Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/384

 Rh  him (Cont. p. 180;, ii. 81; iii. 522).

The revelation (3 Sept. 1660) of the secret marriage of the Duke of York to Clarendon's daughter Anne [q.v.] seemed to endanger, but really confirmed his power. According to his own account he was originally informed of it by the king, received the news with passionate indignation, urged his daughter's punishment, and begged leave to resign. Afterwards, finding the marriage perfectly valid, and public opinion less hostile than he expected, he adopted a more neutral attitude. On his part the king was reluctant to appeal to parliament to dissolve the marriage, was resolved not to part with Clarendon, and hoped through Anne's influence to keep the duke's public conduct under some control. Accordingly he supported the duke in recognising the marriage, which was publicly owned in December 1660 (Cont. pp. 48-76;, i. 302; , iii. 340; , ii. 68). Clarendon's position thus seemed to be rendered unassailable. But at bottom his views differed widely from the king's. He thought his master too ready to accept new ideas, and too prone to take the French monarchy as his model. His own aim was to restore the constitution as it existed before the civil war. He held that the secret of good government lay in a well-chosen and powerful privy council.

At present king and minister agreed on the necessity of carrying out the promises made at Breda. Clarendon wished the convention to pass the Indemnity Act as quickly as possible, although, like the king, he desired that all actual regicides should be excepted. He was the spokesman of the lords in their dispute with the commons as to the number of exceptions (Old Parl. Hist. xxii. 435, 446, 487). But of the twenty-six regicides condemned in October 1660 only ten were executed, and when in 1661 a bill was introduced for the capital punishment of thirteen more, Charles and the chancellor contrived to prevent it from passing (, ii. 117, iii. 496; Clarendon State Papers, iii. App. xlvi). In his speech at the opening of the parliament of 1661, Clarendon pressed for a confirmation of the acts passed by the convention. He steadily maintained the Act of Indemnity, and opposed the provisos and private bills by which the angry royalists would have destroyed its efficacy. The merit of this firmness Hyde attributes partly to the king. According to Burnet, 'the work from beginning to end was entirely' Clarendon's. At all events the chancellor reaped most of the odium caused by the comprehensiveness of the Act of Indemnity (, i. 193, 297; Lords' Journals, xi. 240, 379; Cont. pp. 130, 184, 285;, 20 March 1669). He believed that 'the late rebellion could never be extirpated and pulled up by the roots till the king's regal power should be fully vindicated and the usurpations in both houses of parliament since the year 1640 disclaimed.' In declaring the king's sole power over the militia (1661), and in repealing the Triennial Act (1664), parliament fulfilled these desires (Cont. pp. 284, 510, 990). On ecclesiastical questions Charles and the chancellor were less in harmony. Clarendon's first object was to gradually restore the church to its old position. He seems to have entertained a certain doubt whether the king's adherence to episcopacy could be relied upon, and was anxious to give the presbyterians no opportunity of putting pressure upon him. Hence the anxiety to provide for the appointment of new bishops shown by his correspondence with Barwick in 1659, and the rapidity with which in the autumn of 1660 vacant sees were filled up. In 1661, when the Earl of Bristol, in the hope of procuring some toleration for the catholics, prevailed on the king to delay the progress of the bill for restoring the bishops to their place in the House of Lords, Clarendon's remonstrances converted Charles and frustrated the intrigue (ib. p. 289; Clarendon State Papers, iii. 613, 732; Life of Dr. Barwick, ed. 1724, p.205;, iii. 370).

On the question of the church lands Clarendon's influence was equally important. After the convention had decided that church and crown lands should revert to their owners, a commission was appointed to examine into sales, compensate bona-fide purchasers, and make arrangements between the clergy and the tenants. Clarendon, who was a member of the commission, admits that it failed to prevent cases of hardship, and lays the blame on the clergy. Burnet censures Clarendon himself for not providing that the large fines which the bishops raised by granting new leases should be applied to the use of the church at large (Own Time, i. 338; Cont. p.189; Somers Tracts, vii. 465). Of the two ways of establishing the liberty for tender consciences promised in the Declaration of Breda the king preferred toleration, Hyde comprehension (cf. Lords' Journals, xi. 175). In April 1660 he sent Dr. Morley to England to discuss with the presbyterian leaders the terms on which reunion was possible (Clarendon State Papers, iii. 727, 738). After the Restoration bishoprics were offered to several presbyterians, including Baxter, who records the kindness with which Clarendm treated him (Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, ii. 281, 302, 381). Clarendon drafted the king's declaration on ecclesiastical affairs (25 Oct. 1660), promising