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 assurance that it was only a device to get money out of parliament (, Constit. Hist. ch. xii.). Had the council been a success, it seems almost inevitable that it should have absorbed, as into a close oligarchy, much of the power that was divided between the executive and the parliament (thus Barillon said it was making ‘des états et non des conseils’); but it had not been in operation more than a fortnight when a kind of committee of public safety was formed within it. This included, besides Temple, Halifax, Sunderland, and Essex. But Temple was almost from the first unable to reconcile the courtier and the public minister. On the one hand he objected to the king's arbitrary decision to prorogue parliament without previous deliberation in council; on the other hand he would not consent to take measures of urgency against the papists as if the popish plot, which he knew to be a sham, were a reality. The issue was an estrangement which reached a climax in August 1679, when Halifax brought the Duke of York, who had been in quasi-exile at Brussels, to the king's bedside without Temple's knowledge. Two months after this he was elected to represent Cambridge University in the new parliament, the only dissentient being the bishop of Ely (Gunning), who detected an exaggerated zeal for toleration in Temple's little book on the Netherlands; but he found himself more and more excluded from the innermost counsels of what was in reality no more than a fresh cabal under a new name. Temple was hardly more than a dilettante politician, and the satisfaction with which he appeared to return to his ‘nectarines’ at Sheen was probably real. His visits to the already moribund council were infrequent, but he avoided an open breach, and in September 1680 he was nominated ambassador at Madrid, though at the last moment the king desired him to stay for the opening of parliament. Temple attempted the exercise of some diplomacy, and made some conciliatory speeches in the commons, but in vain. The parliament was dissolved in January 1681, and in the same month Temple's name was struck off the list of privy councillors (, i. 65). He had shown himself confidential with Sunderland rather than with Halifax, who was now in the ascendant. Moreover he had not concealed his attachment to the Prince of Orange (, Hist. of James II, p. 41). Finally he had been very irregular in his attendance, and, as he was well known to be on the side of conciliation, he would have been out of place in the Oxford parliament.

For the purposes of a final retirement from politics Temple seems to have deemed the seclusion of Sheen insufficient. He purchased, therefore, in 1680, from the executors of the Clarke family the seat of Compton Hall, near Farnham. Here he constructed a canal and laid out gardens in the Dutch style, giving to his property when complete the title of Moor Park, in emulation of the Moor Park near Rickmansworth, where he had often admired the skill and taste of the Countess of Bedford's gardeners (cf. Essay of Gardening; London Encyclop. of Gardening, 1850, p. 244;, Environs, 1876, p. 551). He was an enthusiastic fruit-grower, and especially fond of his cherries, ‘Sheen plums,’ and ‘standard apricocks.’ He was rarely seen now at Whitehall or Hampton Court, but he was on 14 March 1683 appointed one of the commissioners for the remedy of defective titles in Ireland. Soon after his son's marriage in 1684 he divided his property with him, leaving him in undisputed possession of the house at Sheen, which he held on a long lease from the crown.

When James II succeeded to the throne, he made some polite speeches to Temple, but no more. Temple had promised him when Duke of York that he would remain loyal, and would never seek to divide the royal family. William was aware of this, and, knowing Temple's scrupulous disposition, he gave him no hint of the intended invasion in 1688. Temple did in fact restrain his son from going to meet the prince, and it was not until after James's second flight that he presented himself at Windsor. William urged him to take the chief-secretaryship, but he steadily refused. He was content, however, that a high post (that of secretary for war) should be given to his son John [see below].

In 1689 came to Moor Park in the capacity of amanuensis, at a salary of 20l. a year, Jonathan Swift [q. v.], who was then twenty-two years of age. Swift's mother was a connection of Lady Temple. He stayed under Temple's roof with a few short intervals until the statesman's death, for a period, that is, of nearly ten years, and there he met Esther Johnson (‘Stella’), whose mother was an attendant upon Lady Giffard. Swift commenced his residence by writing some frigid Pindaric odes in Temple's honour, but gradually the relations between them grew more cordial. Temple procured Swift's admission to an ad eundem degree at Hart Hall, Oxford, offered him a post of 120l. a year in the Irish rolls when Swift proposed to leave him, and in answer to a letter, in which Swift avowed that his