"March 20, 1662.-The Bishop of Exeter to the Earl of Bristol.* "MOST NORLE LORD,—I was infinitely surprised yesterday in the prince's lodgings, both with the admiration of your knowledge of that great arcanum, and with the most generous expressions of your lordship's esteeme and favour for me. In both which I doe the more rejoice, because they have given me an oportunity to bee known, under a character not ordinary to a person whom, of all men living, I have, at my distance, esteemed one of the most accomplished by nature, education, experience, and generous actions. Nor doe I find hym (as I have two other persons,†) looking with any oblique or envious eye upon that which was the effect of a just and generous royalty. "I cannot imagine what key your lordship hath of this cabinet, unlesse the King or royall Duke have lent you theirs. Nor am I curious to inquire If I may have the favour, at your best leisure, to wait on your lordship, I shall more amply tell you how much I have of gratitude and honour for you, whose eminent lustre hath condescended to owne hym whom some men have banished to soe great an obscurity as is much relieved by this confidence you have given me to write myself, my Lord, your most humble servant, Jo. ExoN. "March 20, 1661." "March 26, 1662.-The Same to the Same.‡ "MY LORD,—The venerable Bishop of Winchester hath this morning (March 26) left all human affairs. How far your noblenes shall see fit to make use of the occasion, I leave to your great wisdom. . . . . . . I cannot but be confident that hys Majesty will doe what is worthy of hys father's glory and hys own greatnes; nor could I wish a more effectual intercessor than your lordship, in whom are all those completions which advance men to the love and high esteeme of the better world.' ..... "March 27, 1662.-The Same to the Same.§ "RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MOST NOBLE LORD, -As I am most confident of hys Majestie's gracious favour, oft confirmed to me by hys royall word and promise, soe I shall in all things endeavour to acquiesce in hys good pleasure... "But, my lord, I see that noe desert is sufficient to redeeme men from those difficulties which attend human affaires, especially when agitated in princes' courts" .... "March 31, 1662.-The Same to the Same.|| "MY MOST NOBLE LORD,-The address of this is only to enquire of your lordship's health, for which I am very solicitous, not more for my private than the publique concernes...... When I have payd this respect to your lordship's health, I am further a debtor to your lordship for your last very noble and kind letter, expressing soe great a zeale for my interest. . . . . . Yf I have not the favour of those from whom I have merited, I shall of hym from whom noe man can properly merit. I suppose things are already concluded against mee at court; possibly there will be such a preterition, as neither Winchester, nor Worcester, nor the Lord Almoner's place, will be bestowed upon mee. Yet I shall ever remain, your Lordship's most humble and thankful servant, "Easter Monday." Jон. Exоn. * Ibid. (No. XII.) "He means Clarendon and Morley. So likewise below, 'some men have banished.' Ibid. (No. XII.) § Ibid. (No. XIV.) Ibid. (No. XV.) 'May 1, 1662.-The Same to the Same.* MY VERY NOBLE LORD,-There are no eyes I more justly dread than yours for the acuteness and perspicuity, yet none to which I more willingly present, or more ambitiously study to approve myself, and what I do. . . . . "My Lord, this I write not out of any meanness of spirit, which is beneath your lordship and myself. . . . . . But I cannot forbear to assure your lordship how high a value, honour, and (if you give me leave,) love, I have for your lordship. . . . . I would not willingly be at distance from you, nor can I chearfully differ from you in any thing, because I presume your lordship takes nothing upon trust, but brings all to the test of reason, and religion, justice, and honour. "Upon the occasion of this petty piece of charity to quakers, I have declared my latitude and indulgence to all sober dissenters from the settled religion of the nation. It is but a scheme rough drawn as yet; a better hand may so polish and complete it, as it will fit not only the public interest of peace, but the private of men's consciences and different persuasions, which they desire to enjoy without trouble, while they give no offence or perturbation to the public. Certainly religion makes the best of men: and I shall ever think there is most divinity where there is most humanity; which is, as the beams of the sun in the moon, a weaker reflection of divine glory in human nature. . . Where men agree in the morals and main substances of religion, they cannot be at any great, rude, or unkind distance, as to lesser opinions. My Lord, no man more passionately deplores the divisions of Christendom; none more studious of truths which tend to peace and holiness.. .. My Lord, since you profess to own some ground of your favour to me, which I never intended you should be conscious of, let me ever enjoy it till I forfeit it by unhandsome actions; and then, however I may be less in their esteem whom I sought to oblige, yet I shall never think myself undervalued, since I enjoy a place of repute and honour in so noble a breast, so great an arbitrator in what is generous and comely, whose chidings shall be more welcome than other men's commendations to "Your Lordship's most humble servant, "May 1, 1662.” JOHN EXON. May 20, 1662.—From Dr. Pett to the Lord Primate [ Bramhall].† "I have nothing more of importance to acquaint your grace with, but the belief and observation of several knowing persons here concerning the Lord Chancellor's interest being in a declining condition. My Lord of Bristol‡ is every day more and more adored by people, as judging him to grow daily more the king's favourite; which lord did lately, and that not very privately, at Whitehall, (as I have it from very good hands,) speak against the chancellor before the king, using these words, 'When your majesty was first restored, there was an universal current of the affections of the people that ran strongly towards you; your majesty was then in a condition to have been an arbitrator of all the public controversies in Christendom; and you were in a capacity of having with ease greater revenues, and a fuller exchequer, than ever any king of England had but the variety of discontents among the people is now too notorious; and we are not formidable to other parts of the world; and the dearth of money requisite for your majesty's affairs is but too apparent; and these mischiefs we must and will charge upon your minister of state, the chancellor.' Whereupon the king was not observed to check the Earl of Bristol for that liberty of speech, or to vindicate the chancellor. Sir Harry Bennet, who is lookt on as no good friend of the chancellor, is likewise lookt on to be grown : * Ibid. (No. XVI.) Rawdon Papers, pp. 164, 165. Burnet says, ' He was set at the head of the popish party, and was a violent enemy of the Earl of Clarendon." Note in "Rawdon Papers." [Vid. sup. p. 153.] of late as great a favourite as any is. He is reported shortly to be made Earl of Monmouth. The presbyterians generally are angry with the Lord Chancellor for not having done no more for them, and others are for having done so much. As I take no delight in mentioning things of this nature to others, so I would not but communicate them to your grace. . . London, May 20, 1662." "There was a great debate in council, a little before St. Bartholomew'sday, whether the Act of Uniformity should be punctually executed or not. . . . Sheldon. . . . pressed the execution of the law; England was accustomed to obey laws, so, while they stood on that ground, they were safe, and needed fear none of the dangers that seemed to be threatened: he also undertook to fill all the vacant pulpits that should be forsaken in London, better and more to the satisfaction of the people than they had been before; and he seemed to apprehend that a very small number would fall under the deprivation, and that the gross of the party would conform. On the other hand, those who led the party took great pains to have them all stick together; they infused it into them, that if great numbers stood out that would shew their strength, and produce new laws in their favour; whereas they would be despised, if, after so much noise made, the greater part of them should conform. So it was thought that many went out in the crowd to keep their friends company. . . . "After St. Bartholomew's-day, the dissenters, seeing both court and parliament was so much set against them, had much consultation together what to do. Many were for going over to Holland, and settling there with their ministers; others proposed New England, and the other plantations. Upon this, the Earl of Bristol drew to his house a meeting of the chief papists in town; and after an oath of secresy he told them, now was a proper time for them to make some steps towards the bringing in of their religion: in order to that, it seemed advisable to take pains to promise favour to the nonconformists. . . . They were the rather to bestir themselves to procure a toleration for them in general terms, that they themselves might be comprehended within it. The Lord Aubigny seconded the motion; he said, it was so visibly the interest of England to make a great body of the trading men stay within the kingdom, and be made easy in it, that it would have a good grace in them to seem zealous for it; and, to draw in so great a number of those who had been hitherto the hottest against them, to feel their care, and to see their zeal to serve them, he recommended to them to make this the subject of all their discourses, and to engage all their friends in the design. Bennet§ did not meet with them, but was known to be of the secret.. "The king was so far prevailed on by them, that, in December, 1662, he set out a declaration, that was generally thought to be procured by the Lord Bristol; but it had a deeper root, and was designed by the king himself.|| In it the king expressed his aversion to all severities on the account of religion, but more particularly to all sanguinary laws; and gave hopes, both to papists and nonconformists, that he would find out such ways for tempering the severities of the laws, that all his subjects should be easy under them. The wiser of the nonconformists saw at what all this was aimed, and so received it coldly; but the papists went on more warmly.... When the Earl of Bristol's declaration was proposed in council, Lord Clarendon and the bishops opposed "He was made Earl of Arlington."-Note in "Rawdon Papers." [It has been proved that the papists actively, though covertly, promoted this for their own objects. See Lathbury's History of Popery and Jesuitism in England. J [The popish secretary of state, vid. sup. p. 152.] [A papist.] And drawn by Gauden, vid. sup.] it; but there was nothing in it directly against law, hopes being only given of endeavours to make all men easy under the king's government; so it passed. The Earl of Bristol carried it as a great victory; and he, with the Duke of Buckingham, and all Lord Clarendon's enemies, declared openly against him... "The church party was alarmed at all this; and though they were unwilling to suspect the king or the duke, yet the management for popery was so visible, that in the next session of parliament, the king's declaration was severely arraigned, and the authors of it were plainly enough pointed at. This was done chiefly by the Lord Clarendon's friends; and at this the Earl of Bristol was highly displeased, and resolved to take all possible methods to ruin the Earl of Clarendon. ... .. [He] "resolved to offer articles of impeachment against the Earl of Clarendon to the House of Lords. . . . It was of a very mixed nature; in one part he charged the Lord Clarendon with raising jealousies, and spreading reports of the king's being a papist; and yet in the other articles he charged him with corresponding with the court of Rome, in order to the making the Lord Aubigny a cardinal, and several other things of a very strange nature. As soon as he put it in, he, it seems, either repented of it, or at least was prevailed with to abscond. He was ever after looked upon as a man capable of the highest extravagances possible..... Proclamations went out for discovering him, but he kept out of the way till the storm was over. The parliament expressed a firm resolution to maintain the Act of Uniformity."* SACRED POETRY. RESIGNATION. WHO would recall the self-same round of days, The ghosts of hours departed, sweeping by No! where grief deeply drinks, the heart will spring Of Change, and Time, and Earth; there's not a soul For ever to its dreams, down to the tomb, Bright though the hopes that, when our heart was young, Are dull compared with those mere common things * Burnet's Own Time, vol. i. pp. 212–218. |