Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/382

 Rh  to the Spanish government. In December 1650 they were ordered to leave Spain. Hyde was treated with personal favour, and promised the special privileges of an ambassador during his intended residence at Antwerp (Rebellion, xiii. 25, 31). He left Spain in March 1651, and rejoined his family at Antwerp in the following June.

In November 1651 Charles II, immediately after his escape from Worcester, summoned Hyde to Paris. He joyfully obeyed the summons, and for the rest of the exile was, the king's most trusted adviser. He was immediately appointed one of the committee of four with whom the king consulted in all his affairs, and a member of the similar committee which corresponded with the Scottish royalists (Rebellion, xiii. 123, 140). Till August 1654 he filled Nicholas's place as secretary of state. He accompanied the king in his removals to Cologne (October 1654) and Bruges (April 1658), and was formally declared lord chancellor on 13 Jan. 1658 (, i. 441).

For the first two years of this period repeated attempts were made to shake the king's confidence in Hyde. Papists and presbyterians both petitioned for his removal (Rebellion, xiv. 63). In 1653 Sir Robert Long incited Sir Richard Grenville to accuse Hyde of secret correspondence with Cromwell, but the king cleared him by a declaration in council, asserting that the charge was a malicious calumny (13 Jan. 1654;, i. 384, iii. 63, 69, 75). Long also combined with Lord Gerard and Lord-keeper Herbert to charge Hyde with saying that the king neglected his business and was too much given to pleasure. Charles coolly answered 'that he did really believe the chancellor had used those words, because he had often said that and much more to himself' (ib. iii. 74; Rebellion, xiv. 77). Of all Hyde's adversaries, the queen was the most persistently hostile. He made many efforts to conciliate her, and in 1651 had persuaded the Duke of York to obey her wishes and return to Paris (1651; Rebellion, xiii. 36, 46). But she was so displeased at Hyde's power over the king that she would neither speak to him nor notice him. 'Who is that fat man next the Marquis of Ormonde?' asked Anne of Austria of Charles II during an entertainment at the French court. 'The king told her aloud that was the naughty man who did all the mischief and set him against his mother; at which the queen herself was little less disordered than the chancellor was, who blushed very much.' At the king's request Henrietta allowed Hyde a parting interview before he left France, but only to renew her complaints of his want of respect and her loss of credit (ib. xiv. 62, 67, 93). 'The Marquis of Ormonde and the chancellor believed that the king had nothing at this time (1652) to do but to be quiet, and that all his activity was to consist in carefully avoiding to do anything that might do him hurt, and to expect some blessed conjuncture from the amity of Christian princes, or some such revolution of affairs in England, as might make it seasonable for his majesty to show himself again' (ib. xiii. 140). In the meantime Hyde endeavoured to prevent any act which might alienate English royalists and churchmen. He defeated Berkeley's appointment as master of the court of wards, lest the revival of that institution should lose the king the affection of the gentry; and dissuaded Charles from attending the Huguenot congregation at Charenton, lest it should injure the church. Above all, he opposed any attempt to buy catholic support by promising a repeal of the penal laws or holding out hopes of the king's conversion (cf., Own Time, ed. 1836, i. 135; , Hist. of England, vi. 21).

The first favourable conjuncture which presented itself was the war between the English republic and the United Provinces (1652). Charles proposed a league to the Dutch, and intended to send Hyde as ambassador to Holland, but his overtures were rejected (Rebellion, xiii. 165; Clarendon State Papers, iii. 91-141). When war broke out between Spain and Cromwell, Hyde applied to Don Lewis de Haro, promising in return for aid in restoring his master `to give the usurper such trouble in his own quarters that he may not have leisure to pursue and supply his new conquests.' Spain agreed to assist Charles with six thousand foot and ships for their transport, whenever he `could cause a good port town in England to declare for him' (12 April 1656). Thereupon two thousand Irish soldiers in French service deserted and placed themselves at the disposal of Charles II (Rebellion,xv.22; Clarendon State Papers, iii. 276, 303). But Hyde now as before objected to isolated or premature movements in England, and in the end rested his hopes mainly on some extraordinary accident, such as Cromwell's death or an outbreak of the levellers (Clarendon State Papers, iii. 198, 330, 401). As early as 1649 he had drawn up a paper of considerations on future treaties, showing the advantages of an agreement with the levellers rather than the presbyterians. In 1656 their emissaries applied to Charles, were favourably received, and were promised indemnity for all except actual regicides. Hyde listened to their plots for the assassination of Cromwell without any sign of disapproval (ib. iii. 316, 325, 341,