T

his cffice of fecretary of state; and, that Sir Henry Bennet, afterwards created earl of Arlington, no real friend of the chancellor, and one that died, at length, a Papift, fhould be fworn into his place. This the chancellor, who was a nobleman, not only of great experience in ftate affairs, but of an uncommon difcerning genius, could not but forefee was defigned for no good to him, and therefore he armed himself with all his dexterity against it, as against an enemy that would give him no quarter; and indeed he made fuch a provifion for a fecure footing where he flood, that there could be no juft apprehenfions of lofing any ground; but the real and heavy ftorm proceeds many times from the most unexpected quarter.

There had been a long courfe of uninterrupted friendship both at home and abroad, in a profperous and adverfe fortune, between George earl of Bristol, and the earl of Cla. rendon; fo that the fame feemed to be, like the Gordian knot, indissoluble: but the chancellor refufing a fmall boon, as the earl of Briftol took it to be, which, it was faid, was the paffing a patent in favour of a court-lady, and wherein the chancellor, who was beft judge of his own office, was certainly in the right.

This fo fowered the other's fpirits, as, never dreaming he should be denied, that his thoughts fuggefted nothing to him from thenceforwards but malice and the highest revenge;

and,

and, having digefted all things within himfelf, which he imagined might tend to the difadvantage and ruin of the chancellor, he first made a bitter and artful fpeech enough against him in the house of lords; and then, on the tenth of July, 1663, exhibited articles of high-treafon and other heinous misdemeanours against Edward earl of Clarendon, lord' high-chancellor of England.

This bold attack upon the lord-chancellor, though he came off without any blemish, rendered him more cautious and circumfpect in his conduct; fo that things, in all outward appearance, went fmoothly on with him, bating that the gout racked him now and then, till the war with the Dutch broke out; which the libellers of that age made to be one of his heinous crimes, though he abhorred it.

In the mean while, the lord Morley having. killed one Mr. Haftings, for which he was to be arraigned at Westminster by his peers, the lord-chancellor was appointed high-fteward for the day, and carried every thing with the utmoft decorum, circumfpection, and justice. My lord Morley was found guilty of manflaughter, but had the benefit of his clergy.

Now comes on this great earl's own miffortunes; for the great-feal being taken from him on the thirtieth of Auguft, 1667, it is incredible with what rage and fury every body fell upon him: nay, when the parliament met on the tenth of October following, both houfes thanked the king in a more especial

manner,

manner, for having difplaced the earl, and removed him from the exercife of any public truft and employment: and the commons proceeding to draw up articles against him, Mr. Seymour, in the name of the commons of England, impeached him, at the bar of the houfe of lords, of treafon and other high crimes and misdemeanours.

About this time, his lordship, thinking it advifeable for him to withdraw out of the kingdom for his greater fecurity, he fent a petition to the House of Lords in a very noble file; and, though writ with an air of great candour and fincerity, had no influence at a'l in his favour. There were feveral conferences held between the lords and commons about the manner of proceeding against the earl, which ended at last in a bill for banishing and difabling him.

It should have been obferved before, that my lord Clarendon's addrefs, or paper, to the houfe of lords, which was printed, in those days, under the opprobrious title of," News from Dunkirk-house; or, Clarendon's Farewell to England; in his Seditious Address to the Right Honourable the House of Peers, on the third of December;" was, on the twelfth of the fame month, according to the fentence and judgment of both houfes of parliament, burned by the hands of the common hangman, in the presence of the two fheriffs of London. and Middlesex, with very great and signal applaufe of the populace,

Every body now flung dirt at him, and, like gudgeons, greedily fwallowed all that tended to his difreputation and difgrace, without ever enquiring into the reafons of them. Satyrical Andrew Marvel, in his Advice to the Painter, could not, among the reft, forbear to have a fling at him in these opprobrious lines:

But damn'd, and doubly damn'd, be Clarendine,

Our Seventh Edward, with all his house and line;

Who, to divert the dangers of the war,

With Bristol, hounds us on the Hollander. Fool-coated gownman! Sells, to fight with Hans,

Dunkirk, dismantling Scotland, - quarrels France;

And hopes he now hath bufinefs, fhape, and

power,

T'out-laft our lives, or his, and 'scape the
Tower;

And, that he yet may fee, ere he go down,
His dear Clarinda circled in a crown.

But the true caufe of the noble earl's difgrace proceeded from none of these fuggef tions. I find, by an anonymous pamphlet, which feverely reflects upon the court proceedings in thofe times, an infinuation, as if the chancellor had loft his place for deferting the French and popifh intereft; and, that his zeal for the proteftant religion was fuch, that,

fo me

fome time before he was turned out, he refused to feal a new commiffion for the duke of York, to evade a late act made against po pery.

There might be fome truth, in all likeli hood, in this; it is well known his lordship was a zealous Proteftant, and that our court might be somewhat popishly affected, even at that time: but

Extempore verum

Nafcitur, & veniens ætas abfcondita pandit.

Dr. Welwood, in his Memoirs, after having premised, that it looked as if Heaven took a more than ordinary care of England, that we did not throw up all our liberties at once upon the restoration of king Charles II. for, tho' fome were for bringing him back upon terms, yet after he was once come he poffeffed fo entirely the hearts of his people, that they thought nothing was too much for them to grant, or for him to receive; he tells us, among other defigns, that, to please him, there was one formed at court to fettle fuch a revenue upon him, by parliament, during life, as fhould place him beyond the neceffity of asking more, except in the case of a war, or fome fuch extraordinary occasion: that the earl of Southampton, lord high - treasurer, came heartily into it, out of a meer principle of honour and affection to the king; but that chancellor Clarendon fecretly oppofed it:

that