Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon Part 13

Once more the petty scandals of licentious intrigue obtrude themselves at the most critical juncture of a grave historic drama. In no transaction where Charles was concerned could such sordid details be long absent. The King's fancy had shortly before been attracted by a new denizen of the "Lady's" drawing room, and he had become so infatuated with the charms of Miss Stuart, [Footnote: Frances Teresa Stuart, born in 1648, was the daughter of Dr. Walter Stuart, a cadet of the House of Blantyre. Her father, an ardent Royalist, fled from the vengeance of Parliament, and Frances was brought up at Paris, where her beauty and peculiar charm attracted even royal attention. When she joined the household of Queen Catherine in England, her loveliness captivated all hearts, and stirred the fire of pa.s.sion even in such a jaded voluptuary as the King. Her subtle combination of virgin simplicity and adroit prudence only inflamed him the more. For once he was consumed by an ardent love, and tortured by a real jealousy. Hence his anger at the runaway match and all concerned in it.

Frances Stuart steered her course with safety through many quicksands, and died, not without honour, in 1702.] that he had seriously contemplated a divorce, which might enable him to offer her those terms of lawful marriage which could alone overcome her stubborn virtue, or her ambitious prudence. Whether any such designs were actually entertained or not, the amorous hopes of the King were speedily disappointed by the lady's marriage with the Duke of Richmond. The royal lover was ignominiously defeated in the only sort of rivalry which seriously touched him, and the pride of the jaded voluptuary was more easily wounded than the honour of the King. His vanity was ruffled, and nothing was easier for Clarendon's enemies than to inspire Charles with the belief that his Chancellor had arranged the marriage as the best means of stopping his licentious freak.

The story was absolutely untrue; but the certainty that it had been conveyed to the King [Footnote: An accidental meeting of the King with Clarendon's eldest son, Lord Cornbury, at the door of Miss Stuart's lodging, contributed, it is said, to the King's belief of the Chancellor's agency in the matter. Ludlow can have had no personal knowledge of the circ.u.mstances. But he does not scruple to describe the marriage as a contrivance of Clarendon, "that old Volpone." Volpone was a character in one of Ben Jonson's plays.] induced Clarendon to write to Charles a letter which might well have stirred remorse even in a heart as hardened by selfishness as his--

"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY,

"I am so broken under the daily insupportable instances of your Majesty's terrible displeasure, that I know not what to do, hardly what to wish. The crimes which are objected against me, however pa.s.sionately soever pursued, and with circ.u.mstances very unusual, do not in the least degree fright me.

G.o.d knows I am innocent in every particular as I ought to be; and I hope your Majesty knows enough of me to believe that I had never a violent appet.i.te for money that could corrupt me. But, alas! your Majesty's declared anger and indignation deprives me of the comfort and support even in my own innocence, and exposes me to the rage and fury of those who have some excuse for being my enemies; whom I have sometimes displeased, when (and only then) your Majesty believed them not to be your friends. I hope they may be changed, I am sure I am not, but have the same duty, pa.s.sion, and affection for you that I had when you thought it most unquestionable, and which was and is as great as ever man had for any mortal creature. I should die in peace (and truly I do heartily wish that G.o.d Almighty would free you from further trouble, by taking me to Himself) if I could know or guess at the ground of your believing that I have said or done somewhat, I have neither said nor done. If it be for anything my Lord Berkeley hath reported, which I know he hath said to many, though being charged with it by me he did as positively disclaim it; I am as innocent in that whole affair, and gave no more advice or counsel or countenance in it, than the child that is not born; which your Majesty seemed once to believe, when I took notice to you of the report, and when you considered how totally I was a stranger to the persons mentioned, to either of whom I never spake a word, or received message from either in my life. And this I protest to your Majesty is true, as I have hope in Heaven; and that I have never wilfully offended your Majesty in my life, and do upon my knees beg your pardon for any overbold or saucy expressions I have ever used to you; which, being a natural disease in old servants who have received too much countenance, I am sure hath always proceeded from the zeal and warmth of the most sincere affection and duty.

"I hope your Majesty believes, that the sharp chastis.e.m.e.nt I have received from the best natured and most bountiful master in the world, and whose kindness alone made my condition these many years supportable, hath enough mortified me as to this world; and that I have not the presumption or the madness to imagine or desire ever to be admitted to any employment or trust again. But I do most humbly beseech your Majesty, by the memory of your father, who recommended me to you with some testimony, and by your own gracious reflection upon some one service I may have performed in my life, that hath been acceptable to you; that you will by your royal power and interposition put a stop to this severe prosecution against me, and that my concernment may give no longer interruption to the great affairs of the Kingdom; but that I may spend the small remainder of my life, which cannot hold long, in some parts beyond the seas, never to return, where I will pray for your Majesty, and never suffer the least diminution in the duty and obedience of,

"May it please your Majesty,

"Your Majesty's most humble and most obedient subject and servant,

"CLARENDON.

"_From my house this 16th of November._"

To our ears these words have something of exaggerated humility; as a fact they only clothe in the formal language of the day, that overflowing and sincere loyalty which Clarendon wore on a background of indomitable pride.

That pride was so fundamental, that the high-sounding adulation is made almost more palpable by the evident restraint which he places upon his underlying indignation. His love for the King was honestly felt; but it was the fruit only of long past memories, of the tenderest a.s.sociations of his life, of his profound reverence for his first master. 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. "Withdraw your charges, and I shall free you of my presence, conscious of my own innocence; but do not expect that I shall slip away like a scared criminal to avoid the consequences of my guilt, or that your cowardly hints have power to move me."

Charles was free to accept the letter as a pa.s.sionate appeal from a loyal servant to all that there was of self-respect and honour in his breast. If he so accepted it, he acted as only the boundless selfishness of cynicism could have suggested. He read the letter, held it over a candle until it was consumed, and then calmly said that he wondered that the Chancellor did not withdraw himself. But, indeed, we can scarcely doubt that the King was astute enough to see that the letter was, in truth, a note of defiance. If he was to play the craven, Charles was bid to play it in the light of day. To such a master of shuffling and evasion, the clear-sighted determination which made Clarendon insist upon a point of form in demanding an open order to depart, and which compelled his refusal to allow a triumph to his foes, might well seem incomprehensible. The result was only that Clarendon was besieged with new suggestions that he should escape, by a flight which it was more than hinted would be connived at.

Charles's unkingly task was to bring about by hint and stratagem, what he was not man enough to prescribe by order. He satisfied Clarendon's enemies by openly proclaiming his anger at the Chancellor's delays; he kept up a pretence of compunction to Clarendon's friends, and begged them to persuade him how wise and prudent flight would be.

Herbert Croft, now Bishop of Hereford, was one of the emissaries of the King. [Footnote: Croft belonged to a Roman Catholic family of some importance. He had first been educated at St. Omer's, although afterwards he was admitted to the Anglican Church, and became an object of Laud's special patronage. This naturally secured to him the favour of Clarendon, and, as a fact, Clarendon informs us that he had placed Croft under heavy obligations. But the friends.h.i.+p had not continued. In later years Croft showed lat.i.tudinarian tendencies in his writings, which may have been apparent in his conversation at an earlier date, and may well have alienated Clarendon. The fact, however, that Croft belonged to a family of high rank and large possessions may still more probably have induced him to feel jealous of the quick rise of the more plebeian Edward Hyde, and may have bred ill-will between them.] He was no pleasing agent to Clarendon. He was not churchman only, but also an aristocrat, of great wealth, whose jealousy of Clarendon's newly acquired rank had made him, like Seymour, keen to reduce the pride of one whom he deemed an upstart, and led him to show ingrat.i.tude for Clarendon's early patronage. He sought an interview with the Chancellor, through Clarendon's early and trusted friend, George Morley, now Bishop of Winchester. He explained his mission with all the awkwardness of one who had a double part to play. "He had good authority for what he had to say." But he shunned any mention of the King's name, until his more candid brother, the Bishop of Winchester, blurted out, to Croft's annoyance, his previous confession to the Bishop that he came by the orders of the King. He could not contradict the other, but could only repeat that he could not be so mad as to interpose without authority. The Chancellor was meant to infer the truth, but he was to have no express a.s.surance of it. All Croft could say was "that if Clarendon would withdraw himself beyond the seas, he would pledge 'his own salvation,' that no interruption to his journey would be given."

The Chancellor was inconveniently deaf to innuendoes. If he had the commands of the King, or clear evidence that the King desired it, he would face even the discredit of retreat. Without such orders or such a.s.surance, he would consult his own honour, and abide the issue. Clarendon was determined to play only with the cards upon the table. Croft fell back upon his former subterfuge, and at length it was agreed that Clarendon should have a pa.s.s under the royal warrant which would ensure him against misconstruction. So the interview ended.

But he had not sounded the depths of Charles's cowardice. Word came that the King could not grant the pa.s.s; it would incense the Parliament; he could not face the risk that he asked his aged and discarded servant to run. Clarendon held to his former resolution. He would not obey even his sovereign in a trick. His decision may have been stubborn and ill-advised; it was at least courageous. His friends vainly sought to bend his will.

Ruvigny, the new French amba.s.sador, who had come to deal with Clarendon as first Minister, in his master's affairs, and had soon discerned his altered situation, sent word to him of the intrigues he found at Court, and advised his withdrawal to France, where he would find a ready welcome.

Clarendon remained immovable; and all the bl.u.s.ter of enemies, like Seymour, who swore that the mob would wreak their vengeance on Clarendon's adherents, failed to crush hia will. With a pardonable triumph, Clarendon tells us how he scorned to take a mean advantage which offered itself against his adversaries. Arlington had made many enemies by his insolence, and Coventry was deeply involved in charges of malversation in dealing with the monies of the navy, and in selling offices in the Admiralty.

Clarendon's friends urged him to divert the storm from himself by betraying the misdeeds of these his foes. The suggestion was made in vain.

"No provocation," he declared, "should dispose him to do anything which would not become him." These men were Privy Councillors, and of what he saw amiss in them, he could inform the King. It was no business of his to protect his own innocence by counter charges. He would leave them to their fate. He would neither cower before the storm, nor divert it by spreading scandal against others.

It seemed as if the deadlock between the two Houses, and the tortuous twistings of the King and the angry faction that had acquired his confidence, had come to an insoluble entanglement.

The knot was at length loosed by the Duke of York's intervention. James had now recovered from an attack of small-pox, which had temporarily laid him aside, and he received the personal commands of the King to "advise the Chancellor to be gone." The Duke had no alternative but to convey this message, through the Bishop of Winchester, to Clarendon. The King had yielded to Clarendon's terms, so far as to send, through his brother, what was next to a personal order. Hyde, however reluctant, had no alternative but to obey. On the night of November 29th, he took coach, with two servants only. A boat was ready for him at Erith, and he there embarked.

He had a stormy pa.s.sage, which lasted three days and nights, and, sorely against his will, as he knew the evil construction that would arise from his resting on French soil, he was compelled to land at Calais.

When the Chancellor left, he deemed it right in the interests of his own honour, to leave a letter of explanation, which was read to the House of Lords by the Earl of Denbigh. [Footnote: An early friends.h.i.+p, long interrupted by estrangement during the Civil War, perhaps accounted for Clarendon's choice of an intermediary. Basil Feilding, in age a contemporary of Clarendon, was the son of William Feilding, whose marriage to the sister of the first Duke of Buckingham had procured him advancement at Court and high rank in the peerage as Earl of Denbigh. That Earl had joined the Royalist forces, and died of wounds received in battle in 1643.

His son had, in 1628, been called to the House of Lords as Lord Feilding; but for some reason, in spite of his antecedents, and the strong remonstrances of his family, he joined the side of the Parliament, and became one of their leading commanders. When Commissioner at Uxbridge, in 1645, he renewed his old intercourse with Hyde, who formed a high estimate of his abilities, and Denbigh explained to Hyde his desire to get rid of his present allies, and do something for the royal cause. "If any conjunction fell out," he said, "in which by losing his life he might preserve the King, he would embrace the occasion, otherwise he would s.h.i.+ft the best he could for himself" (_Hist. of Rebellion_, viii. 246). He was one of several peers whose pride was wounded, and whose resentment against Parliament was aroused, by the injury to their own order. He took no part in the King's trial, and gradually withdrew from the Parliamentary side. In 1660, he managed to prove himself of sufficient use to the Royalists, to secure indemnity, and a certain degree of favour. He retained enough of his former reputation as an ally of Parliament to be characterized by Ludlow as "a generous man, and a lover of his country."]

It grieved him, he said, that he should be the cause of difference between the two Houses, and of obstruction to the business of the King. It was his misfortune to stand accused of two charges, neither of which had any foundation: that he had enriched himself wrongfully, and that he had been sole and chief Minister, and was thus responsible for all miscarriages. As to the first, he could only avow that he had received nothing, except by the bounty of the King, beyond the lawful perquisites of his office, as regulated by the traditions of the best holders of that office. For no courtesies or favours, of which he had been the medium, had he ever received as much as five pounds. He was now more than 20,000 in debt, and, when his debts were paid, his estate was not worth two thousand a year. All that he possessed did not amount to what the King in his bounty had granted him--the gift of 20,000 when he first came over; 6000 from the Crown estates in Ireland, and a yearly allowance to supplement the scanty profits of his office. As Minister, he had only shared power and responsibility with others; and it was notorious that, after the dismissal of Secretary Nicholas, his influence had been greatly diminished. The new appointments to the Privy Council had been, none of them, given to his intimates, and many of them had gone to his most implacable enemies. As for the mischief of the war, it had been undertaken against his earnest advice, and his efforts to negotiate alliances, and to introduce order into the conduct of the war, had been thwarted by the very men who now charged him with the results of their own misdeeds. The conduct of foreign affairs rested, not with him, but with the secretaries: and so far from having been sole Minister, his advice had, of recent years especially, been often opposed, solely because it was his. The storm now raised against him was due only to his having discharged his duty without fear or favour. He closes with these dignified words--

"This being my present condition, I do most humbly beseech your lords.h.i.+ps to retain a favourable opinion of me, and to believe me to be innocent from those foul aspersions, until the contrary shall be proved: which I am sure can never be by any man worthy to be believed. And since the distemper of the time, and the difference between the two Houses in the present debate, with the power and malice of my enemies, who give out that I shall prevail with his Majesty to prorogue or dissolve this Parliament in displeasure, and threaten to expose me to the rage and fury of the people, may make me looked upon as the cause which obstructs the King's service, and the unity and peace of the kingdom; I humbly beseech your lords.h.i.+ps, that I may not forfeit your favour and protection, by withdrawing myself from so powerful a persecution, in hopes I may be able, by such withdrawing, hereafter to appear and make my defence, when his Majesty's justice, to which I shall always submit, may not be obstructed or controlled by the power and malice of those who have sworn my destruction."

Not now only, but in the later years of his lonely banishment, Clarendon's unbending courage saved him from despair, and he continued to hope for brighter days. [Footnote: In his preface to his commentary on the Psalms, addressed to his children, in 1670, he still hopes "that I shall yet outlive this storm."] But he underrated the rancour and the twistings of his enemies. The very men who had used every device to force him to retire, and who knew that he was at Calais, now hypocritically urged that the ports should be stopped, and pretended to be eager for his apprehension. The Commons urged that he should be committed, in absence, on the general charge of treason. The Lords declined to accede to their request, and, in impotent revenge, the Commons resolved that his apology should be publicly burned by the hangman. In this innocuous resolution the Lords were persuaded to concur.

From Calais Clarendon addressed the following memorable letter to the University of Oxford:--

"GOOD MR. VICE-CHANCELLOR,

"Having found it necessary to transport myself out of England, and not knowing when it will please G.o.d that I shall return again, it becomes me to take care that the University may not be without the service of a person better able to be of use to them, than I am like to be. And I do therefore hereby surrender the office of Chancellor into the hands of the said University, to the end that they may make choice of some other person better qualified to a.s.sist and protect them than I am. I am sure he can never be more affectionate towards it. I desire you as the last suit I am like to make to you, to believe that I do not fly my country for guilt, and how pa.s.sionately soever I am pursued, that I have not done anything to make the University ashamed of me, or to repent the good opinion they once had of me. And though I must have no further mention in your public devotions, which I have always exceedingly valued, I hope I shall always be remembered in your private prayers, as, good Mr. Chancellor,

"Yours, etc., "CLARENDON. "Calais, Dec. 17, 1667."

Archbishop Sheldon, his life-long friend, was elected as his successor.

Clarendon stayed on at Calais, at a loss where he should turn. He knew the suspicions which he might arouse, if he resorted to Paris, and meanwhile wrote to the Earl of St. Albans, and desired to know whether he might proceed to Rouen. The Earl of St. Albans acted as the representative of the Queen Dowager, [Footnote: To whom he was generally believed to be married.] and from her Clarendon could scarcely expect a cordial welcome.

St. Albans' reply was cold, but Clarendon learned both from him, and from the Minister Louvois, that he had full permission to proceed to Rouen. At first he received all courteous attention from the representatives of the French Court. His only desire was to reach some mild climate before the rigour of winter, which he was in no condition to sustain, should set in.

With all proper respect and escort, he pa.s.sed on to Boulogne; from thence to Montreuil, and next day to Abbeville. On Christmas Eve he reached Dieppe, within a day's journey of Rouen. The gates of Dieppe were opened at an unusually early hour next morning, at his request, to allow him to begin that journey betimes. But, before he reached Rouen, a change had come in his treatment by the French authorities. As he approached the halting-place about noon, he was stopped by a gentleman on horseback, who inquired whether "the Chancellor of England was in the coach," and, on learning that he was, presented to him a letter from the French King, desiring him to follow the directions which the bearer would give him.

These were, that his presence in France might occasion a breach between the Crowns; that he was to make what speed he could to quit the dominions of the king; and the bearer was to escort him, for his accommodation, until he saw him out of France.

Clarendon was sorely perplexed by this unexpected message, which was explained by the negotiations now on foot between the French and English Crowns. It was with difficulty that he persuaded his appointed escort to accompany him to Rouen, rather than return to Dieppe, which the escort would have preferred as the shortest way out of France. The journey to Rouen was a hard one, and the Chancellor was bruised by repeated overturnings of the coach. He was in no state to make forced journeys, and begged time to write to Paris, and ask for less stringent orders. With difficulty this small concession was obtained. But the reply from the French Court only brought more peremptory orders to expedite his departure. His health was now grievously broken. The severity of the weather, the rapidity of his journeys under the most trying conditions, above all, the anxieties and perplexities of his position, had brought on an aggravated attack of the gout, and he was unable either to stand or walk. Again he pleaded for that delay and consideration which even the most meagre courtesy and the barest humanity regard as the prerogative of the sick. He had no wish to linger on the inhospitable soil of France, and desired only to reach Avignon, so that he might be beyond the King's boundary; but he begged at least to be allowed to rest at Orleans. The reply was barbarous in its peremptoriness. "His Majesty was much displeased that he had not made more haste; if he chose to pa.s.s to Avignon, he might rest one day in ten, which was all his Majesty would allow."

Meanwhile the virulence of his enemies at home was as relentless as the barbarity of the French Court. The party which still adhered to him in both houses was sufficiently large to be formidable to his opponents, who could only feel themselves secure by his perpetual banishment. On the pretext that he had fled from justice, a Bill of Banishment was pa.s.sed through both Houses, by which he was p.r.o.nounced incapable of returning to the country unless he surrendered before February 1st. It might have been thought that it transcended even the bounds of Charles's s.h.i.+fty cowardice, to give his a.s.sent to a Bill which imposed a punishment on his late Minister, solely because he had done what the King commanded him to do.

But even to this depth the King descended. It was in vain that the Duke of York urged that it was the King's own order that betrayed Clarendon into making that escape from which his own judgment was so averse. Charles could only plead "that the condescension was necessary for his own good,"

and that he must compound with those who would else press for worse.

Charles shared in that fantastic pride of his family that often betrayed them to their fall; in him it was united with a depth of abas.e.m.e.nt to which only the selfish libertine could descend. What is strangest of all is, that a man guilty of such meanness should yet have attracted to himself such wealth of generous loyalty.

When the news arrived that the Bill of Banishment had received the King's a.s.sent, Clarendon resolved to make all haste back to England, before the appointed day. All thought of Avignon was abandoned, and, at the risk of his life, he pushed on to Calais. There he arrived on the last day of January, a broken, and, it might well appear, a dying man. He was carried helpless to bed, and there lay unable even to read the letters from England, and incapable of thought and of speech. Even the wretched emissary of the French Court, Le Fonde, was fain to leave him for a few days, on what seemed to be his death-bed; but fresh orders compelled him again to undertake the irksome task of harrying the sick-bed of a dying man. "He must leave town next day; a few hours would carry him into Spanish territory."

Clarendon's old heat of temper burst out once more. The conversation was in Latin, and the Chancellor's sick brain did not at once supply him with sufficient store of cla.s.sical phrases to express his wrath. At last he told the Court emissary "that he must bring orders from G.o.d Almighty, as well as from the King, before he could obey." The struggle still went on: on the one side, the unlucky envoy of the Court was compelled to pursue his degrading persecution; on the other hand, Clarendon and his physicians urged the murderous cruelty of the King's orders. At length, in a last burst of pa.s.sion, he told the King's messenger that, though the King was a great and powerful prince, he was not yet so omnipotent as to make a dying man strong enough to undertake a journey. The King might send him a prisoner to England, or carry his dead body into Spanish territory; but he would not be the author of his own death by undertaking a journey which was beyond his powers. Le Fonde was left to do his best to reconcile the ruthless orders of his master with Clarendon's resolute appeal to a power higher than that of kings.

But of a sudden the scene changed. The negotiations between England and France had failed, and the French Court no longer found themselves compelled to sacrifice courtesy, and even humanity, in order to conciliate a hopeful alliance. They had hara.s.sed Clarendon to please the English Court; they were now to pay him every courtesy in order to show their carelessness of English interests. The French Government had, perhaps, found that a common hatred of Clarendon was not an enduring bond amongst his enemies, and that the new administration of England rested on no very secure foundation. A letter now reached him from the French Minister, announcing that nothing was further from his Christian Majesty's wish than in any way to endanger his health. All France was open to him, and the King's subjects would have orders to pay him all honour. Le Fonde rejoiced at this relief from a thankless task. He came now to say that he was to attend the Chancellor, only to receive his orders.

This happy alteration relieved Clarendon of his worst anxieties. He was no longer a hunted fugitive, but an honoured guest. The rancour of his enemies in England, however bitter, had now spent its force, and he could despise it. His sons still held their places at Court. His household now attended him, and the savage provisions of the Act of Banishment no longer prevented the easy pa.s.sage of correspondence between Clarendon and his family and friends.

He was still grievously ill, and for six weeks more be was confined to bed. But as his health recovered he determined still to pa.s.s to Avignon, by way of Rouen, and to take a course of the waters of Bourbon on the way.

He was not prepared to place undue trust in the new-found courtesy of the French Court.

It was on April 3rd, 1668, that he was strong enough to begin his journey.

We are again reminded of the hards.h.i.+ps of travel in the France of the Grand Monarch, when we read of repeated overturnings of his coach, and of perils both by land and water that pursued the poor Chancellor, even under the careful escort of attentive Court messengers. It was not till April 23rd that he left Rouen, and the stay for the next day was at Evreux, where he had a most untoward experience. It chanced that a company of English sailors, who appear to have been serving as a mercenary troop of artillery in the French army, heard of the Chancellor's arrival. The drunken crowd got out of hand, and vague memories of the naval pay of which they had been bilked prompted them to take vengeance for old arrears upon the luckless Chancellor, whom they deemed responsible for all the misdeeds of the Admiralty. Old echoes of "Dunkirk House," and the ill- gotten gains of Ministers who fattened on the plunder of poor men, were doubtless ringing in their muddled heads.

It would be absurd to attribute any political meaning to the incident, or to suppose that it had any connivance from the French Government. The inn where Clarendon alighted was attacked by the riotous mob. The local magistrates were incapable of dealing with the riot, and were perplexed as to the limits of their jurisdiction. Clarendon's attendants made what defence they could, and Le Fonde, his former persecutor, and now his courteous escort, received a dangerous wound in his defence. It was like to go hard with the Chancellor himself. At the beginning of the fray, he was struck a violent blow on the head with the flat of a broadsword. The rioters used him with great violence, rifled his pockets and his baggage, and dragged him into the courtyard to dispatch him with their swords. Not a moment too soon, the commanding officer of the English sailors, with some magistrates and a guard, broke into the inn, and rescued Clarendon, when he seemed at the point of death. It looked as if his troubles were not over; the magistrates were ready to fight upon the question of their own jurisdiction, and would allow no one else to show that vigour of resistance to the rioters of which they were themselves incapable. It was only on Le Fonde's vigorous remonstrance, and his threats of the royal vengeance on their remissness, that proper steps were taken for the safety of the company. The Chancellor and his attendants obtained lodgings in the neighbouring castle of the Duc de Bouillon. Having escaped from the perils of the mob, Clarendon had to resist the equally dangerous designs of the French physicians, who wished to perform the operation of trepanning. With what haste he might, he pressed on to Bourbon, and, after some stay there, he reached Avignon in June, Such satisfaction as he could find, in the exemplary punishment of the rioters and in the gracious apologies of the King, was readily accorded by his hosts of France.

At Avignon he reached a haven of refuge, where he might rest from the troubled experiences of the year that was past. It had, indeed, been one of trial sufficient to test the staunchest courage. Within little more than twelve months, he had lost his oldest and most trusted colleague, Lord Southampton. His home had been made desolate by the death of his wife. He had seen the growing boldness of his enemies, had detected their ruthlessness in falsehood and in knavery, and had found that his loyalty to the Crown was to go for nothing, and that his trust in the honour of the King was based on no sound foundation. Against his own judgment, he had resigned the seal, in order that the King's business might prosper, and that the bitterness of his enemies might be a.s.suaged. When he had been persuaded to resign, he had found that his resignation was to be a new ground of triumph for his enemies, and that it was a foothold for a new attack. By the threat of prosecution they strove to drive him to fly, and when he refused to yield to their threats, they contrived to make the King the agent in their knavish schemes, and procured from him the peremptory message which made Clarendon quit the field. No sooner was he gone, than the very flight which they had contrived was made the ground of new accusations, and he was sentenced to perpetual banishment for avoiding a trial for which no summons had been issued, no indictment laid, no commitment made. Stricken down by illness, he could not meet their challenge by the date enjoined, and the beginning of February found him a proscribed exile, a persecuted fugitive, hounded from post to post, a stricken invalid, longing for the release of death. A few weeks brought some relief at least to the stout spirit that had borne so much. His enemies at home had sped their last bolt, and were fast becoming absorbed in their own sordid quarrels. The French King had abandoned the barbarity of which his own servants were ashamed, and addressed the honoured exile in terms of gracious and almost fulsome courtesy. That exile reached the haven of Avignon, to be received there not only without any of the annoyance of suspicious espionage, but with all the courtesies that could be paid to an honoured guest. The Vice-Legate and the Archbishop vied with one another in the formal stateliness of their reception. The consuls and the magistrates attended him with all ceremony, and paid him their service in a Latin oration. The Court of St. James's might reject him, but the high functionaries of European diplomacy accorded to him all that tribute of respect which was due to the man who had shaped the policy of the restored English monarchy, and had raised the standard of English statesmans.h.i.+p. Clarendon was not too proud to feel his sense of self- complacency flattered by such homage, and we like him none the less because he allows his satisfaction to appear.

Thus closes the political career which we have endeavoured to trace from its first beginnings, through the period of long and arduous struggle, amidst the clouds of exile and poverty, and once more in the full sun of a triumphant restoration, largely contrived by his wisdom, and dominated by his guiding hand. We have seen the disappointments that marred that triumph, and the ign.o.ble stain that smirched the ideal of a restored monarchy which he had formed. We have seen how, one by one, his cherished aims had been defeated, and how a King, the slave of selfish libertinism, and a Court, the scene of gross debauchery and undisguised corruption, had tempted him to despair of England. We have seen how high he bore himself amidst the degraded crew, and how boldly he attacked the scandals of the Court, and rebuked the craven self-indulgence of the King. We have marked how the various factions that felt uneasy under his sway, gradually coalesced into a rancorous opposition, that knew no bounds in the meanness of their intrigues, and in the barefaced falsehood of their accusations.

We have seen how the King stooped to be their instrument, and allowed himself to be the tool of their deceptions. Clarendon became an exile, and, after a brief period of inhuman persecution from a false view of diplomatic expediency, he received the homage of European Powers, as an honoured guest. In honouring him, they showed what they thought of England under the Cabal. Of what England lost in Clarendon, we can allow the sordid history that followed his fall to afford a sufficiently sure and graphic indication.

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. In the course of what seems to have been rather a riotous brawl, than an honourable duel--a brawl in which seconds as well as princ.i.p.als took part, and in which more than one life was lost--the King's First Minister killed Lord Shrewsbury, the husband of his paramour. The town was filled with the scandal, but by the personal influence of the King, it was withdrawn from the courts of law.

Buckhurst and Sedley, the chosen a.s.sociates of the King in his notorious bouts of drunken debauchery, roused disgust by a freak of sickening lewdness; the only result was the committal to prison, by the order of the Lord Chief Justice, and at the behest of the King, of the constable who interfered with the indecent escapade. We have a proof of the change that had come since Clarendon's controlling hand had gone, when we remember that some three years before, the same Buckhurst, for a similar outbreak of indecency, was rated in terms of scornful rebuke by the King's Bench Judges, and was bound over to good behaviour by a bond of 5000. The King's harem was augmented by a flower-girl, who had attracted attention on the stage, and was the discarded mistress of two of the King's a.s.sociates. Clarendon lamented what he had seen, as a sad lapse from dignity, a grievous fall from the ideals that he had hoped for. What followed was nothing but a carnival of mad obscenity. Samuel Pepys was no squeamish critic; but even he was moved to some earnestness of indignation at the foul orgies in which Charles and his new a.s.sociates indulged, in shameless publicity. As was natural, such advisers were no careful guardians of Parliamentary or popular liberty. What attention could be spared from debauchery was given to degrading compacts by which the King was to be the submissive pensioner of Louis; to plans for thwarting the prerogative of Parliament; to secret intrigues for subverting the Protestant religion. If the cost to England of his fall was to be measured by the depth of dishonour, and the flagrantly treasonable plots, of those who followed him, Clarendon was triumphantly vindicated, and his wrongs were amply avenged.

In spite of the cordiality of his reception, Clarendon did not find Avignon a desirable residence in the heat of summer. The streets had an ill savour "by the mult.i.tude of dyers and of silk manufactures, and the worse smell of the Jews," and he presently moved on to Montpelier, where he made a lengthened stay. His reception was as courteous as before, and this he ascribed to the good offices of Lord and Lady Mordaunt, old friends whom he recommends to the good offices of his children. "When any English came thither," he tells us, "none forbore to pay respect to the Chancellor"; and, with a certain pride, he records how Sir Richard Temple's refusal to visit Clarendon caused "a general aversion towards him," so that he was compelled to quit the town, where "he left behind him the reputation of a very vain, humorous, and sordid person." The good Chancellor was not above the human capacity of a very cordial hatred, or the inclination to feel piqued at a failure of kindly courtesy.

He was now at ease, and in peace of mind. His health, although undermined by long and painful illness, was sufficiently restored to enable him to indulge his old habits of intellectual activity. "It pleased G.o.d in a short time, after some recollections, and upon his entire confidence in Him, to restore him to that serenity of mind, and resignation of himself to the disposal and good pleasure of G.o.d, that they who conversed most with him could not discover the least murmur of impatience in him, or any unevenness in his conversations." Clarendon is none the less lovable, because a good conscience preserved for him his old self-complacency. His studies were again renewed. He made himself master of the French language so far as the reading of its literature was concerned. The power of speaking the language he, like many another, found "many inconveniences in." He made a competent progress also in Italian.