character. would believe he was so poor as he was found to be 1660. at his death: which was thought the occasion of his son's shooting himself in the head a few days after his death, finding the disorder of his affairs; for both father and son were buried together.] The duke of Albemarle raised two other persons. One was Clar- Clarges's ges, his wife's brother, who was an honest but 99 haughty man. He became afterwards a very considerable parliament man, and valued himself on his opposing the court, and on his frugality in managing the public money; for he had Cromwell's economy ever in his mouth, and was always for reducing the expense of war to the modesty and parsimony of those times. Many thought he carried this too far: but it made him very popular. After he was become very rich himself by the public money, he seemed to take care that nobody else should grow as rich as he was in that way. Another man raised by the duke of Albemarle was Morrice, who was the Morrice's person that had prevailed with Monk to declare for the king. Upon that he was made secretary of state. He was very learned, but full of pedantry and affectation. He had no true judgment about foreign affairs. And the duke of Albemarle's judgment of them may be measured by what he said, when he found the king grew weary of Morrice, but that in regard to him (he) had no mind to turn him out: [upon which the duke of Albemarle replied,] he did not know what was necessary for a good secretary of state in which he was defective, for he could speak French and write short hand. character. character. Nicolas was the other secretary, who had been Nicolas's employed by king Charles the first during the war, and had served him faithfully, but had no under character. 1660. standing in foreign affairs. He was a man of virtue, but could not fall into the king's temper, or become acceptable to him. So not long after the reArlington's storation, Bennet, advanced afterwards to be earl of Arlington, was by the interest of the popish party made secretary of state; and was admitted into so particular a confidence, that he began to raise a party in opposition to the earl of Clarendon. He was a proud [and insolent] man. His parts were solid, but not quick. He had the art of observing the king's temper, and managing it beyond all the men of that time. He was believed a papist. He had once professed it: and when he died, he again reconciled himself to that church. Yet in the whole course of his ministry, he seemed to have made it a maxim, that the king ought to shew no favour to popery, but that all his affairs would be spoiled if ever he turned that way; which made the papists become his mortal enemies, and accuse him as an apostate, and the betrayer of their interests. [He was a man of great vanity, and lived at a vast expense, without taking any care of paying the debt he contracted to support it.] His chief friend was Charles Berkeley, made earl of Falmouth, who, without any visible merit m, unless it was the managing the king's amours, was the most absolute of all the king's favourites: and, which was peculiar to him 1 He was esteemed so good a courtier, that it was said he died a Roman Catholic to make his court to king James. But whatever his religion might be, he always professed himself of the whig party, as many papists had done before him : and particularly the famous Lambert, (who died a prisoner in the isle of Jersey,) declared a little before his death, he had always been of the church of Rome. D. m See the History of lord Clarendon's Life, for part of this man's merit. O. self, he was as much in the duke of York's favour as 1660. in the king's. Berkeley was generous in his expense: and it was thought, if he had outlived the lewdness of that time, and come to a more sedate course of life, he would have put the king on great and noble 100 designs. This I should have thought more likely, if I had not had it from the duke, who had so wrong a taste, that there was reason to suspect his judgment both of men and things. Bennet and Berkeley had the management of the mistress. And all the earl of Clarendon's enemies came about them: the chief of whom were the duke of Buckingham and the earl of Bristol. ham's cha racter. The first of these was a man of noble presence. BuckingHe had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar faculty of turning all things into ridicule with bold figures and natural descriptions. He had no sort of literature: only he was drawn into chemistry: and for some years he thought he was very near the finding the philosopher's stone; which had the effect that attends on all such men as he was, when they are drawn in, to lay out for it. He had no principles of religion, virtue, or friendship. Pleasure, frolic, or extravagant diversion, was all that he laid to heart. He was true to nothing, for he was not true to himself". He had no steadiness nor conduct: he could keep no secret, nor execute any design without spoiling it. He could never fix his thoughts, nor govern his estate, though then the greatest in England. He was bred about the king: and for many years he had a great ascendent over him but he spake of him to all persons with that n No consequence. S. • Nonsense. S. 1660. contempt, that at last he drew a lasting disgrace upon himself. And he at length ruined both body and mind, fortune and reputation equally. The madness of vice appeared in his person in very eminent instances; since at last he became contemptible and poor, sickly, and sunk in his parts, as well as in all other respects, so that his conversation was as much avoided as ever it had been courted. He found the king, when he came from his travels in the year forty-five, newly come to Paris, sent over by his father when his affairs declined: and finding the king enough inclined to receive ill impressions, he, who was then got into all the impieties and vices of the age, set himself to corrupt the king, in which he was too successful, being seconded in that wicked design by the lord Percy. And to complete the matter, Hobbs was brought to him, under the pretence of instructing him in mathematics: and he laid before him his schemes, both with relation to religion and politics, which made deep and lasting impressions on the king's mind. So that the main blame of the king's ill principles and bad morals was owing to the duke of Buckingham P. Bristol's character. The earl of Bristol was a man of courage and learning, of a bold temper and a lively wit, but of no judgment nor steadiness. He was in the Queen's 101 interest during the war at Oxford. And he studied to drive things past the possibility of a treaty, or any reconciliation; fancying that nothing would make the military men so sure to the king, as his P The famous Butler (author of Hudibras) says in his Characters, lately published, “The "duke of Bucks is one that "has studied the whole body "of vice." And says also of this abominable man, "that “continual wine, women, and "music, had debauched his understanding." O. 66 being sure to them, and giving them hopes of shar- 1660. ing the confiscated estates among them; whereas, he thought, all discourses of treaty made them feeble and fearful. When he went beyond sea, he turned papist. But it was after a way of his own: for he loved to magnify the difference between the church and the court of Rome. He was esteemed a very good speaker: but he was too copious, and too florid. He was set at the head of the popish party, and was a violent enemy of the earl of Clarendon. dale's cha Having now said as much as seems necessary to Landerdescribe the state of the court and ministry at the racter. restoration, I will next give an account of the chief of the Scots, and of the parties that were formed among them. The earl of Lauderdale, afterwards made duke, had been for many years a zealous covenanter : but in the year forty-seven he turned to the king's interests; and had continued a prisoner all the while after Worcester fight, where he was taken. He was kept for some years in the tower of London, in Portland castle, and in other prisons, till he was set at liberty by those who called home the king. So he went over to Holland. And since he continued so long, and contrary to all men's opinions in so high a degree of favour and confidence, it may be expected that I should be a little copious in setting out his character; for I knew him very particularly. He made a very ill appearance: he was very big: his hair red, hanging oddly about him his tongue was too big for his mouth, which made him bedew all that he talked to: and his whole manner was rough and boisterous, and very unfit for a court. He was very learned, not only in Latin, in which he was a master, but in Greek and Hebrew. He had |