Clarendon

“ It is no part of Clarendon's biography to linger over the revolting details of that disgraceful time. Even in Clarendon's day, the King had lamentably failed to maintain his dignity or to discharge his task. His life now outraged all decency, and his Court fell below the standard of the common bagnio. His prime favourite and his chief Minister was Buckingham, stained by every crime, at once coward and bully, haughty in his arrogant insolence, and yet stooping to intrigues that would have disgraced the veriest rogue from the hulks. ”

“ His talents for business were as remarkable as his talents for debate. “He was,” says Clarendon, “of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and of parts not to be imposed upon by the most subtle and sharp.” Yet it was rather to his moral than to his intellectual qualities that he was indebted for the vast influence which he possessed. “When this parliament began,”—we again quote Clarendon,—“the eyes of all men were fixed upon him, as their patriae pater, and the pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened it. ”

“ He was a man of unquestionable ability, of dauntless audacity, and restless activity; but he moved the hatred and contempt alike of Royalist and rebel, for his arrogance, his brazen insolence, and his cynical lack of conscience. Clarendon had now to use him as agent in a series of complicated diplomatic transactions. To his perspicacity, promptness, and determination, the Chancellor might trust. ”

“ Candour is no doubt a virtue, and Clarendon deserves honour for his bold words. But to tell the King that he was at once a sluggard and a debauchee; that he had lost the respect, and would probably soon forfeit the obedience of his subjects; and to scold his jocular raillery by painting him as courting the society and imitating the manners of buffoons, was scarcely a tactful way of insinuating a lesson of caution and establishing the confidence which makes a servant congenial to his master. We must honour Clarendon for his manliness ”

“ Clarendon found himself in the position of a fairly wealthy man, and it was not unnatural that he should desire to maintain that position which was commensurate with his rank. He knew himself to be the founder of a family which must take its place in the ranks of the great nobility of England, and must hold a conspicuous place in her annals. To him, as to many men for whom the pettiness of personal position weighs for little, the maintenance of that family in worthy dignity became a legitimate object of ambition. ”

“ But Clarendon was under no mistake as to the odium he incurred with that clique, or as to the irritation which his conduct must arouse in the mind of the King, his master.
CHAPTER XX DOMESTIC DISSENSION AND FOREIGN COMPLICATIONS The difficulties with which Clarendon had to deal in settling the affairs of the Church were, in essence, inevitable. Each side was struggling for very life. They had, to inspire them, not only profoundly hostile convictions, but the memory of years of angry strife and alternate persecution. ”

“ If we are to believe Clarendon, however, "The king was very melancholic, and quickly discovered that he had lost reputation at home and abroad, and those counsellors who had been most faulty, either through want of courage or wisdom, for at that time few of them wanted fidelity, never afterwards recovered spirit enough to do their duty, but gave themselves up to those who so much had outwitted them, every man shifting the fault from himself." ”

“ He had, according to Clarendon, ‘an unusual aspect, which made men think there was somewhat in him of extraordinary.’ He seems to have had long hair, a lustrous countenance, and the expression of a man looking not with, but through, his eyes. ”

“ This woman fought Clarendon and Ormond as she fought the King. Both had offended her in many ways—ways such as a courtezan never forgives. Clarendon had been the best friend of her noble father, and she was Barbara Villiers, the subject of lewd jests alike in the ante-rooms of Whitehall and the coffee-houses of the town. The contrast between them, with the unuttered reproach, pity, and scorn it implied, was sufficient cause for hatred. But Clarendon was tactless; a statesman himself, he laughed at the idea of a woman of her lack of ability attempting to rule the State. ”

“ According to Clarendon, who, however, was one of his personal enemies, he had ‘been so awed and terrified with their temper’ that he had ‘longed infinitely to be out of that fire,’ and was glad of the change to the upper house. ”

“ To his historic sense a place amongst the nobility of his country was attractive, and its stateliness was something which his imagination clothed with more than merely superficial allurement. It was from no selfish feeling and no vanity of personal display, that he conceived the idea of leaving to those who were to come after him an inheritance compatible with that position. It would be unjust to blame Clarendon because he gave the scanty leisure, which his absorbing business permitted him, to attaining that object. ”

“ The caprice of fortune never laid upon a man so proud as Clarendon, a task so irksome and so little to his taste. Only the public interest involved forced him to breathe for a time the stifling atmosphere, and mix himself in the nauseating topics, of the royal matrimonial wranglings. Only the imperious need for suppressing a scandal which might smother the new settlement, and the royal power, in the mud of a sordid quarrel, bade him undertake a hateful duty. Honour could not be saved ”

“ To superficial observers, or observers who have convinced themselves that high lights and bright colourings are of the essence of the art of the prose writer, Clarendon may seem tame and jejune. He is in reality just the contrary. His wood is tough enough and close-grained enough, but there is plenty of sap coursing through it. In yet a third respect, which is less closely connected with the purely formal aspect of style, Clarendon stands, if not pre-eminent, very high among historians. ”

“ Alike from the ungrudging admiration which Clarendon expresses for his life-long friend, from the captious criticism of those to whom his long tarrying on the stage was irksome, and from the irresponsible gossip of Pepys, we have a vivid picture of the veteran statesman as he appeared to his contemporaries. In outward carriage grave and distant, girt with that ample ceremony of manner which repelled familiarity; easy and prompt in debate, with that sense of self-confidence which permits a man to think on his feet, and to dispense with any niceties of diction ”

“ No one recognized more clearly than Clarendon, or detested more cordially, the scandals that tarnished the restored monarchy; to no one did they bring a fuller crop of crushed hopes, and baffled efforts. Fortune's cynical injustice was never more clearly shown.
To some of the clique of Clarendon's enemies it seemed as if the time had come to strike a decisive blow. Stories of his impending fall were rife. Pepys, repeating the gossip of the day, and the tittle-tattle of the back stairs, tells us how "they have cast my Lord Chancellor on his back past ever getting up again." ”

“ Clarendon's genius for character-drawing never suffers him to paint even the portraits of his enemies all in black. [Footnote: Clarendon's prejudice against Coventry, however, in spite of the admission of his ability, was abnormally strong, and we shall find reason later to doubt whether Clarendon did not in this case allow personal resentment to blind him to some of Coventry's merits.] Such was his conception of the man who now became Secretary to the Duke of York, and an active centre of intrigue. ”

“ Clarendon's autobiographical works and letters form the basis of the Life of Clarendon published in 1837 by Thomas Lister Lord Campbell's memoir in his Lives of the Chancellors (iii. 110-271) has no independent value. An earlier life of little value is contained in Lives of all the Lord Chancellors, but more especially of those two great opposites, Edward, earl of Clarendon, and Bulstrode, lord Whitelocke, 2 vols. ”

“ A party of younger men of the king’s own age, more congenial to his temperament, and eager to drive the old chancellor from power and to succeed him in office, had for some time been endeavouring to undermine his influence by ridicule and intrigue. Surrounded by such general and violent animosity, Clarendon’s only hope could be in the support of the king. ”

“ The King could only smilingly reply "that few men were so scrupulous." There is something almost comical in the effort on the part of Clarendon to press upon the King that self-respect, which he had long since cast aside, and the place of which was supplied by a mask of cynicism. ”

“ Clarendon's reply to Charles's shuffling was firm and dignified. He had no desire that the King should change his resolution. But he would not suffer it to be believed that his delivery of the seal was his own willing act. "He should not think himself a gentleman, if he were willing to depart, and withdraw himself from office, in a time when he thought his Majesty would have need of all honest men." ”

“ As a writer and historian Clarendon occupies a high place in English literature. His great work, the History of the Rebellion, is composed in the grand style. A characteristic feature is the wonderful series of well-known portraits, drawn with great skill and liveliness and especially praised by Evelyn and by Macaulay. ”

“ Clarendon had recognized fully that such reparation was due, and had instructed Downing to offer it. The elusive tactics of De Witt, and the armed intervention of De Ruyter, frustrated Clarendon's efforts for a peaceful settlement.
Already Clarendon's pronounced inclination for peace had earned for him the ill-will which the Duke of York's habitual sulkiness of temper was so apt to indulge. The King had given their due weight to the arguments of the Chancellor, and felt the danger which war would involve at once to his own authority at home, and to the position of England in Europe. ”

“ The Civil War had left an ample crop of bravos, who were to be hired for any outrage, and whose excesses added to the restless uneasiness that prevailed, and that made men nervously apprehensive of revolution. The religious enthusiast, and the blustering cut-throat of Alsatia, were equally open to the persuasions of any turbulent faction which sought to defy the law. The forces of order which Clarendon commanded were but scanty. ”

“ He scarcely even recognized how utter was his contempt for the man himself, as he now was, with all his vulgar licentiousness, all his superficial good nature, all his essential selfishness and cynicism. Clarendon himself would have been surprised had he known how much of that contempt he had unconsciously revealed, by an occasional phrase, or a half-perceptible stroke of sarcasm. The effect of the letter was plain enough, and it conveyed a covert defiance from the fallen Minister, both to his faithless master and to his triumphant foes. ”

“ Clarendon wrote humbly to the king asking for pardon, and that the prosecution might be prevented, but Charles had openly taken part against him, and, though desiring his escape, would not order or assist his departure for fear of the Commons. Through the bishop of Hereford, however, on the 29th of November he pressed Clarendon to fly, promising that he should not during his absence suffer in his honour or fortune. Clarendon embarked the same night for Calais, where he arrived on the 2nd of December. ”

“ He was sent as ambassador to Spain, and Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle were appointed to joint command of the fleet. The "affection and unquestionable courage of Prince Rupert were not doubted"—so Clarendon said when arranging the matter with Albemarle—"but the King was not sure that the quickness of his spirit, and the strength of his passion, might not sometimes stand in need of a friend, who should be in equal authority with him." [Footnote: Life, ii. 485. In these words, Clarendon no doubt expressed some lively memories of the days of the Civil War.] ”

“ His income, however, as lord chancellor was very large, and Clarendon maintained considerable state, considering it due to the dignity of the monarchy that the high officers should carry the external marks of greatness. The house built by him in St James’s was one of the most magnificent ever seen in England, and was filled with a collection of portraits, chiefly those of contemporary statesmen and men of letters. ”

“ In all his accounts of the friends of his youth Clarendon is in the background, but we picture him moving among them at ease, conscious of his inferiority in learning and brilliance and the gentler virtues, yet trusting to his own judgement, and convinced that every man worth knowing has a pronounced individuality. ”

“ A third son, Edward Hyde, baptised 1 April 1645, died on 10 Jan. 1665, and was also buried in Westminster Abbey (ib. p. 161) . Clarendon's will is printed in Lister's 'Life of Clarendon' (ii. 489) .
As a statesman, Clarendon's consistency and integrity were conspicuous through many vicissitudes and amid much corruption. He adhered faithfully to the principles he professed in 1641, but the circle of his ideas was fixed then, and it never widened afterwards. No man was fitter to guide a wavering master in constitutional ways, or to conduct a return to old laws and institutions ”