They called home the

out a treaty.

either to fright them or to corrupt them. So he moved, that they would immediately send commissioners to bring over the king: and said, that he must lay the blame of all the blood or mischief that might follow, on the heads of those who should still insist on any motion that might delay the present settlement of the nation. This was echoed with such a shout over the house, that the motion was no more insisted on.

This was indeed the great service that Monk did. king with- It was chiefly owing to the post he was in, and to the credit he had gained: for as to the restoration itself, the tide run so strong, that he only went into it dexterously enough, to get much fame, and great rewards, for that which will have still a great appearance in history. If he had died soon after, he might have been more justly admired, because less known, and seen only in one advantageous light: but he lived long enough to [have his stupidity and other ill qualities well known, (and to)] make it known, how false a judgment men are apt to make upon outward appearance. appearance. To the king's coming in without conditions may be well imputed all the errors of his reign. And when the earl of Southampton came to see what he was like to prove, he said once in great wrath to chancellor Hide, it was to him they owed all they either felt or feared; for if he had not possessed them in all his letters with such an opinion of the king, they would have taken care to have put it out of his power either to do himself or them any mischief, which was like to be the effect of their trusting him so entirely. Hide answered, that he thought the king had so true a judgment, and so much good na

ture, that when the age of pleasure should be over, and the idleness of his exile, which made him seek new diversions for want of other employment, was turned to an obligation to mind affairs, then he would have shaken off those entanglements. I must put my reader in mind, that I leave all common transactions to ordinary books. If at any time I say things that occur in any books, it is partly to keep the thread of the narration in an unintangled method, and partly, because I neither have heard nor read those things in books; or at least, I do not remember to have read them so clearly and so particularly as I have related them. I now leave a mad and confused scene, to open a more august and splendid one.

Of the first twelve years of the reign of king
Charles II. from the year 1660 to the year

1673.

I DIVIDE king Charles's reign into two books, 1660. not so much because, consisting of twenty-four years, it fell, if divided at all, naturally to put twelve years in a book: but I have a much better reason for it, since as to the first twelve years, though I knew the affairs of Scotland very authentically, yet I had only such a general knowledge of the affairs of England as I could pick up at a distance: whereas I lived so near the scene, and had 92 indeed such a share in several parts of it, during the last twelve years, that I can write of these with much more certainty, as well as more fully, than of the first twelve. I will therefore enlarge more particularly, within the compass that I have fixed for

1660. this book, on the affairs of Scotland; both out of the inbred love that all men have for their native country a, and more particularly, that I may leave some useful instructions to those of my own order and profession, by representing to them the conduct of the bishops of Scotland: for having observed, with more than ordinary niceness, all the errors that were committed, both at the first setting up of episcopacy, and in the whole progress of its continuance in Scotland, till it was again overturned there, I am enabled to set all that matter in a full view and in a clear light.

Many went over to the Hague.

As soon as it was fixed that the king was to be restored, a great many went over to make their court: among these Sharp, who was employed by the resolutioners of Scotland, was one. He carried with him a letter from the earl of Glencairn to Hide, made soon after earl of Clarendon, recommending him as the only person capable to manage the design of setting up episcopacy in Scotland: upon which he was received into great confidence. Yet, as he had observed very carefully the success of Monk's solemn protestations against the king and for a commonwealth, it seems he was so pleased with the original, that he resolved to copy after it, without letting himself be diverted from it by [anxious] scruples, [or any tenderness of conscience:] for he stuck neither at solemn protestations, both by word of mouth and by letters, (of which I have seen many proofs,) nor at appeals to God of his sincerity in acting for the presbytery both in prayers and on other occasions, joining with these many

a Could not he keep his inbred love to himself? S.