Burnet's History of my own time :

Front matter

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

Part I THE REIGN OF CHARLES THE SECOND

EDITED BY

OSMUND AIRY, M.A, LL.D.

IN TWO VOLUMES: Vol. II

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

M.DCCCC

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

BY HORACE HART, M.A.

PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

Preface

Very few words are needed by way of preface to this volume, which brings the new edition of Burnet to the dose of the reign of Charles II. But it may be pointed out that during the three years which have passed since the first volume was completed it has become evident how difficult it is to keep pace with the wealth of new material which is ever presenting itself, both in contemporary writings of the time and in the works of authors of the present day. When I mention for example that since the whole of the notes were in type the Montagu papers have been edited by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, and that Miss Foxcroft has published her laborious and very exhaustive work upon Halifax, I name only two out of many fresh sources of information which have seen the light during the progress of the book through the press.

To the last volume it was found necessary to add a somewhat crowded page of errata — chiefly in the spelling of proper names — and of addenda. It is hoped that the reader will not find cause for complaint upon this score in the present one, except that in the note on page 33 Sir George Croke should have been written for Sir John.

It had been intended to place in an Appendix the full text of Burnet's 'Characters' from the Harleian MSS., vi Preface.

which appear in an inaccurate and incomplete form in Ranke's sixth volume; and references to them will be found in a few notes. Subsequently however to the striking off of these notes in their final form the Delegates of the Clarendon Press have decided to incorporate these ' Characters ' with other material in a supplementaryvolume. The references must therefore be carried on to that volume.

OSMUND AIRY.

Ja7t. I, 1900.

THE HISTORY

MY OWN TIME

VOL. II.

THE

HISTORY OF MY OWN TIME

Book III

Of the rest of king Charles the second! s reign, from the year 1673 to the year 1685, in which he died.

Chapter I

THE TEST ACT. SECOND MARRIAGE OF JAMES. TREATY OF COLOGNE.

Hitherto the reign of king Charles was pretty serene Chap. I. and calm at home. A nation weary of a long civil war was not easily brought into jealousies and fears, which were the seeds of distractions, and might end in new confusions and wars. But the court had now given such broad intimations of an ill design both on our religion and the civil constitution, that it was no more a jealousy: all was now open and barefaced. In the king's presence the court flatterers were always magnifying absolute govern- 345 ment, and reflecting on the insolence of a house o commons. The king said once to the earl of Essex, as he told me, that he did not wish to be like a Grand Signior, with some mutes about him, and bags of bowstrings to strangle men as he had a mind to it : but he did not think he was a king, as long as a company of fellows were looking into all his actions, and examining his ministers as well as his accounts. He reckoned, now he had set the church party at such a distance from the dissenters, that it was impossible to make them join in opposition to his designs. He hoped the church party

B 3

Chap. I. would be always submissive, and he had the dissenters at mercy.

The proceedings of the former year had opened all men's eyes. The king's own religion was suspected, as his brother's was declared ^ : and the whole conduct shewed a design to govern by the French model. A French general was brought over to command our armies. Count Schomberg, who was a German by birth, but his mother was an English woman, was sent over^ He was a firm protestant, and served at first in Holland, but upon the prince of Orange's death he went into France, where he grew into so high a reputation, that he was kept under, and not raised to be a marshal, only on the account of his religion. He was a calm man, of great application, and conduct beyond what was expected by those who knew him on other occasions : for * he was too much a German in the liberties he allowed himself in entertainments '' ; but when he commanded armies, he kept himself to better

** as struck out. ** so he was a libertine in other pleasures^ struck out.

' Vol. i. 133, 297, notes. tions, ii. 221. Marvell notes his

^ Vol. i. 302, note. Monk, it Englishappointment thus: 'Monsieur

must be remembered, had died Schomberg, a French Protestant,

Jan. 3, 1670, Schomberg-, who had been made General, and Colonel

appears to have entered the French Fitzgerald, an Irish Papist, major

service in 1650, acquired his ' repu- general, as more proper for the

tation ' in Portugal, whose forces he secret ; the first of advancing the

directed against Spain, 1663-1665. French Government, the second of

He was in real, though not nominal, promoting the Irish religion.'

command at the great battle of Villa- Growth of Popery and Arbitrary

Viciosa, June 17, 1665, which com- Government (ed. Grosart), 293. At

pleted the military ruin of Spain, the same place he speaks of ' the

secured the independence of Por- dark hovering of the army at Black-

tugal, and was the proximate cause heath,' and hints that, if the naval

of the death of Philip IV. For this disasters had not upset all such

he was created Count of Mertola designs, it would have been em-

and Governor-General of Alentejo. ployed against London. Fitzgerald

Mignet, Documents relatifs, d-c, i. who had been deputy-governor of

are, 366 ; Portland MSS., vol. iii, Tangier, appears, however, to have

H. M. C. Rep. xiv, App. ii. 274. In taken the Test Act oath. See Letters

1674 he commanded the French to Sir Joseph Williamson (Camd.

army in Catalonia ; Spanish Negotia- Soc), i. 24.

rules. He thought much better than he spoke. He was a Chap. i. man of true judgment, | of great probity, and of an humble ^g^ and obliging temper : and at any other time of his Hfe he would have been very acceptable to the English. But now he was looked on as one sent over from France to bring our army under a French discipline : and so he was hated by the nation, and not much loved by the court. He was always pressing the king to declare himself the head of the protestant party. He pressed him likewise to bring his brother over from popery : but the king said to him, you know my brother long ago, that he is as stiff as a mulet. He liked the way of Charenton so well ■', that he went once a week to London to the French church there, that was according to that form. So the duke and Clifford looked on him as a presbyterian, and an unfit man for their purpose. The duke of Buckingham hated him, for he hoped to have commanded the army ^. And as an army is a very unacceptable thing to the English nation, so it became the more odious when commanded by a general sent over from France. Schomberg told me he saw it was impossible the king could bring any great design to a good effect: he loved his ease so much that he never minded business : and every thing that was said to him of affairs was heard 346 with so little attention, that it made no impression.

The ministry was all broke to pieces. The duke of Buckingham was alone, hated by all, and hating all the rest. But he went so entirely into all their ill designs, that the king considered him, and either loved or feared

' Charenton was the headquarters all the Churches of his Lieutenancy

of French Protestantism. See in Yorkshire, on designe to raise

Clarendon, Rebellion, vi. 184, xiii. his 700 men, but the people hearken

132-135, on the English ambassadors as little to his devotion as (I believe)

in France attending Huguenot ser- heaven to his prayers.' This is

vices there, and Charles II's attitude confirmed by Sir R. Verney, Vemey

in his exile. MSS., June 9, 1673. For the charac-

^ This is fully illustrated in the ters of the officers in this army,

Letters to Sir J. Williamson, i. See see Letters to Sir J. Williamson, 67.

the curious notice on p. 58 ; ' His Buckingham shortly resigned his

Grace of Bucks hath taken great commission; d. 106. pains, and the Sacrament almost in

Chap. I. him SO much, that he had a deep root with him. Lord

Clifford stuck firm to the duke, and was heated with the

design of bringing in popery, even to enthusiasm. It was believed, if the design had succeeded, he had agreed with his wife to take orders, and to aspire to a cardinal's hat. He grew violent, and could scarce speak with patience of the church of England and of the clergy. The earl of Arlington thought the design was now lost, and that it was necessary for the king to make up with his people in the best manner he could. The earl of Shaftesbury was resolved to save himself on any terms ^. The money was exhausted : so it was necessary to have a session of parliament. And one was called in the beginning of the year. At the opening it, the king excused the issuing out the writs ^, as done to save time, and to have a full house at the first opening : but he left that matter wholly to them : he spake of the declaration for liberty of conscience in another style : he said he had seen the good effects of it, and that he would stick to it, and maintain it. He said he was engaged in a war for the honour of the nation, and therefore he demanded the supplies that were necessary to carry it on. On these heads lord Feb. ^4, Shaftesbury enlarged ; but no part of his speech was more amazing than that, speaking of the war with the Dutch, he said, Delenda est Carthago. Yet, while he made a base complying speech in favour of the court and of the war, he was in a secret management with another party.

The house of commons was upon this all in a flame. They saw popery and slavery lay at the bottom ^. Yet, that they might not grasp at too much at once, they

' I heard the first Duke of Bolton which turned the discourse into a

say, that at this time the Duke of quarrel, that was made up before

Buckingham, Lord Shaftesbury, and they parted. D.

a great deal of company, dined at " Vol. i. 534, and Christie, Life

his house, and after they had drank of the First Earl of Shaftesbury, ii.

very freely, the Duke of Buckingham 12a.

began to tell some of their secrets, ^ Cf. vol. i. 552 note 2, and the

which Shaftesbury had no way to passage from Marvell there referred

prevent but by giving him the lie, to.

resolved effectually to break the whole design of popery. Chap. I. They argued the matter of the declaration, whether it was F^b~8 according to law, or not. It was plainly an annulling of ^67lthe penal laws made both against papists and dissenters. It was said, that though the king had a power of pardoning, yet he had not a power to authorize men to break laws : this must infer a power to alter the whole government. The strength of every law was the penalty laid upon offenders : and, if the king could secure offenders by indemnifying them beforehand, it was a vain thing to make laws ; since by that maxim they had no force but at the king's discretion. Those who pleaded for the 347 declaration pretended to put a difference between penal laws in spiritual matters and all others : and said that the king's supremacy seemed to give him a peculiar authority over these : by virtue of this it was, that the synagogue of the Jews and the Walloon churches ^ had been so long tolerated. But to this it was answered, that the intent of the law in asserting the | supremacy was only to exclude MS. i5'4. all foreign jurisdiction, and to lodge the whole authority with the king: but that was still to be bounded and regulated by law: and a difference was to be made between a connivance, such as that the Jews lived under, by which they were still at mercy, and a legal authority. The parliament had never disputed the legality of the patent for the Walloon congregations, that was at first granted to encourage strangers, professing the same religion, to come among us, when they were persecuted for it in their own country : which was at first granted only to strangers, but afterwards in the days of their children, who were natives, it had been made void : and now they were excepted by a special clause out of the act of uniformity. The house came quickly to a very unanimous resolution, that the declaration was against law^: and

1 See vol. i. 115 note; 127 note ; Francis W. Cross, 1898.

Hist, of the Walloon and Hugue- ^ Not unanimous. It was resolved

not Church at Canterbury (Hugue- by a majority of one hundred and

not Society's Publications, xv), by sixty-eight, to one hundred and six-

Chap. I. they set that forth in an address to the king, in which they

prayed that it might be called in. Some were studying to

divert this, by setting them on to inquire into the issuing out the writs. And the court seemed willing that the storm should break on lord Shaftesbury, and would have gladly compounded the matter by making him the sacrifice. He saw into that, and so resolved to change sides with the first opportunity. The house was not content with this :

March, but they brought in a bill disabling all papists from holding '^^' any employment or place at court, requiring all persons in public trust to receive the sacrament in a parish church, and to carry an attested certificate of that, with witnesses to prove it, into chancery, or the county sessions ; and there to make a declaration, renouncing transubstantiation in full and positive words. Great pains was taken by the court to divert this : they proposed that some regard might be had to protestant dissenters, and that their meetings might be allowed. By this means they hoped to have set them and the church party into new heats ; for now all were united against popery. Love, who served for the city of London, and was himself a dissenter, saw what ill effects any such quarrels might have : so he moved that an effectual security might be found against popery, and that nothing might interpose till that was done^. When

teen, ' that penal statutes in matters speech cried about in the streets in

ecclesiastical cannot be suspended his name,' 410, 1704, attributed to

but by act of parliament,' and this Charles Leslie, pp. 25, 26, is clearly

resolution was embodied in an ad- wrong. Love's speech of Feb. 15,

dress to the king. Pari. Hist. iv. 1672, is printed in Grey's Debates,

526. ' The old Cavaliers are as stout ii. 40, and in the Pari. Hist. iv. 536.

in this as the stoutest, and I may He is there recorded as asking that,

say forwarder than the forwardest.' so soon as the Test Act was passed.

Sir R. Verney, Verney MSS., Feb. dissenting ministers might preach

20, 167I. with the magistrate's leave; and he

* Burnet's statement concerning says nothing about Popeiy. In

Love, repeated in his speech on the the ' Bishop of Salisbury's Proper

Occasional Conformity Bill in 1704, Defence,' the writer says, ' They had

and contradicted in the reply to not a mind to have their toleration

that speech entitled ' The Bishop of stand upon the foot of the king's

Salisbury's proper defence from a dispensing power (i) because they that was over, then they would try to deserve some favour : Chap. i. but at present they were willing to lie under the severity of the laws, rather than clog a more necessary work with their concerns. The chief friends of the sects agreed to 348 this. So a vote passed to bring in a bill in favour of protestant dissenters, though there was not time enough, nor unanimity enough, to finish one during this session : for it went no farther than a second reading, but was dropt in the committee. But this prudent behaviour of theirs did so soften the church party, that there was no more votes nor bills offered at against them, even in that angry parliament, that had been formerly so severe upon them.

The court was now in great perplexity. If they gave way to the proceedings in the house of commons, there was a full stop put to the design for popery : and if they gave not way to it, there was an end of the war. The French "could not furnish the king with so much money as was necessary: and the shutting up the exchequer had put an end to all credit. The court tried what could be done in the house of lords. Lord Clifford resolved to assert the declaration, with all the force and all the arguments he could bring for it. He shewed the heads he

are no friends of Prerogative, (2) would propose. And the Alder- They thought it surer to have it by man, having tried, made his report Act of Parliament ; and they heartily very frankly, that truly they could endeavoured it, contrary to what agree to no terms, for that what this speech says, against all pro- one lilied another refused.' William bability of truth, that they would Love was elected for London, 1661 not so much as accept of it, and that (vol. i. 317 note); he was sheriff Alderman Love did stop the clause in 1659 '> Loftie, Hist, of London, ii. in favour of Dissenters which Lord 326. It was read a third time on Clifford got some to move. Whereas March 19, 167!. Pari. Hist. 571, Alderman Love did himself move in Commons Journals. The Lords' the House of Commons that they Amendments were discussed March would open their doors wider, to let 29, when Parliament was adjourned in Protestant Dissenters who were to Oct 20 and then proi-ogued to willing to come in upon reasonable Oct. 27, the bill being consequently terms. The House received the lost. During the debate Love remotion very readily, and gave pudiated all idea of claiming Church Alderman Love a fortnight's time preferments or even exemption from to know what terms the Dissenters tithes or parochial poor rates.

lo The History of the Reign

Chap. I. intended to speak on to the king, who approved of them, and suggested some other hints to him. He began the debate with rough words : he called the ^ bill sent up by'' the commons Monstrum horrendum ingens'^, and run on in a very high strain : he said all that could be said, with great heat, and many indecent expressions. When he had done, the earl of Shaftesbury^, to the amazement of the whole house, said, he must differ from the lord that spoke last toto ccelo. He said, while those matters were debated out of doors, he might think with others, that the supremacy, asserted as it was by law, did warrant the declaration : but now that such a house of commons, so loyal and affectionate to the king, were of another mind, he submitted his reason to theirs. They were the king's great council, that must both advise and support him: they had done it, and would do it still, if their laws and their religion were once secured to them. The king was all in fury to be thus forsaken by his chancellor : and told lord Clififord, how well he was pleased with his speech, and how highly he was offended with the other. The

MS. 175. debate went on, and upon a division the court | had the majority. But against that vote about thirty of the most considerable of the house protested. So the court saw they had gained nothing in carrying a vote, that drew after it such a protestation ^. This matter took soon after that a quick turn. It had been much debated in the cabinet

° substituted for vote of.

1 It was not now, but in the First Earl of Shaftesbury, ii. 140 ;

debate on the Test Act, that Clifford Dalrymple, i. 131 ; Ranke, iii. 551 ;

used these words. Cf. Christie, Colbert to Louis XIV, Nov. 20

First Earl of Shaftesbury, ii. 135, 1673.

137 ; Ranke, iii. 540 ; Colbert to ' Upon the untrustworthiness of

Louis XIV, March 22, 167I. Burnet's account of these events,

" Shaftesbury's change of front see Christie, 137 ; Dalrymple, i. 130-

was probably due to his finding out 137. Of the protest in the Lords

that he had been duped about the there is no mention in the Lords

Treaty of Dover (vol. i. 536-546), Journals, nor in Chandler's History

It is equally probable that Arlington and Proceedings of the House of

was his informant. See Christie, Lords.

of King Charles II. ii

what the king should do. Lord Clifford and duke Chap. I. Lauderdale were for the king's standing his ground^. Sir Ellis Leighton^ assured me that the duke of Buckingham and lord Berkeley offered to the king, if he would bring the army to town, that they would take out of both houses the members that made the opposition ; and he 349 fancied the thing might have been easily brought about, and that if the king would have acted with the spirit that he sometimes put on, they might have carried their business. Duke Lauderdale talked of bringing an army out of Scotland, and seizing on Newcastle ; and pressed this with as much vehemence, as if he had been able to have executed it*- Lord Clifford said to the king, his people did now see through all his designs,' and therefore he must resolve to make himself master at once, or be for ever subject to much jealousy and contempt. The earls of Shaftesbury and Arlington* pressed the king, on the other hand, to give the parliament full content: and they undertook to procure him money for carrying on the war: and, if he was successful in that, he might easily recover what he must in this extremity part with. This suited the king's own temper, yet the duke held him long in suspense. Colbert's brother, Croissy^, was then

' ' The Chancellor, the Treasurer, 1663 Lauderdale had created an

and the Dukes of Buckingham and army of 22,000 men, pledged to

Lauderdale, are of opinion to main- march when and where the king

tain this Declaration . . ; and that pleased in his dominions. See

if the Parliament persist in their re- vol. i. 368. There is little doubt that

monstrances ... to dissolve it and it was for possible use at a crisis like

call another. ... My Lord Arlington, this that it had been prepared,

who at present is single in his senti- * Halifax took an active part in

ments, says, that the king his debate on the same side ; infra iii.

master ought not to do it.' Colbert = Charles Colbert, Marquis de

to Louis XIV, March 9, 1673 ; Croissy (born 1625, died 1696), ar-

Dalrymple, i. 130. rived in England in August, 1668.

^ Upon Leighton, see vol. i. 243, His dispatches to Louis XIV, many

537, notes. He was a dependant of which are in Mignet, Negociations,

on Buckingham, and secretary to Dalrymple, and Forneron's Louise

Berkeley when Lord-Lieutenant of de Keroualle, are an indispensable

Ireland. authority. In 1679 he became

' It will be remembered that in Louis's minister of foreign affairs.

Chap. I. the French ambassador here. Lord Arlington possessed him with such an apprehension of the madness of violent counsels, and that the least of the ill effects they might have would be the leaving the war wholly on the French king, and that it would be impossible for the king to carry it on if he should run to such extremities, as some were driving him to, at home, that he gained him both to press the king and his brother to comply with the parliament, and to send an express to his own master, representing the whole matter in the light in which lord Arlington had set it before him i- In the afternoon of the day in which the matter had been argued in the house of lords, the earls of Shaftesbury and Arlington got all those members of the house of commons on whom they had any influence, and who had money from the king, and were his spies, but had leave to vote with the party against the court, for procuring them the more credit, they got them to go privately to him, and to tell him that upon lord Clifford's speech the house was in such fury, that probably they would have gone to some high votes and impeachments, but that lord Shaftesbury, speaking on the other side, restrained them. They believed he spoke the king's sense, as the other did the duke's. This calmed them. So they made the king apprehend that the lord chancellor's speech, with which he had been so much offended, was really a great service to him : and they persuaded him further, that he might now save himself, and obtain an indemnity for his ministers, if he would part with the declaration, and pass the bill. This was so dexterously managed by lord Arlington, who got a great number of the members to go one after another to the king, who by concert spake all the same language, that 350 before night the king was quite changed, and said to his brother that lord Clifford had undone himself, and had

His letters on the Treaty of Nime- ' See Colbert's dispatch of March

guen, with those of D'Estrades and ^, 167I, in confirmation of this.

D'Avaux, were printed at the Hague Dalrymple, i. 135. in i^io, in 3 vols.

spoiled their business by his mad speech ; and that though Chap, i, lord Shaftesbury had spoke as a rogue, yet that had stopt a fury which the indiscretion of the other had kindled to such a degree, that he could serve him no longer. He gave him leave to let him know all this. The duke was struck with this ; and imputed it wholly to lord Arlington's management. In the evening he told lord Clifford what t he king had said. The other, who was naturally a vehement man, went to the king upon it, who scarce knew how to look him in the face. Lord Clifford said, he knew how many enemies he must needs make to himself by his speech in the house of lords: but he hoped that in it he both served and pleased the king, and was therefore the less concerned in every thing else : but he was surprised to find by the duke that the king was now of another mind. The king was in some confusion : he owned that all he had said was right in it self: but he said that he, who sat long in the house of commons, should have considered better what they could bear, and what the necessity of his affairs required. Lord Clifford in his first heat was inclined to have laid down his white staff, and to have expostulated roundly with the king ; but a cooler thought stopped him. He reckoned he must now retire, and therefore he had a mind to take some care of his family in the way of doing | it : so he restrained himself, and said he MS. 176. was sorry that his best meant services were so ill understood. Soon after this letters came from the French king, pressing the king to do all that was necessary to procure money of his parliament, since he could not bear the charge of the war alone. He also writ to the duke, and excused the advice he gave upon the necessity of affairs; but promised faithfully to espouse his concerns, as soon as he got out of the war, and that he would never be easy till he recovered that which he was now forced to let go. Some parts of these transactions I had from the duke and from duke Lauderdale: the rest that related to the lord Clifford, Titus told me, he had it from his own mouth.

H

Chap. I. As soon as lord Clifford saw he must lose the white staffs, he went to the duke of Buckingham, who had contributed much to the procuring it to him, and told him he brought him the first notice that he was to lose that place, to which he had helped him, and that he would assist him to procure it to some of his friends. After they had talked round all that were in any sort capable of it, and had found great objections to every one of them, they at last pitched on sir Thomas Osborn, a gentleman of Yorkshire, whose estate was much sunk^. He was a very plausible speaker, but too copious, and could not easily make an end of his 351 discourse^. He had been always among the high cavaliers: and missing preferment, he had opposed the court much *,