Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/396

Rh stood him in good stead. His reputation for loyalty was such that he could afford to visit in the Tower both Essex in 1683 (, p. 294), and in the new reign Monmouth, and to plead the cause of Alice Lisle when under sentence by Jeffreys (, i. 638). Immediately on the accession of James II Clarendon had been appointed to the great office of lord privy seal in the place of Halifax, and during the earlier part of the year had in various ways exerted himself on behalf of the throne (Diary and Correspondence, i. 136 seqq., 147, 181-3). In September 1685 his office of privy seal was put into commission (Evelyn being one of the commissioners, Diary, ii. 475), and he was named lord-lieutenant of Ireland. It may be, as Burnet surmises (iii. 73), that James reckoned on finding a subservient instrument for his Irish policy in his kinsman, the head of a broken house (cf., ii. 408). But being first and foremost a protestant of the church of England Clarendon could not, except for purely selfish ends, fall in with the policy of governing Ireland for and by the Irish Roman catholics. The Earl of Tyrconnel had been summoned to London from the command of the military forces in Ireland about the date when Clarendon set out for Dublin (December 1685). The journey occupied the better part of four weeks, including Christmas festivities at Chester and a memorable crossing of Penmaenmawr, Carnarvonshire, in three coaches and a wagon (Diary and Correspondence, i. 190-205; Ellis Correspondence, i. 29). On 9 Jan. 1686 the new lord-lieutenant arrived in Dublin. He speedily found his authority overshadowed by that of the absent commander-in-chief, whose return was talked of in London as early as the middle of January (cf. Ellis Correspondence, i. 17-18) and in Dublin from the beginning of March (cf. Diary and Correspondence,i.288). Soon afterwards Clarendon was bluntly apprised by Sunderland of the king's intention to introduce large numbers of Roman catholics into the Irish judicial and administrative system, as well as into the army (ib. p. 293). Clarendon, while he sought to allay the panic which spread among the Dublin protestants, complained bitterly of the position in which he was placed. He conformed to the wishes of the king and of the extreme party, by warning bishops and preachers against offending Roman catholic feeling, and by admitting Roman catholics as councillors and as officers of the army, as well as by urging their admission into town corporations (ib. pp. 258, 282, 399-400, 417,461). But he thoroughly disliked the policy, although he only permitted himself certain guarded protests against it to the king (ib. pp. 298, 338). When in June 1686 Tyrconnel actually returned with full powers as commander-in-chief, Clarendon still clung to his office, striving to keep his 'natural unfortunate temper' under manifold provocations and indignities inflicted upon him by 'the huffing great man' (, iii. 425; cf. Diary and Correspondence, i. 466, 474, 481, and Clarendon's letter to the king, ib. p. 494).

In August 1686 Tyrconnel, who had entirely transformed the army, and even made a change in the command of the lord lieutenant's own bodyguard, visited England to obtain the king's permission for the completion of his work by undoing the Act of Settlement, which Clarendon was desirous of upholding (ib. p. 560). Clarendon sent many protests to both king and queen during his rival's absence (ib. p. 556; cf. ii. 18, 21-2); but as his brother's influence visibly sank, he began to doubt whether his complaints were ever permitted to reach the king (ib. ii. 26, 32, 43, 51). At last he came to the conclusion that no hope of retaining his post in Ireland remained except through the kindness of the queen (ib. pp. 45, 66), and even this support he feared to have forfeited for some petty reason (ib. pp. 79-80). Not until about three weeks after the dismissal of Rochester (8 Jan. 1687), did he receive his letter of recall from Sunderland (ib. pp. 134 sqq.) Tyrconnel, who took Clarendon's place (cf., p. 369), had a final interview with the outgoing viceroy on 8 Feb. On 21 Feb. Clarendon landed at Neston in Cheshire (Ellis Correspondence, i. 246). He had taken the precaution of carrying with him the books of the stores, with the design, as Tyrconnel suggested to Dartmouth, of leaving his successor in the dark (Dartmouth MSS. 132).

Clarendon at the time solemnly placed on record his resolution that nothing should tempt him to contribute in the least to the prejudice of the English protestant interest (Diary and Correspondence, ii. 143). His friends hoped that his royal brother-in-law, who granted him several private audiences during the month after his arrival (Ellis Correspondence, i.252), would restore to him the privy seal. It was, however, given on 16 March 1687 to a zealous Roman catholic, Lord Arundell of Wardour (, iii. 32), and Clarendon had to withdraw into private life. Evelyn (ib. p. 40) in August 1687 records a visit to Swallowfield, where Lord Cornbury was on a visit to his father; the earl was at the time sorely troubled by a marriage project of his eldest son, from the difficulty of raising the sums required for a settlement on the encumbered family