"If God had not reftored his majefty to that rare felicity, as to be without apprehen fion of danger at home or abroad, and without any ambition of taking from his neighbours what they are poffeffed of, himself would never difband his army: an army whofe order and difcipline, whofe courage and fuccefs, hath made it famous and terrible over the world an army of which the king and his two royal brothers may fay, as the noble Grecian faid of Æneas,

-Stetimus tela afpera contra, Contulimufque manus, experto credite quantus In clypeum affurgat, quo turbine torqueat

haftam.

"They have all three, in feveral countries, found themfelves engaged in the midst of thefe troops, in the heat and rage of battle ; and if any common foldier, as no doubt many may, will demand the old Roman priviledge for having encountered princes fingle, upon my confcience he will find both favour and preferment. They have all three obferved the difcipline, and felt, and admired, and loved the courage of this army, when they were the worse for it; and I have feen them, in a seafon when there was little of comfort in their view, refresh themselves with joy that the English had done the great work, the English had got the day; and then please them

felves with the imagination of what wonders. they should perform at the head of fuch an army."

Nothing feemed now to blow on all fides, but gales of profperity to the king and the whole nation; and none so much courted and careffed as the lord-chancellor, of all the minifters, whereof he indeed was the chief and moft capable; and William, duke of Somers fet, giving way to fate in the month of October, this year, the univerfity of Oxford were pleased to make choice of Sir Edward Hyde to be their chancellor in his room. About the fame time, he was one of thofe lords put in a commiffion of oyer and terminer to try the regicides; and his majesty, on the third of November, was pleafed, in gratitude for the long and faithful fervices of my lord-chancellor, and as an instance of his royal favour, to raise him to the decree of a baron of England, by the title of the lord Hyde, of Hindon, in the county of Wilts; and, on the twentieth of April, 1661, he created him viscount Cornbury, in the county of Oxford, and earl of Clarendon, in Wiltshire, with ceremony in the Banqueting-house at Whitehall, three days before his majefty's coronation, being the firft of the fix earls who were made against that folemnity.

Between the diffolution of this conventionparliament and the meeting of the next, which was to be on the eighth of May, 1661, there was a matter agitated at the helm, that after

wards

"If God had not reftored his majefly to that rare felicity, as to be without apprehen fion of danger at home or abroad, and without any ambition of taking from his neighbours what they are poffeffed of, himself would never disband his army: an army whofe order and difcipline, whofe courage and fuccefs, hath made it famous and terrible over the world an army of which the king and his two royal brothers may fay, as the noble Grecian faid of Æneas,

-Stetimus tela afpera contra, Contulimufque manus, experto credite quantus In clypeum affurgat, quo turbine torqueat

haftam.

"They have all three, in feveral countries, found themfelves engaged in the midst of thefe troops, in the heat and rage of battle; and if any common foldier, as no doubt many may, will demand the old Roman priviledge for having encountered princes fingle, upon my confcience he will find both favour and preferment. They have all three obferved the difcipline, and felt, and admired, and loved the courage of this army, when they were the worse for it; and I have feen them, in a feafon when there was little of comfort in their view, refresh themselves with joy that the English had done the great work, the English had got the day; and then please them

at

es

felves with the imagination of what wonders they should perform at the head of fuch an army.'

Nothing feemed now to blow on all fides, but gales of profperity to the king and the whole nation; and none fo much courted and careffed as the lord-chancellor, of all the minifters, whereof he indeed was the chief and moft capable; and William, duke of Somer fet, giving way to fate in the month of October, this year, the univerfity of Oxford were pleased to make choice of Sir Edward Hyde to be their chancellor in his room. About the fame time, he was one of those lords put in a commiffion of oyer and terminer to try the regicides; and his majefty, on the third of November, was pleafed, in gratitude for the long and faithful fervices of my lord-chancellor, and as an inftance of his royal favour, to raise him to the decree of a baron of England, by the title of the lord Hyde, of Hindon, in the county of Wilts; and, on the twentieth of April, 1661, he created him viscount Cornbury, in the county of Oxford, and earl of Clarendon, in Wiltshire, with ceremony in the Banqueting-houfe at Whitehall, three days before his majefty's coronation, being the firft of the fix earls who were made againft that folemnity.

Between the diffolution of this conventionparliament and the meeting of the next, which was to be on the eighth of May, 1661, there was a matter agitated at the helm, that after

wards

wards through the malice of enemies and the credulity of the unthinking populace, was trumped up to the difadvantage of the chan cellor.

It is true his daughter was married to the duke of York, then prefumptive heir to the crown; and proving to be a prolific lady, it was natural for him to wish that some one of the defcendants of his own body might, in time, inherit the crown of England; but, that he fhould be the contriver, and the only one too, of the match with Portugal, in order to it, is as great a piece of forgery and falfhood as ever could be put upon a man ; and of which the king, who could not forefee this, fufficiently cleared him in his next speech in parliament in thefe very words:

"And I tell you, with great fatisfaction and comfort to myself, that, after many hours debate in full council, for I think there was not above one abfent; and truly I believe upon weighing all that can be faid upon that fubject, for or against it, the lords, without one diffenting voice, yet there were very few fat filent, advifed me, with all imaginable cheerfulness, to this marriage, which I look upon as very wonderful, and even as fome inftances of the approbation of God himfelf."

It was a great weakning to my lord-chançellor Clarendon's intereft and ftability at court, that Mr. Secretary Nicholas should, on the second of October, 1662, be put out of