of confidence with three succeeding princes, who set up on very different interests, that he came by this to lose himself so much, that even those who esteemed his parts depended little on his firmness*. The treaty of Cologne was of a short continuance; for the emperor, looking on Furstenberg, the dean of Cologne, and bishop of Strasburgh, afterwards advanced to be cardinal, who was the elector's plenipotentiary at that treaty, as a subject of the empire, who had betrayed it, ordered him to be seized on. The French looked on this as such a violation of the passports, that they set it up for a preliminary, before they would enter upon à treaty, to have him set at liberty. Maestricht was taken this summer; in which the duke of Monmouth distinguished himself so eminently, that he was much considered upon it. The king of France was there. After the taking of Maestricht he went to Nancy in Lorraine, and left the prince of Condé with the army in Flanders, Turenne having the command of that on the upper Rhine against the Germans; for the emperor and the whole empire were now engaged. But I return now to the intrigues of our court. I came up this summer, in order to the publishing the "Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton." I had left Scotland under an universal discontent. The whole administration there was both violent and corrupt, and seemed to be formed on a French model. The parliament had in the year 1663, in order to the bringing our trade to a balance with England, given the king in trust a power to lay impositions on foreign commodities. So upon that a great duty was lately laid upon French salt, in order to the better vending the salt made at home: upon which it was sold very dear. And that raised great complaints; for, as the salt was excessively dear, so it did not serve all purposes. All people looked on this as the beginning of a gabel. An imposition was also laid on tobacco; and all brandy was prohibited to be imported, but not to be retailed; so those who had the grant of the seizures sold them, and raised the price very much. These occasioned monopolies and the price of those things that were of great consumption among the commons was much raised; so that a trust lodged with the crown was now abused in the highest degree. As these things provoked the body of the people, so duke Lauderdale's insolence, and his engrossing everything to himself and to a few of his friends, and his wife and his brother setting all things to sale, raised a very high discontent all over the nation. The affairs of the church were altogether neglected; so that in all respects we were quite out of joint. : I went up with a full resolution to do my country all the service I could, and to deal very plainly with the duke of Lauderdale, resolving, if I could do no good, to retire from all affairs, and to meddle no more in public business. I lost indeed my best friend at court. Sir Robert Murray died suddenly at that time. He was the wisest and worthiest man of the age, and was as another father to me. I was sensible how much I lost in so critical a conjuncture, being bereft of the truest and faithfullest friend I had ever known: and so I saw, I was in danger of committing great errors, for want of so kind a monitor. Robert Spencer had for his father Henry, first earl of Sunderland, who died in the king's cause at Newbury fight, and his mother was the celebrated Dorothy Sidney, eldest daughter of the earl of Leicester, so generally known as "Saccharissa," in the poems of Waller. He inherited the talents and beauty of his parents: but his father's constancy, even to death, for what he considered the right, did not descend to the son. A contemporary authority represents him as singularly unqualified for, and negligent of, public business; stating that he was remarkable for never speaking in public, nor even in the cabinet, more than saying he was of that lord's opinion, or, he wondered how any one could entertain such an opinion. When he was secretary, which office he filled a few years subsequently, Mr. Bridgeman always attended to take the minutes for him; and when president, the lord-chancellor invariably acted at the council in his stead. He never went to the secretary's office; but the papers were carried to his house, where he was usually found at cards, and he signed them in general without reading them, or asking what were their contents-(Earl of Dartmouth, in Oxford ed. of this work). The chief events of his political life will be noticed in following pages, and they suggest to us the conclusion, that a minister who could allow himself to be the supporter of such totally opposite measures and principles as those which characterised the governments of Charles the Second, James the Second, and William the Third, must have been sufficiently pliant never to let his own virtue and opinions stand in the way of his interest. The Clarendon correspondence shows him acting traitorously and selfishly in the extreme. It appears he withheld a letter that might have saved Monmouth from the scaffold; changed his profession of religion to establish himself with James; and continued to hold office whilst he corresponded with him who came and dethroned him. When finally disgraced, he retired to his seat at Althorp, and died there generally despised, in 1702.—Park's Royal and Noble Authors. At my coming to court, duke Lauderdale took me into his closet, and asked me the state of Scotland. I, upon that, gave him a very punctual and true account of it. He seemed to think that I aggravated matters; and asked me, if the king should need an army from Scotland to tame those in England, whether that might be depended on? I told him certainly not the commons in the southern parts were all presbyterians; and the nobility thought they had been ill-used, and were generally discontented, and only waited for an occasion to show it. He said he was of another mind: the hope of the spoil of England would fetch them all in I answered, the king was ruined if ever he trusted to that; and I added, that with relation to other more indifferent persons, who might be otherwise ready enough to push their fortunes, without any anxious enquiries into the grounds they went on; yet even these would not trust the king, since he had so lately said he would stick to his declaration, and yet had so soon after given it up. He said, Hinc illæ lacryma; but the king was forsaken in that matter, for none stuck to him but lord Clifford and himself; and then he set himself into a fit of railing at lord Shaftesbury. I was struck with this conversation, and by it I clearly saw into the desperate designs of the court, which were as foolish as they were wicked; for I knew that, upon the least disorder in England, they were ready in Scotland to have broken out into a rebellion: so far were they from any inclination to have assisted the king in the mastering of England. I was much perplexed in myself what I ought to do, whether I ought not to have tried to give the king a truer view of our affairs; but I resolved to stay for a fit opportunity. I tried the duchess of Lauderdale, and set before her the injustice and oppression that Scotland was groaning under; but I saw she got too much by it to be any way concerned at it. They talked of going down to hold a session of parliament in Scotland: I warned them of their danger; but they despised all I could say. Only great offers were made to myself to make me wholly theirs, which made no impression on me. "Memoirs to him. The He carried me to the king, and proposed the licensing my king bid me bring them to him, and said he would read them himself. He did read some parts of them, particularly the account I gave of the ill-conduct of the bishops, that occasioned the beginning of the wars; and told me that he was well pleased with it. He was at that time so much offended with the English bishops for opposing the toleration, that he seemed much sharpened against them. He gave me back my book to carry it to secretary Coventry, in order to the licensing it. The secretary said, he would read it all himself; so this obliged me to a longer stay than I intended. Sir Ellis Leighton carried me to the duke of Buckingham, with whom I passed almost a whole night, and happened so far to please him that he, who was apt to be fired with a new acquaintance, gave such a character of me to the king, that ever after that he took much notice of me, and said he would hear me preach. He seemed well pleased with my sermon; and spoke of it in a strain that drew much envy on me. He ordered me to be sworn a chaplain, and admitted me to a long private audience, that lasted above an hour, in which I took all the freedom with him, that I thought became my profession. He run me into a long discourse about the authority of the church, which he thought we made much of in our disputes with the dissenters, and then took it all away when we dealt with the papists. I saw plainly what he aimed at in this, and I quickly convinced him that there was a great difference between an authority of government in things indifferent, and a pretence to infallibility. He complained heavily of the bishops for neglecting the true concerns of the church, and following courts so much, and being so engaged in parties. I went through some other things with relation to his course of life, and entered into many particulars with much freedom. He bore it all very well, and thanked me for it; some things he freely condemned, such as living with another man's wife; other things he excused, and thought "God would not damn a man for a little irregular pleasure." He seemed to take all I had said very kindly; and during my stay at court he used me in so particular a manner, that I was considered as a man growing into a high degree of favour. At the same time lord Aneram, a Scotch earl, but of a small fortune, and of no principles, either as to religion or virtue, whose wife was a papist, and himself a member of the house of commons, told the duke that I had a great interest in Scotland, and might do him service in that kingdom. He depended on duke Lauderdale, but hated him, because he did nothing for him. We were acquainted there; and he having studied the most divinity of any man of quality I ever knew, we found many subjects of discourse. He saw I did not flatter duke Lauderdale, and he fancied he might make a tool of me. So he seemed to wonder that I had not been carried to wait on the duke (of York), and brought me a message from him, that he would be glad to see me; and upon that he carried me to him. The duke received me very graciously. Lord Ancram had a mind to engage me to give him an account of the affairs of Scotland; but I avoided that, and very bluntly entered into much discourse with him about matters of religion. He said some of the common things, of the necessity of having but one church, otherwise we saw what swarms of sects did rise up on our revolt from Rome, and these had raised many rebellions and the shedding much blood; and he named both his father's death, and his great-grandmother's, Mary, queen of Scots. He also turned to some passages in Heylin's History of the Reformation, which he had lying by him; and the passages were marked, to show upon what motives and principles men were led into the changes that were then made. I enlarged upon all these particulars, and showed him the progress that ignorance and superstition had made in many dark ages, and how much bloodshed was occasioned by the papal pretensions; for all which the opinion of infallibility was a source never to be exhausted. And I spoke long to such things as were best suited to his temper and his capacity. I saw lord Ancram helped him all he could, by which I perceived how he made his court; for which, when I reproached him afterwards, he said it was ill-breeding in me to press so hard on a prince. The duke, upon this conversation, expressed such a liking to me, that he ordered me to come oft to him; and afterwards he allowed me to come to him in a private way, as oft as I pleased. He desired to know the state of affairs in Scotland. I told him how little that kingdom could be depended on. I turned the discourse often to matters of religion. He broke it very gently; for he was not at all rough in private conversation. He wished I would let those matters alone; I might be too hard for him and silence him, but I could never convince him. I told him it was a thing he could never answer to God, nor the world, that, being born and baptised in our church, and having his father's last orders to continue stedfast in it, he had suffered himself to be seduced, and as it were stolen out of it, hearing only one side, without offering his scruples to our divines, or hearing what they had to say in answer to them; and that he was now so fixed in his popery, that he would not so much as examine the matter. He said to me, he had often picqueered out (that was his word) on Sheldon, and some other bishops; by whose answers he could not but conclude, that they were much nearer the church of Rome than some of us young men were. Stillingfleet had a little before this time published a book of the idolatry and fanaticism of the church of Rome. Upon that the duke said, he asked Sheldon if it was the doctrine of the church of England, that Roman catholics were idolaters: who answered him, it was not; but that young men of parts would be popular, and such a charge was the way to it. He at that time shewed me the duchess's paper, that has been since printed; it was all written with her own hand. He gave me leave to read it twice over, but would not suffer me to copy it. And upon the mention made in it of her having spoken to the bishops concerning some of her scruples, and that she had such answers from them as confirmed and heightened them, I went from him to Morley, as was said formerly, and had from him the answer there set down. I asked the duke's leave to bring doctor Stillingfleet to him. He was averse to it; and said, it would make much noise, and could do no good. I told him, even the noise would have a good effect; it would shew he was not so obstinate, but that he was willing to hear our divines. I pressed it much, for it became necessary to me, on my own account, to clear myself from the suspicion of popery, which this extraordinary favour had drawn upon me. I at last prevailed with the duke to consent to it: and he assigned an hour of audience. Stillingfleet went very readily, though he had no hopes of success. We were about two hours with him, and went over most of the points of controversy. Stillingfleet thought, the point that would go the easiest, and be the best understood by him, was the papal pretensions to a power over princes, in deposing them, and giving their domi ་ nions to others and upon that he shewed him, that popery was calculated to make the pope the sovereign of all Christendom. The duke shifted the discourse from one point to another; and did not seem to believe the matters of fact and history alleged by us. So we desired he would call for some priests, and hear us discourse of those matters with them in his presence. He declined this; and said, it would make a noise. He assured us, he desired nothing but to follow his own conscience, whieh he imposed on nobody else, and that he would never attempt to alter the established religion. He loved to repeat this often; but when I was alone with him, I warned him of the great difficulties his religion was likely to cast him into. This was no good argument to make him change; but it was certainly a very good argument to make him consider the matter so well, that he might be sure he was in the right. He objected to me the doctrine of the church of England in the point of submission, and of passive obedience. I told him, there was no trusting to a disputable opinion: there were also distinctions and reserves, even in those who had asserted these points the most; and it was very certain, that when men saw a visible danger of being first undone, and then burnt, they would be inclined to the shortest way of arguing, and to save themselves the best way they could; interest and self-preservation were powerful motives. He did very often assure me, he was against all violent methods, and all persecution for conscience sake, and was better furnished to speak well on that head, than on any other. I told him, all he could say that way would do him little service; for the words of princes were looked on as arts to lay men asleep and they had generally regarded them so little themselves, that they ought not to expect that others should have great regard to them. I added, he was now of a religion in which others had the keeping of his conscience, who would now hide from him this point of their religion, since it was not safe to own it, till they had it in their power to put it in practice: and whenever that time should come, I was sure that the principles of their church must carry him to all the extremities of extirpation I carried a volume of judge Crook's to him, in which it is reported, that king James had once in council complained of a slander cast on him, as if he was inclined to change his religion; and had solemnly vindicated himself from the imputation; and prayed, that if any should ever spring out of his loins that should maintain any other religion than that which he truly maintained and professed, that God would take him out of the world. He read it; but it made no impression and when I urged him with some things in his father's book, he gave me the account of it that was formerly mentioned. He entered into great freedom with me about all his affairs; and he shewed me the journals he took of business every day with his own hand; a method, he said, that the earl of Clarendon had set him on. The duchess had begun to write his life. He shewed me a part of it in a thin volume in folio. I read some of it, and found it written with a great deal of spirit *. He told me, he intended to trust me with his journals, that I might draw a history out of them: and thus, in a few weeks' time, I had got far into his confidence. He did also allow me to speak to him of the irregularities of his life, some of which he very freely confessed: and when I urged him, how such a course of life did agree with the zeal he shewed in his religion, he answered, "must a man be of no religion unless he is a saint?" Yet he bore my freedom very gently, and seemed to like me the better for it. My favour with him grew to be the observation of the whole court. Lord Ancram said, "I might be what I pleased, if I would be a little softer in the points of religion." Sir Ellis Leighton brought me a message from F. Sheldon, and some of his priests, assuring me, they heard so well of me, that they offered me their service. He pressed me to improve my present advantages to the making my fortune: the see of Durham was then vacant; and he was confident it would be no hard matter for me to compass it. But I had none of those views, and so was not moved by them. The duke of Buckingham asked me, what I meant in being so much about the duke? If I fancied I could change him in point of religion, I knew him and the world very little: if I had a mind to raise myself, a sure method for that These papers, beyond a doubt, afforded materials to the Père d'Orléans, in his work relating to James the Second. Many of the Stuart papers, and the despatches of Barillon, preserved in the Depôt des Affaires Etrangères at Paris, contain much information relative to our national affairs at this period. In the introduction to Fox's "History of James the Second," and in the "Memoirs of Sir J. Mackintosh," there are some very interesting particulars of the dispersion, and supposed destruction of the chief of the Stuart papers. was, to talk to him of the reformation, as a thing done in heat and haste, and that in a calmer time it might be fit to review it all. He said, I needed go no farther; for such an intimation would certainly raise me: and when I was positive not to enter into such a compliance, he told me, he knew courts better than I did: princes thought their favours were no ordinary things; they expected great submissions in return, otherwise they thought they were despised and I would feel the ill effects of the favour I then had, if I did not strike into some compliances: and, since I was resolved against these, he advised me to withdraw from the court, the sooner the better. I imputed this to his hatred of the duke; but I found afterwards the advice was sound and good. I likewise saw those things in the duke's temper, from which I concluded, I could not maintain an interest in him long. He was for subjects submitting in all things to the king's notions; and thought, that all who opposed him, or his ministers in parliament, were rebels in their hearts; and he hated all popular things, as below the dignity of a king. He was much sharpened at that time by the proceedings of the house of commons. : In the former session it was known that he was treating a marriage with the archduchess, and yet no address was made to the king to hinder his marrying a papist: his honour was not then engaged; so it had been seasonable, and to good purpose, to have moved in it then : but now he was married by proxy, and lord Peterborough had brought the lady to Paris. Yet the house of commons resolved to follow the pattern the king of France had lately set. He treated with the elector Palatine for a marriage between his brother and the elector's daughter; in which one of the conditions agreed to was, that she should enjoy the freedom of her religion, and have a private oratory for the exercise of it. When she came on her way as far as Metz, an order was sent to stop her, till she was better instructed upon which she changed, at least as to outward appearance. It is true, the court of France gave it out that the elector had consented to this method, for the saving his own honour; and he had given the world cause to believe he was capable of that, though he continued openly to deny it. The house of commons resolved to follow this precedent, and to make an address to the king, to stop the princess of Modena's coming to England till she should change her religion. Upon this the duke moved the king to prorogue the parliament for a week and a commission was ordered for it. The duke went to the house on that day to press the calling up the commons, before they could have time to go on to business. Some peers were to be brought in. The duke pressed lord Shaftesbury to put that off, and to prorogue the parliament. He said coldly to him, there was no haste; but the commons made more haste, for they quickly came to a vote for stopping the marriage; and by this means they were engaged, (having put such an affront on the duke) to proceed farther. He presently told me how the matter went, and how the lord chancellor had used him; he was confident the king would take the seals from him, if he could not manage the sessions so as to procure him money, of which there was indeed small appearance. I told him, I looked on that as a fatal thing, if the commons began once to affront him; that would have a sad train of consequences, as soon as they thought it necessary for their own preservation, to secure themselves from falling under his revenges. He said, he was resolved to stand his ground, and to submit to the king in every thing: he would never take off an enemy; but he would let all the world see, that he was ready to forgive every one that should come off from his opposition, and make applications to him. When the week of the prorogation was ended, the session was opened by a speech of the king's, which had such various strains in it, that it was plain it was made by different persons. The duke told me that lord Clarendon, during his favour, had penned all the king's speeches; but that now they were composed in the cabinet, one minister putting in one period, while another made another; so that all was not of a piece. He told me lord Arlington was almost dead with fear; but lord Shaftesbury reckoned himself gone at court, and acted more roundly. In his speech he studied to correct his Delenda est Carthago*, applying it to the Lovestein party †, whom he called the Carthaginians: but this made him as ridiculous as the other had made him odious. The house of commons took up again the matter of the duke's marriage, and moved for an address about it. But it was A quotation he had made use of when speaking of our war with Holland. See p. 229. †This was a perty in Holland against having a stadt holder, and so called from Lovestein Castle, in which the old prince of Orange had imprisoned some of the States who opposed him. |