselessness of his charges, and made his humble amends to the d.u.c.h.ess and her father. The d.u.c.h.ess received him graciously; "he came likewise to the Chancellor, with those professions that he could easily make; and the other was obliged to receive him graciously." A reconciliation was patched up between the Queen and the Chancellor. All agreed that the best must be made of what was a bad business; and the Chancellor was content to find that he could drag himself out of a degrading business with his personal honour una.s.sailed, and that his power was confirmed by the failure of his enemies' intrigues. In April, 1661, he was raised to the further dignities of Earl of Clarendon, and Viscount Cornbury. [Footnote: Evelyn tells us "that his supporters were the earls of Northumberland and Suss.e.x; that the Earl of Bedford carried the cap and coronet, Earl of Warwick the sword, and the Earl of Newport the mantle," The new earl did not look amongst his oldest comrades for those who were to a.s.sist him in his accession to new rank. His new t.i.tle was taken from the famous Royal domain of Clarendon, near Salisbury, of which a lease had been granted to Hyde. He appears never to have held the fee simple of the manor from which he drew the t.i.tle by which he is known to history.

His second t.i.tle of Viscount Cornbury was taken from the Manor of Cornbury, in the Royal forest of Wychwood, in Oxfordshire, of which Clarendon was made Ranger, on August 19th, 1661. Cornbury Park had been occupied in the past by men great in English history, including Elizabeth's favourite, the Earl of Leicester. Some parts of the house date from the sixteenth century. Hyde planned, and began, large additions, which were not completed until after his death, and no part of which he ever saw. The architect was Hugh May, who was employed in the repairs of Old St. Paul's. The stone of the Cornbury quarry was of peculiar excellence, as is shown in the present fabric. May, no doubt, used the stone which he had there tested, for St. Paul's, as well as for Clarendon House, in St. James's; and this easily gave rise to the scandal that Clarendon had used the stone intended for St. Paul's for his own residence.

Hyde was greatly attached to Cornbury, and he probably had as much reason to blame himself for lavish expenditure on that, as he admits that he had for the extravagant scale of his town house. Cornbury was sold to the Duke of Marlborough in 1751.

An admirable account of Cornbury has recently been given in a splendid volume privately printed by the present owner, Mr. Vernon Watney, of which there is a copy in the Bodleian.] A further offer from the King of 10,000 acres of Crown land, he respectfully declined; and knowing well how easily he could stir the envy of other courtiers by receiving too lavish honours, he also declined the offer of the Garter. Even more firmly he repelled the suggestion of Ormonde that, in the place of the Chancellorship, he should accept the position of Prime Minister. The proposal was absolutely opposed to Clarendon's theory of the English Const.i.tution, and savoured, too much for his taste, of the fashion of the French Court. He knew better than his friends, how uncertain was his hold upon the fickle disposition of the King.

"England," he said, "would not bear a favourite, nor any one man who should out of his ambition engross to himself the disposal of the public affairs." "No honest man would undertake that province; and for his own part, if a gallows were erected, and he had only the choice to be hanged or to execute that office, he would rather submit to the first than the last."

It was characteristic of Hyde to give dramatic expression to his own objections.

"The King," he reminded Ormonde, "was so totally unbent from his business, and addicted to pleasures, that the people generally began to take notice of it; that there was little care to regulate expenses when he was absolutely without supply; that he would on a sudden be so overwhelmed with such debts, as would disquiet him and dishonour his counsels." "The confidence the King had in him, besides the a.s.surance he had of his integrity and industry, proceeded more from his aversion to be troubled with the intricacies of his affairs than from any violence of affection, which was not so fixed in his nature as to be like to transport him to any one person."

New men would soon supplant him in these fickle affections; "it being one of his Majesty's greatest infirmities, that he was apt to think too well of men at the first or second sight." Without the Chancellorship, he "would haunt the King's presence with the same importunity as a spy upon his pleasures, and a disturber of the jollity of his meetings; his Majesty would quickly be nauseated with his company, which for the present he liked in some seasons." If the King were happily married, and his revenue settled, they might have some hope of better things. Meanwhile he could only try to wean the King from his pleasures, to habituate him to business, and so to prevent the worst consequences of ill-company. He gave the same answer to the Duke, when he pressed the same suggestion.

[Footnote: It may be well here to refer to the Treatise of Advice to Charles II. written in 1660 or 1661, which is preserved amongst the Clarendon MSS. in the Bodleian, and which was long accepted as the work of Clarendon. This view is discredited by the production itself, which appears to me to be stupid, vapid, commonplace and silly, and, in some respects (_e.g._ the Government of Scotland) is actually opposed to Clarendon's known views. But I am indebted to that eminent master of this domain of history, Professor Firth, of Oxford, for the guidance which, on sound and conclusive reasons, a.s.signs the authorship to the Duke of Newcastle, who had been tutor to Charles II., and to whose views and diction it is much more akin. In the d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle's Life of her husband, some of the observations ascribed to him are taken from the "Advice," to which she incidentally refers. There is another MS. copy at Welbeck.]

Clarendon was under no false impression. He knew well how slippery was the path before him, and how slight was the hold he had upon the wayward humours of the King. His friends might urge that he might, by becoming First Minister, secure his position and render himself impregnable against attack. He knew better the virulence of his foes, and could only hope to disarm it by conforming to those const.i.tutional principles which his conscience told him were the only hope of an issue from the present entanglements. He soothed, as well as he might, the susceptibilities of the Duke, who thought his refusal proceeded from his being too proud to accept promotions suggested by his son-in-law. He could only promise that he would receive no advancement that was not procured by the Duke's own aid. As a fact, he accepted no further honours.

Amidst such treacherous currents Clarendon could only trim his sails as best he might, and steer the course his sense of duty taught him. He was not deceived as to the dangers that threatened him.

CHAPTER XVII

SCOTTISH ADMINISTRATION

The Chancellor had declined the suggestion that he should change his present office for the doubtfully const.i.tutional one of Prime Minister. He would fain have confined himself to his legal duties, and have only interfered by general advice in regard to matters of administration. But, as a fact, such abstention was not possible. A thousand questions had to be settled; if any consistency of policy were to be maintained the influence of one guiding spirit must be felt. Order had to be reduced out of chaos, and some semblance of business methods must be observed. If that could be done by any one, it must be by the Chancellor. It forced him into many uncongenial spheres. Amongst these none was more out of the reach of his sympathy than the turbid stream of Scottish politics.

Under the rule of Cromwell all that had been distinctively national, either in religion or civil Government in Scotland, had been rudely and unsparingly crushed under foot. English law was administered by English deputies. The pretensions of Presbyterian autocracy had, for the time at least, been effectually curbed. English garrisons terrorized the country.

The n.o.bility and the commonalty alike had been disciplined into obedience with a rigour that speaks volumes for Cromwell's coercive power. A very moderate representation in such English Parliaments as had occasionally been summoned by Cromwell, was all that was permitted to Scottish claims.

In the death of the Protector and the fall of his successor all parties in Scotland alike saw the birth of new hopes. All were alike monarchical in sympathy, and made speed to avow that sympathy, as soon as Monk withdrew his adherence to a Commonwealth. But, beyond that, what shape was the Restoration to take in Scotland? Were the older cavaliers to be uppermost, and with them was Episcopacy to be restored? Or was Presbytery to a.s.sume its former domination, and to dictate to the sovereign the terms on which he was to be permitted to reign? The whole thing came too suddenly for any settled plan to be formed. At Breda no such terms were even discussed for Scotland as were embodied in the Declaration for England. Repression in Scotland had produced its natural fruit, a host of men for whom politics meant little else than adroit deception and cunning intrigue. Political morality was at its lowest ebb, and amongst the motley crew it is hard to pick out one man whose standard of decency of life or honesty of principle can face even lenient criticism.

The various claimants addressed themselves, very early in the day, to Hyde. In adversity he had learnt to suspect the honesty of Scotsmen, had been alienated from them by their religious views, and dreaded the obstinacy of their political independence. He was not likely to welcome its revival now that the Cromwellian yoke was removed; and all the overtures that came from them were to his mind open to suspicion of duplicity. Even at Breda he found himself courted by different applicants for his favour. The chief of these was the Earl of Lauderdale, who, in spite of his former close a.s.sociation with the Covenanters, and his pretence of rigid Presbyterianism, had solid claims to Royalist consideration. He had supported the present King during the rigorous days of his nominal reign in Scotland, had marched with him to Worcester, and had been kept a prisoner by Cromwell since 1651. Such t.i.tles to consideration Lauderdale was eminently fitted to turn to good use. Under an uncouth exterior, with a clumsy frame and a gross countenance, further disfigured by a tongue too big for his mouth, Lauderdale concealed a power of crafty insinuation in which he repeated some of the dexterity of his kinsman of a former generation, Maitland of Lethington, known in the Courts of Elizabeth and James VI. as "the Chameleon." To natural talent Lauderdale added a scholarship and linguistic acquirements which were rare in his age. Intellectually he towered above his contemporaries. Creeds and principles, for which his countrymen were ready to do battle or to die, were for Lauderdale mere playthings in the game of intrigue. The Covenant, the orthodox standards of Presbyterianism, nay even the foundations of religion, were subjects of his mockery. The liberties of his country were only useful to him as a specious pretence, which might be roughly trampled on when the opportunity came. To Hyde he had always been an object at once of suspicion and dislike. At times during the days of the royal banishment they had come to an open rupture. Now Lauderdale was full of flattery to the Chancellor. He recognized, as the products of wisdom, schemes of Hyde's which he had before derided. He endeavoured to appease Hyde and he managed to capture Charles. He derided the Covenant; laughed at his own folly in formerly supporting it; confessed his repentance for his days of rebellion; was convinced of the sound loyalty, and episcopalian compliance of his country. But, only, caution was necessary. Nothing must be done too quickly. And Lauderdale alone was fitted to advise as to time and opportunity.

Hyde had other applications from Scotland. Lauderdale had some strong adherents. The old Earl of Crawford had just claims to consideration. He was a stout fighter and a strong and faithful Royalist, whose Presbyterian sympathies did not shake his loyalty. His son-in-law, the Earl of Rothes, had attracted the friendship of Charles, and his coa.r.s.e profligacy had not yet had time to weigh down his reputation. The Earls of Tweeddale and Kincardine were both respectable in comparison with many of their political a.s.sociates, and if they did not bring great talents to their party, they at least were not the source of flagrant scandal to any cause to which they adhered. All these represented that section of the nation which did not drop its Presbyterianism with its a.s.sumption of increased Royalist zeal, and which claimed to have made ample atonement for any former rebel sympathies by the efficacy of its new adherence to the cause of the Crown. They all belonged to the party which supported Lauderdale.

But there was a very different faction which was bitterly jealous of Lauderdale and his party. These were the older Royalists, who had never been tainted with Cromwellian sympathies, and who had forgotten any former acceptance of the Covenant which might now have been brought up against them. They reflected with almost greater bitterness the jealousy with which the older English cavaliers regarded those who had gained their influence at Court by a belated, and, it might be held, selfish, adherence to the Restoration schemes. Amongst them were the Earl of Glencairn, who had kept strictly aloof from the late _regime_, and had withdrawn to the Highland fastnesses from the reach of Cromwell's troops; the Earl of Middleton, a rough soldier of fortune, who had none of the dexterity nor of the learning of Lauderdale; and Sir Archibald Primrose, who supplied to his party some of the eloquence and political experience which his companions lacked.

For the moment all parties vied with one another in a common desire to pose as the enemies of Argyle. He was looked upon, by all alike, as the craftiest and most powerful enemy of monarchical power. The carefully limited deference--approaching closely to thinly veiled insolence--which he had shown towards the King during his stay in Scotland, was now recalled as at once overbearing and deceitful. His grasping ambition, and the marvellous dexterity with which he had overreached all parties in turn, made him the object of a common hatred and jealousy--perhaps of a common fear. All these pa.s.sions might now be satisfied by an obtrusive a.s.sumption of heartiness in resenting his former treatment of the King, and his early sympathy with the rebels. As Clarendon himself says, [Footnote: _Life_, i 425.] "They were all, or pretended to be, the most implacable enemies to the Marquis of Argyle; which was the 'Shibboleth' by which the affections of that whole nation were best distinguished."

The two most interesting figures in Scotland during the twenty years just past had unquestionably been Montrose and Argyle. The first had been well known to Clarendon, and the spell of Montrose's heroism and romance had earned his enthusiastic admiration. Argyle had been the object of his suspicion from days long past; and striking as were Argyle's abilities, his character was as little fitted to rouse enthusiasm in Clarendon as it was to command the veneration of posterity. Montrose and Argyle offered the strangest contrast. The one was a type of high-souled chivalry; a consummate strategist, whose genius was inflamed by the very hopelessness of the cause for which he fought. His was no half-hearted loyalty, and in his later years he had been proud to sacrifice himself for the causes that were dear to Clarendon's soul. To Clarendon, Montrose was the one conspicuous example of the unselfish Scottish Royalist, and Argyle was regarded not only as the contriver of Montrose's death, but as the insulter of his latest hours. Argyle was the most finished type of crafty politician, pursuing a selfish game of duplicity. His insinuating manners and the superficial humour with which he could cloak his designs did not in any degree compensate for the ugly taint of personal cowardice which could not but be distasteful to an age of fighting men. With extraordinary skill Argyle had managed to conciliate popular support, while he remained the one overpowering territorial magnate in Scotland, whose unquestioned sway over the western islands was as dangerous to popular liberties as to the authority of the Crown. Clarendon fitly paints him in the words with which Virgil describes Drances:--

"Largus opum, et lingua melior, sed frigida bello Dextera, consiliis habitus non futilis auctor, Seditione potens."

But unfitted as he was to shine in camp or to attract enthusiasm, Argyle none the less commands our respect by the abilities which raised him far above the crowd of smaller men around him. He was under no delusion as to the extent of hatred which his power had bred, and as to the vengeance to which Montrose's death prompted all who had been Montrose's friends. But he could still base hopes upon his own dexterity, and he faced the danger with a courage which showed that his lack of warlike prowess did not prove him altogether a coward. He repaired to London and sought to throw himself at the feet of the King, hoping to recover some of that personal influence which he had managed to exert even in the irksome days before the fight at Worcester. He was met by a solid front of irreconcilable hostility, and instead of being received at Court he found himself a prisoner in the Tower. From thence he was sent to Scotland to await his trial at the hands of those who were determined on his final ruin. There was no Act of Indemnity to protect him, and he knew well that no party in the State was prepared to sacrifice its own interests for his preservation. Standing at bay against his foes at home; deserted by those amongst whom he had once exercised supreme sway; betrayed by the treachery of Monk, who did not scruple to send to Scotland some compromising letters which involved Argyle in plots against the King, Argyle was at length reduced to one last resource. He knew the dominating influence of Clarendon, and he knew also that, although his enemy, Clarendon was not likely to press a mean advantage or to act under the influence of personal revenge. To him he turned when all other hope was gone; and in a letter, [Footnote: Printed by Lister, vol. iii., p. 129, from the Bodleian MSS.] which must have been written after Hyde was created Earl of Clarendon, in April, 1661, he appeals to the Chancellor's well-known wisdom and justice against those who--

"From a pretence of zeal to his Majesty's service have been so prodigal of their informations against me," and who desired "to lay the blame at one man's door (though more innocent than many others) rather than put it where it ought justly to lie." "Although," he proceeds, "I lay no claim of merit upon any of my endeavours for his Majesty's service, being no more nor my duty, yet, I may say, I was ever faithful and sometimes useful, and never disloyal to his Majesty or his interest, though I might be carried away in a spate by human imbecillity. What a.s.sistance your Lordship shall be pleased to contribute in bringing me within the compa.s.s of his Majesty's mercy, shall be acknowledged as a perpetual obligation upon the family of your Lordship's most humble servant, ARGYLE."

He had already offered a price for mercy by promising to communicate "somewhat that would highly concern his Majesty's service."

Even those to whom his actions and his character have no attraction, must acknowledge that in these words Argyle advances no undignified appeal.

Whether Clarendon would have aided that appeal it is impossible to say.

Argyle's power, he might not unreasonably have judged, would have been incompatible with any settlement leaving adequate authority to the Crown.

But however that might have been, Clarendon's intervention was never called for. Within forty-eight hours of the sentence of a court in which the influence of his enemies was dominant, and before there was time to appeal to London, Argyle was executed. Montrose was avenged; and just as his greatest rival fell, his own scattered quarters were gathered from the ports where they had been exposed, and buried in an honoured grave. The two great protagonists were gone, and Clarendon had to manage Scottish affairs through lesser men.

In that task he was handicapped by one serious disadvantage--his own absolute ignorance of the country and its conditions, and as its natural consequence an impenetrable lack of sympathy. To him Scotland was simply the home of deep-rooted and obstinate rebellion. Her Church represented to Clarendon the sternest and most repulsive form of Presbyterianism, the very ant.i.thesis of all Clarendon's ecclesiastical ideals. The national character was to him a mere amalgam of obstinacy and unblushing treachery.

Her territorial n.o.bility were to him a selfish caste, who had bargained away all their real influence over their countrymen in their greedy race after plunder. Their religious zeal was to him--and that on no mistaken grounds--merely a hypocritical cloak for coa.r.s.e and besotted profligacy, not less vicious and much more degraded than the more flaunting and luxurious licentiousness of the English Court. Of the fundamental aims of the nation, of the deep-seated traits of their character, he was profoundly ignorant. At once turbulent and mean-spirited, pharisaical and profligate; poverty-stricken and yet proud; bigoted in its beliefs, and yet careless of all the decencies of religion--such is the aspect which Scottish national character bore to Clarendon. To a superficial and distant observer there was not a little which justified such a judgment; and in the case of Clarendon it was b.u.t.tressed by a solid ma.s.s of honest, however perverse, prejudice.

The agents in the Government of Scotland were the Earl of Middleton, Lord Commissioner; the Earl of Glencairn, Lord Chancellor; the Earl of Rothes, President of the Council; the Earl of Crawford, Lord Treasurer; the Earl of Lauderdale, Secretary of State; and Sir Archibald Primrose, Lord Register. They were split into two bitterly opposed factions, that of the older Royalists, and that of more recent adherents, who were tainted with suspicions of intractability at once in Church and State. The first was led by Middleton; and he was no match in dexterity for Lauderdale, who led the opposite party. Clarendon had to manage an ill-harnessed team. By sympathy and former friendship he was inclined to the older Royalists; but he often found them untrustworthy agents. And we must remember that in English politics he was by no means of opinion that the King should look with suspicion on recent converts.

The first question to be settled was that of Indemnity. No previous stipulation prescribed it; but Clarendon was too shrewd not to perceive the certain ill-consequences of a terrorism of vengeance. The influence that chiefly worked against any complete Indemnity was the ign.o.ble desire of those in power to profit by the slower process of forfeitures.

Lauderdale did all he could to push forward a settlement of the terms of Indemnity; Middleton and his adherents delayed it, and endeavoured to compound with delinquents in a spirit of barefaced huckstering. A second question related to the maintenance of the English garrisons in Scotland.