many warm and fharp debates before it could be carried in the affirmative; but then Mr. Hambden moving for an order for the prefent printing of it, Mr. Hyde, as foon as the motion was made, faid, fomewhat warmly, He believed it was not lawful to print it before it was fent up to the house of peers for their concurrence, and feared it might be mifchievous in the effect; and therefore defired, if the queftion, when it was put, fhould be carried in the affirmative, he might have leave to enter his proteftation.

This was refented very much; and two days after, after long and warm debates, they ordered, that he fhould be fent to the Tower; the warm men among them urging earnestly that he should be expelled the house: but, at laft, they were content with his commitment to the Tower; from whence he was in a few days releafed, and fat in the houfe. The parties and animofities ran fo high, that this is all the favour Mr. Hyde received, little confideration being had to his fervices performed but very little before this against those barons of the Exchequer who had given their opinions in favour of hip-money, and other but too arbitrary proceedings of thefe times.

Things in a fhort while after coming to extremities between the king and parliament, Mr. Hyde continued in the house as long as he had any prospect of doing the king fervice; and then retiring to his majefty at York, he was pleased to confer upon him the honour of knight

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knighthood,, and make him chancellor of the Exchequer.

He attended his majefty to Nottingham, where he fet up his standard, in August, 1642; but being a man of the gown, and not of the fword, we hear little of him in the courfe of the civil war, till the treaty at Uxbridge in 1644, at which he was one of the commiffion. ers for the king; where he fhewed himself a a ftrenuous affertor of the king's right to the militia; and vindicated the king's council from any mifmanagement in reference to the affairs of Ireland, with which the parliament charged them.

The treaty being broken off, and the cruel war going on, Sir Edward Hyde's province, for fome time, was to attend the prince of Wales in the weft; from whence he afterwards went to Jersey, where he spent a year and an half, chiefly in compiling The History of the Civil-War; and from whence, in 1648, he paffed over into France, to attend the prince there, who, not long after, had the title, though not the power, of king, upon the barbarous murder of his father; and Sir Edward fettling fome time after with his family at Antwerp, the king thought fit to fend him and the lord Cottington upon a joint-ambaffy into Spain, to renew the alliance between the two crowns.

Their reception and encouragement at first were pretty tollerable, but the tranquillity they enjoyed was foon over, by the arrival of a

fquadron

fquadron of the parliament's fleet on the coaft of Spain, which frightened the Spanish court from all the feeming affection they had for the royal caufe. This, together with the murder of Afcham, the parliament's agent, by fome English and Irish ruffians, together with the news of the defeat of the king's army in Scotland, by Cromwell, made the Spaniards heartily defirous they fhould be gone.

Sir Edward Hyde, in his paffage through France to Antwerp, waited upon, and was very graciously received by, the queen-mother; and in vain endeavoured to do the English Proteftants at Paris fome fervice with reSpect to the exercise of their religion. Sir Edward hafting from hence to his family at Antwerp, and the king, in the mean time, after his defeat at Worcester, in 1650, having made his escape into France, he, pursuant to his commands, went and attended him at Paris; where, by his averfenefs, firft, to the duke of York's marrying Mademoiselle de Longueville, and then to the propofal of a match between the king and Mademoiselle de Mompefier, he fo highly incurred the difpleasure of the queenmother, that, at length, the would not vouchfafe to speak to him and this difinclination towards him produced, at one and the fame time, a contrivance of an odd nature, and an union between two feemingly irreconcilcable parties, the Papifts and Prefbyterians.

They framed their petitions against him; but the whole contrivance having been difcovered to the king before Sir Edward knew any thing of it, and alfo a copy of the petitions put into his hands, he fhewed them to him and the marquis of Ormond, and afterwards made himself very merry with it; spoke of it fometimes at dinner, when the qneenmother, who had been in the fecret, was prefent; and afked pleafantly, when the petitions would be brought against the chancellor of the Exchequer.

In the mean time, the queen-mother took all occafion to complain to the queen-regent of the king's unkindness, that he might impate all that the difliked to the chancellor : and the queen-regent of France having intercepted a letter of his to the cardinal de Retz, which he had not thought fit to communicate Erft to her, fle prefently did it to his mother; and a little after, there being a mafque at court that the king liked very well, he perfuaded the chancellor to fee it; and vouchsafed, the next night, to carry him thither himself, and to place the marquis of Ormond and him next the feat where all their majefties were to fit: and, when they entered, the queen-regent afked, who that fat man was that fat by the marquis of Ormond. The king told her aloud, That was the naughty man who did all the mifchief, and fet him against his mother; at which the queen herself was little lefs difor

dered

dered than the chancellor; but they within hearing laughed fo much, that the queen was not displeased; and fomewhat was spoken to his advantage.

Though the chancellor of the Exchequer was not, perhaps, in compliance with the queen, against making Sir Edward Herbert, keeper, which happened in 1652, yet his troubles did not ceafe; for Mr. Robert Long, who, when the king was in Scotland, bad been secretary, an office now performed by Sir Edward Hyde, petitioning to be reftored to the place, and being refufed, he thereupon accufed Sir Edward of having betrayed the king; and undertook to prove that he had been over in England, and had private conference with Cromwell: which was an afperfion fo impoffible that every body laughed at it yet, because he undertook to prove it, the chancellor preffed that a day might be appointed for him to produce his proof; and at that day the queen came again to the coun cil, that the might be prefent at the charge.

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There Mr. Long produced one Maffonet, a man who had ferved him, and afterwards had been an under clerk for writing letters, and had been taken prifoner at Worcester, and being released with the rest of the king's fervants, had been employed, from the time of the king's return, in the fame fervice, under the chancellor of the Exchequer; who faid, That, after his releafe from his imprifonment, and whilst he stayed in London, he fpoke

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