ment placed no faith in this explanation, and after many hints that their continued attendance was unwelcome and fruitless, they at last received a formal message in the name of King Philip "that they had received answers to all they had proposed, and were at liberty to depart, which his Catholic Majesty desired they would do, since their presence in the Court would be prejudicial to his affairs." They demanded and obtained an interview with Don Luis de Haro, but instead of being swayed by their remonstrances," he pressed them very plainly, and without any regard to the season of the year, it being toward the end of January, to use all possible expedition for their departure, as a thing that even in that respect did exceedingly concern the service of the King." A day even was fixed by the Spanish government for their audience of leave.

It is a striking fact, that at no Court in Europe was much sympathy exhibited for the Stuarts, and in the middle of the 17th century there was no such coalition of Sovereigns in support of royalty as was witnessed at the conclusion of the 18th century, when a republic was about to be estabished in France. On the Continent, the contagion of republican principles does not seem to have been at all dreaded, and the English nation, being left to the entire management of their own affairs,-first the parliament, and then Cromwell, were cordially admitted into the community of European governments.

Thus terminated Hyde's most irksome residence of fifteen months at Madrid. Besides the diplomatic disappointments he encountered, his pecuniary resources were so low, that he often found the greatest difficulty in providing for the personal wants of himself, and his wife and children left destitute in a distant land. All our money is gone," he writes, "and let me never prosper if I know or can imagine how we can get bread a month longer." Again, "Greater necessities are hardly felt by any men than we for the present undergo,-such as have almost made me foolish; I have not for my life been able to supply the miserable distresses of my poor wife." "

2

1

Hyde found consolation in that love of study which was his best friend throughout his chequered life. His History was suspended for want of materials, but he now assiduously cultivated the Spanish language, initiated

himself in Spanish literature, and made himself familiar with Spanish laws and customs.' He also here composed a devotional work, entitled "Contemplations and Reflections upon the Psalms of David, applied to the Troubles of this Time."

He had soon the affliction of losing the society of his colleague, Lord Cottington, who having no wife or children to return to, being worn down by age and infirmity, being reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church in which he had been educated, and sickening at the thought of being again plunged into the civil and religious distractions of his native country, resolved to spend the remainder of his days in Spain, and obtained permission from the Spanish government to reside in a private capacity at Valladolid.'

Hyde accordingly had his audience of leave as sole ambassador. He had conducted himself during his residence at Madrid so decorously, so inoffensively, and, notwithstanding his narrow circumstances, with so much dignity, that he had made a very favorable impression upon the Spaniards, which now showed itself in spite of the usual selfish and timid policy of the Court. "Hearing that he intended to repair to his family at Antwerp, and stay there till he received other orders from the King his master, they gave him all dispatches thither that might be of use to him in those parts. The King of Spain himself used many gracious expressions to him at his last audience, and sent afterwards to him a letter for the Archduke Leopold, in which he expressed the good opinion he had of the ambassador, and commanded that whilst he should choose to reside in those parts under his government, he should receive all respect and enjoy all privileges as an ambassador; all which ceremonies, though they cost him nothing, were of real benefit and advantage to him, for besides the treatment he received from the Archduke himself in Brussels, as ambassador, such directions or recommendations were sent to the magistrates

1 He must surely now have read Don Quixote in the original, but he says only that "he made a collection of and read many of the best books which are extant in that language, especially the histories of their civil and ecclesiastical polity," and I do not trace in his writings any allusion to Cervantes. He does not appear to have had any taste for what we call light reading; if he had, his History might have been a little less weighty.

He died there in 1652, in his 77th year.

of Antwerp, that he enjoyed the privilege of his chapel, and all the English, who were numerous in that city, repaired thither with all freedom for their devotion; which liberty had never before been granted to any man there."

CHAPTER LXXVII.

CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF CLARENDON TILL THE GREAT SEAL WAS DELIVERED TO HIM AT BRUGES.

H

YDE left Madrid in March, 1651, and after a fatigu

ing journey, performed chiefly on mules, reached Paris. Here he was received more graciously than usual by Queen Henrietta, who was in a state of great anxiety from the perils to which her son was exposed in Scotland. The ex-ambassador then traveled on to Antwerp, where he had, for some months, the exquisite enjoyment of living quietly in the bosom of his family, although disturbed by the sad news of the battle of Worcester, and under long suspense respecting the fate of his young Sovereign. At last, news came of Charles's miraculous escape and safe arrival in Normandy. Hyde soon received a summons to repair to Paris, and on Christmasday, 1651, again took up his residence there as a member of the exiled Court. All the former enmities, and jealousies, and rivalries between the titular ministers now broke out with fresh violence, the Queen recklessly inflaming and exasperating them in her efforts to gain an ascendency for herself. She was at the head of one party, and Hyde of another. To strengthen herself, she tried to introduce Sir John Berkeley into the Council, and to have him appointed "Master of the Wards," an office depending upon the oppressive military tenures which the parliament had abolished, and to the abolition of which the late King, at several conferences had readily agreed. Hyde urged that the King could not, at the time, do a more ungracious thing, that would lose him more the hearts and affections of the nobility and gentry of England, than in making a Master of the Wards in a time when it would not be the least advantage to his Majesty

66

1 Hist. Reb. b. vi.

or the officer; to declare that he resolved to insist upon that part of his prerogative which his father had consented to part with." This opposition succeeded, but rendered the Queen still more hostile to Hyde.

In the next controversy between them, I must say it seems to me that he was decidedly wrong, and that he displayed those narrow-minded and bigoted principles, as an ultra-high-church Episcopalian, which subsequently betrayed him into serious errors, and even a sacrifice of good faith. The French government becoming more and more intolerant, would not suffer any English strangers to have a place of worship in Paris according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England; but at Charenton, in the suburbs, there was a Huguenot chapel, where, the Edict of Nantes not being yet repealed, the Protestant service was celebrated according to law, and a very pious and learned divine ministered to a most respectable congregation. The Queen declaring that, notwithstanding her zeal for her own religion, she respected the dying injunctions of her late husband, and was contented that her son should remain a Protestant, consented to his going to this chapel, as he could not be present at the celebration of mass, and there was no other place of public worship for him to attend. In answer to Hyde's opposition, she observed "that Queen Elizabeth had greatly favored the Huguenots; that they were recognized as a reformed church; and that their pastors had been admitted into the Church of England without fresh ordination." But Hyde, who heartily disliked the Roman Catholics, but much more any Protestant church that did not rigidly adhere to the "Apostolic succession," declared with much earnestness, "that whatever countenance or favor the Crown or Church of England had heretofore shown to these congregations, it was in a time when they carried themselves with modesty towards both; but that, of late, some of their preachers had countenanced the doctrine that it might be lawful to resist a King by arms, and had even inveighed against Episcopacy; that the Queen, whose ulterior object was the conversion of her son to Popery, intended to unsettle his faith, and weaken his attachment to the only true reformed church; when he would be more accessible to her persuasions; and that, from the King's going to Charenton, it would be con

cluded everywhere that he thought the Episcopalian profession and Presbyterian profession were indifferent, which would be one of the most deadly wounds to the Church of England which it had yet suffered."

This matter being debated in Council, Charles, who was delighted to be entirely exempted from the restraint of attending public worship said with affected gravity (having probably first cast a sly look at Buckingham), "that upon the whole he thought the arguments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer preponderated, and that, out of respect for that true Apostolical church, to the safety of which his blessed father died a martyr, he would not frequent the heretical conventicle at Charenton." He was thus at liberty, without any interruption, to devote himself on Sundays to Miss Lucy Walters and other ladies of the same stamp, in whose society he now spent almost the whole of his time."

1

Plunged in the gayeties of Paris, he forgot the misfortunes of his family, and lost sight of his three kingdoms, content if, from any source, he could be supplied with money to defray his personal expenses. Hyde often gave him excellent general advice, which he received with good humor, and neglected, and all that he would promise with regard to business was, "that a part of every Friday (a day of penance) he would employ in reading and answering letters on public affairs," But the number and publicity of his amours at last caused general scandal among his followers, and was reported to his disadvantage in England. His character particularly suffered from the utter worthlessness of Lucy Walters, who by her arts had won his affections, who by her influence continued to exercise a powerful control over his easy temper, and who was now the mother of a child she called his,-afterwards

1 Hist. Reb. b. vi. Life of Clarendon (L. C.) 94.

2 A sincere friend to the Church of England, I can not conceal my disapprobation of this horror of entering a Presbyterian place of worship, which we still occasionally meet with in the High Church party-which induced Hyde to advise that Charles should rather live like a heathen, than attend public worship in a French Protestant chapel—and made Dr. Johnson say, when in Scotland, that he would not go to hear Principal Robertson preach, unless he should take a tree for his pulpit. The only arguments to support such intolerance place those who use them at the mercy of the Romanists, to whom, perhaps, they would be glad to be re-united. Very different is the conduct of our beloved sovereign, Queen Victoria, who, when in Scotland, attends divine service in the church of the parish in which for the time she is residing.