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 CLARENDON 633 meet at Oxford, where large numbers of both houses assembled. He was one of the royal commissioners who met the parliamentary commissioners at Uxbridge, the burden of the work on the royal side falling on his shoulders. The negotiations failed. When the king ap- pointed Prince Charles head of the western association, Hyde was made a member of the prince's council, and saw the king for the last time March 5, 1645. During the proceedings in the west he attended the prince, first to Scilly, and then to Jersey. In the latter island he remained over two years, and long after the prince had left it. In his correspondence he condemned the king's duplicity, as proved by the circumstances of Glamorgan's treaty. He commenced his " History of the Rebellion " while at Scilly, in March, 1646, and labored very diligently on it in Jersey. In the summer of 1648 he joined Prince Charles in Holland, and had some part in the intrigues of his quar- relsome court. The next year he was sent minister to Spain, in company with Lord Cot- tington. His mission proved a failure, and he left that country in 1651, taking up his resi- dence at Antwerp. At the close of the year he joined Charles II. at Paris, and was in- trusted with the management of his affairs. This brought him much unpopularity, and the exiled court was the scene of the worst in- trigues. He suffered the extremes of poverty, and speaks in his correspondence of his lack of money, clothes, and fuel. The queen moth- er was his bitter enemy, and sought with the aid of the courtiers to ruin him, but without success. He was concerned in the plots against Cromwell's government, and listened to projects for the protector's assassination. He accompanied the vagrant court in all its wanderings, and was made lord chancellor in 1657. When it became apparent that a restora- tion was approaching, he favored moderate counsels. Two days after the entrance of the king into London, Hyde took the seat of speaker of the house of lords, and sat in the court of chancery. It was vainly attempted to exclude him from power, and he became head of the administration. He was made Baron Hyde, Viscount Cornbury, and earl of Clarendon, but refused the garter. He wished to keep faith with the roundheads, but the current ran too strongly against all who had opposed the royal power for even the king to maintain his faith. Clarendon sought to gov- ern constitutionally, but in the spirit of a de- parted age. He offended the country party by his arbitrary ideas, and the court by the purity of his morals. His position in the government made him responsible for acts which he did not approve ; and the sale of Dunkirk to the French caused him much unpopularity, the people derisively applying the name of Dun- kirk house to the magnificent mansion which he had built in London. His taste led him to form a splendid gallery of paintings, many of which he was accused of extorting from neces- sitous royalists. The marriage of his daughter Anne with the duke of York, heir presumptive to the crown, offended the nobility, and laid him open to grave suspicions with the ignorant portion of the people. Without being corrupt, he was greedy of money, which he expended in the most ostentatious manner. By the year 1667 his unpopularity was at its height. The people changed the name of his palace to Hol- land house, because of their suspicion that he had been bribed by the Dutch ; and from that to Tangier hall, as he was charged with having taken money to assent to the holding of that African town, which was a part of the dower of Catharine of Braganza, queen of Charles II. The disasters of the Dutch war were laid to his charge, though he had been opposed to the contest. The great plague, the great fire, and " hard times " generally, tended to swell his unpopularity. The populace broke his win- dows, cut down his trees, and painted a gibbet on the gate of his house. He was hated for his virtues by the king and his mistresses ; by the cavaliers, because he had upheld the act of indemnity ; by the dissenters, because he had promoted the act of uniformity ; and by the Catholics, because he had opposed the dispens- ing power. The house of lords were offended by his showing regard for the constitutional privileges of the commons ; and the house of commons believed he was either opposed to the very existence of parliaments, or had ad- vised the dissolution of the parliament then existing. The king, who always disliked ex- tremes, recommended him to surrender the great seal ; advice which he refused to take, framing his reply in language which could not fail to be offensive. Four days later (Aug. 13, 1667) he was forced to surrender the seal ; but this did not satisfy his enemies, who on the meeting of parliament proceeded to ex- tremities against him, encouraged by a reflec- tion on hun that appeared in the king's speech. It was then proposed to proceed against him by impeachment generally, but the lords re- fused to arrest him unless some specific charge were made. Finally, Clarendon was induced to retire to France, whereupon parliament passed a bill of banishment, and his vindication was burned by the hangman. At Evreux he was assailed by a mob of English sailors, and came near being murdered. He resided at Montpellier, Moulins, and Rouen for seven years. His retirement was devoted to literary pursuits. He completed his " History of the Rebellion," finished a work on the Psalms which he had commenced when in his first exile, wrote his "Life," an answer to Hobbes's " Leviathan," a large number of essays on political, moral, and religious subjects, a "Dis- course on the Papal Power," &c. His col- lected writings would form almost a library, and they would show an extensive range of subjects. His " History of the Rebellion " is one of the most remarkable works in the literature of modern tunes. It is full of errors