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 he delivered at his public audience was written for him by Carleton and delivered totidem verbis. When the duke returned to England, Carleton accompanied him, and was at once rewarded for his long services by being made vice-chamberlain of the household and a member of the privy council; but in a few weeks he was again despatched, in concert with the Earl of Holland, on an extraordinary embassy to France. The mission proved abortive; Richelieu had a policy, Charles had none, and the two ambassadors returned in March 1626, having effected little or nothing. When Carleton landed in England, he found the House of Commons occupied with the impeachment of Buckingham. He had been elected in his absence member for the borough of Hastings, and lost no time in taking his seat and speaking in defence of his patron and friend. He spoke as a diplomatist, and with small success; but it is not improbable that if he had been left to follow his own plans he might have been found a useful member in the house, and have exercised some influence in restraining the violence of the more fiery spirits on the one hand, and in checking the imprudence and rashness of the king and his supporters on the other. By this time, however, the lords had shown a disposition to take a line of their own, and Charles determined to strengthen his party in the upper house. Carleton was accordingly raised to the peerage as Lord Carleton of Imbercourt in May 1626. Shortly afterwards it was found expedient once more to send him on a mission to the Hague. One of the objects of this foolish mission was to prevail upon the States to favour a levy of 1,000 German horse, who were intended to serve in England, and the other was to effect a union of the States against Spain. Carleton must have known before he started that he could only fail in such a project. He was kept in Holland on this occasion for two years, and during his absence Lady Carleton died (18 April 1627). She was buried in St. Paul's Chapel in Westminster Abbey. The children she had given birth to had all died in infancy, and Carleton found himself a childless widower. He returned in April, and on 25 July 1628 was created Viscount Dorchester.

Meanwhile Buckingham's miserable incompetency for the position which he now occupied had been showing itself more glaringly every day, and he had at length drifted into the intention of raising the siege of Rochelle. Dorchester could only disapprove of Buckingham's scheme, but things had gone too far to allow of a change of front. Yet on 6 Aug. it seemed as if there might still be a way out of the difficulties, and a peace with France be concluded. Overtures to this effect were made by Contarini to Dorchester, and it was actually while he was walking to the conference which Dorchester had arranged on the morning of 23 Aug. 1628 for settling the terms of this peace that Buckingham received his death-wound. Dorchester was an eyewitness of the whole dreadful scene, and it 'was only through his prompt interference that Felton was saved from being torn to pieces by the bystanders. In the following December Dorchester became chief secretary of state, and from this time till his death he was the responsible minister for foreign affairs, so far as any minister of Charles I could be responsible for the mistakes of a king who the less he knew the more he meddled. Dorchester was now in his fifty-fifth year, and only a little past his prime; he might still hope to leave a son behind him. Paul, first Lord Bayning, died in 1629, leaving a young widow and five children all amply provided for. In 1630 this lady became Dorchester's second wife. Their union was but of brief duration. Dorchester died on 5 Feb. 1632, and was buried four days after in Westminster Abbey, his funeral being conducted with little pomp or ceremony. He left but a small estate behind him, not more than 700l. a year. It is clear that, like many other faithful servants of the Stuarts, he had gained nothing but barren honour by his lifelong services. Lady Dorchester gave birth to a posthumous daughter, Frances, in June 1632, who lived little more than six months. Dorchester's titles became extinct, and a nephew of the same name, and who succeeded him in some of his diplomatic employments, was eventually his heir. Dorchester's letters and despatches testify to the writer's extraordinary facility as a correspondent. They are immensely voluminous. Cecil alone, among his contemporaries, has left behind him a larger mass of manuscript. His style is remarkably fluent and clear; few writers of English have surpassed him in the power of making his meaning obvious without effort and without unnecessary verbiage. A collection of his letters during his embassy in Holland was published by Lord Hardwicke in 1755, which attained a third edition in 1780, and his despatches during his embassy at the Hague in 1677 were printed by Sir Thomas Philipps at Middle Hill in 1841, Some of his letters may be found in the 'Cabala' and other collections, especially in Dr. Birch's 'Court and Times of James I and of Charles I;' but these are only a small portion