that he could not miscarry in the world. The vices he had were of the age, which he was not stubborn enough to contemn or resist. He was a younger brother, grandchild to the great treasurer Buckhurst, created, at the king's first entrance, earl of Dorset, who outlived his father, and took care and delight in the education of his grandchild, and left him a good support for a younger brother, besides a wife, who was heir to a fair fortune. As his person and parts were such as are before mentioned, so he gave them full scope, without restraint; and indulged to his appetite all the pleasures that season of his life (the fullest of jollity and riot of any that preceded or succeeded) could tempt or suggest to him. He entered into a fatal quarrel, upon a subject very unwarrantable, with a young nobleman of Scotland, the lord Bruce; upon which they both transported themselves into Flanders, and attended only by two surgeons placed at a distance, and under an obligation not to stir but upon the fall of one of them, they fought under the walls of Antwerp, where the lord Bruce fell dead upon the place; and sir Edward Sackville (for so he was then called) being likewise hurt, retired into the next monastery, which was at hand. Nor did this miserable accident, which he did always exceedingly lament, make that thorough impression upon him, but that he indulged still too much to those importunate and insatiate appetites, even of that individual person, that had so lately embarked him in that desperate enterprise; being too much tinder not to be inflamed with those sparks. His elder brother did not enjoy his grandfather's title many years, before it descended, for want of heirs male, to the younger brother. But in these few years, by an excess of expense in all the ways to which money can be applied, he so entirely consumed almost the whole great fortune that descended to him, that, when he was forced to leave the title to his younger brother, he left upon the matter nothing to him to support it; which exposed him to many difficulties and inconveniences. Yet his known great parts, and the very good general reputation he had, notwithstanding his defects, acquired, (for as he was eminent in the house of commons, whilst he sat there; so he shined in the house of peers, when he came to move in that sphere,) inclined king James to call him to his privy-council before his death. And if he had not too much cherished his natural constitution and propensity, and been too much grieved and wrung by an uneasy and strait fortune, he would have been an excellent man of business; for he had a very sharp, discerning spirit, and was a man of an obliging nature, much honour, and great generosity, and of most entire fidelity to the crown. There were two other persons of much authority in the council, because of great name in the court; as they deserved to be, being, without doubt, two as accomplished courtiers as were found in the palaces of all the princes in Europe; and the greatest (if not too great) improvers of that breeding, and those qualifications, with which courts use to be adorned; the earl of Carlisle, and earl of Holland: both, (though men of pleasure,) by their long experience in court, well acquainted with the affairs of the kingdom, and better versed in those abroad, than any other who sat then at that board. The former, a younger brother of a noble family in Scotland, came into the kingdom with king James, as a gentleman; under no other character, than a person well qualified by his breeding in France, and by study in human learning, in which he bore a good part in the entertainment of the king, who much delighted in that exercise; and by these means, and notable gracefulness in his behaviour, and affability, in which he excelled, he had wrought himself into a particular interest with his master, and into greater affection and esteem with the whole English nation, than any other of that country; by choosing their friendships and conversation, and really preferring it to any of his own insomuch as upon the king's making him gentleman of his bedchamber and viscount Doncaster, and by his royal mediation (in which office he was a most prevalent prince) he obtained the sole daughter and heir of the lord Denny to be given him in marriage; by which he had a fair fortune in land provided for any issue he should raise, and which his son by that lady lived long to enjoy. He ascended afterwards, and with the expedition he desired, to the other conveniences of the court. He was groom of the stole, and an earl, and knight of the garter; and married a beautiful young lady, daughter to the earl of Northumberland, without any other approbation of her father, or concernment in it, than suffering him and her to come into his presence after they were married. He lived rather in a fair intelligence than any friendship with the favourites; having credit enough with his master to provide for his own interest, and he troubled not himself for that of other men; and had no other consideration of money, than for the support of his lustre; and whilst he could do that, he cared not for money, having no bowels in the point of running in debt, or borrowing all he could. He was surely a man of the greatest expense in his own person, of any in the age he lived; and introduced more of that expense in the excess of clothes and diet, than any other man; and was indeed the original of all those inventions, from which others did but transcribe copies. He had a great universal understanding, and could have taken as much delight in any other way, if he had thought any other as pleasant, and worth his care. But he found business was attended with more rivals and vexation; and, he thought, with much less pleasure, and not more innocence. He left behind him the reputation of a very fine gentleman, and a most accomplished courtier; and after having spent, in a very jovial life, above four hundred thousand pounds, which, upon a strict computation, he received from the crown, he left not a house, nor acre of land, to be remembered by. And when he had in his prospect (for he was very sharp-sighted, and saw as far before him as most men) the gathering together of that cloud in Scotland, which shortly after covered both kingdoms, he died with as much tranquillity of mind to all appearance, as used to attend a man of more severe exercise of virtue, and as little apprehension of death, which he expected many days. The earl of Holland was a younger son of a noble house, and a very fruitful bed, which divided a numerous issue between two great fathers; the eldest, many sons and daughters to the lord Rich; E ་ the younger, of both sexes, to Mountjoy earl of Devonshire, who had been more than once married to the mother. The reputation of his family gave him no great advantage in the world, though his eldest brother was earl of Warwick, and owner of a great fortune; and his younger earl of Newport, of a very plentiful revenue likewise. He, after some time spent in France, betook himself to the war in Holland, which he intended to have made his profession; where, after he had made two or three campaigns, according to the custom of the English volunteers, he came in the leisure of the winter to visit his riends in England, and the court, that shined then in the plenty and bounty of king James; and about the time of the infancy of the duke of Buckingham's favour, to whom he grew in a short time very acceptable. But his friendship was more entire to the earl of Carlisle, who was more of his nature and humour, and had a generosity more applicable at that time to his fortune and his ends. And it was thought by many who stood within view, that for some years he supported himself upon the familiarity and friendship of the other; which continued mutually between them very many years, with little interruption, to their death. He was a very handsome man, of a lovely and winning presence, and gentle conversation; by which he got so easy an admission into the court, and grace of king James, that he gave over the thought of further intending the life of a soldier. He took all the ways he could to endear himself to the duke, and to his confidence, and wisely declined the receiving any grace or favour, but as his donation; above all, avoided the suspicion that the king had any kindness for him, upon any account but of the duke, whose creature he desired to be esteemed, though the earl of Carlisle's friend. And he prospered so well in that pretence, that the king scarce made more haste to advance the duke, than the duke did to promote the other. He first preferred him to a wife, the daughter and heir of Cope, by whom he had a good fortune; and, amongst other things, the manor and seat of Kensington, of which he was shortly after made baron. And he had quickly so entire a confidence in him, that he prevailed with the king to put him about his son the prince of Wales, and to be a gentleman of his bedchamber, before the duke himself had reason to promise himself any proportion of his highness's grace and protection. He was then made earl of Holland, captain of the guard, knight of the order, and of the privy-council; sent the first ambassador into France to treat the marriage with the queen, or rather privately to treat about the marriage before he was ambassador. And when the duke went to the Isle of Rhé, he trusted the earl of Holland with the command of that army with which he was to be recruited and assisted. And in this confidence, and in this posture, he was left by the duke when he died; and having the advantage of the queen's good opinion and favour, (which the duke neither had, nor cared for,) he made all possible approaches towards the obtaining his trust, and succeeding him in his power; or rather that the queen might have solely that power, and he only be subservient to her; and upon this account he made a continual war upon the earl of Portland the treasurer, and all others who were not gracious to the queen, or desired not the increase of her authority. And in this state, and under this protection, he received every day new obligations from the king, and great bounties, and continued to flourish above any man in the court, whilst the weather was fair: but the storm did no sooner arise, but he changed so much, and declined so fast from the honour he was thought to be master of, that he fell into that condition, which there will be hereafter too much cause to mention, and to enlarge upon. The two secretaries of state (which were not in those days officers of that magnitude they have been since, being only to make despatches upon the conclusion of councils, not to govern, or preside in those councils) were sir John Coke, who, upon the death of sir Albert Moreton, was, from being master of requests, preferred to be secretary of state; and sir Dudley Carleton, who, from his employment in Holland, was put into the place of the lord Conway, who, for age and incapacity, was at last removed from the secretary's office, which he had exercised for many years with very notable insufficiency; so that king James was wont pleasantly to say, "That Stenny" (the duke of Buckingham) "had given him two very proper ser 66 vants; a secretary, who could neither write or "read; and a groom of his bedchamber, who "could not truss his points," Mr. Clark having but one hand. Of these two secretaries, the former was a man of a very narrow education, and a narrower nature; having continued long in the university of Cambridge, where he had gotten Latin learning enough; and afterwards in the country in the condition of a private gentleman, till after he was fifty years of age; when, upon some reputation he had for industry and diligence, he was called to some painful employment in the office of the navy, which he discharged well; and afterwards to be master of requests, and then to be secretary of state, which he enjoyed to a great age: and was a man rather unadorned with parts of vigour and quickness, and unendowed with any notable virtues, than notorious for any weakness or defect of understanding, than transported with any vicious inclinations, appetite to money only excepted. His cardinal perfection was industry, and his most eminent infirmity covetousness. His long experience had informed him well of the state and affairs of England; but of foreign transactions, or the common interest of Christian princes, he was entirely ignorant and undiscerning. Sir Dudley Carleton was of a quite contrary nature, constitution, and education, and understood all that related to foreign employment, and the condition of other princes and nations, very well: but was utterly unacquainted with the government, laws, and customs of his own country, and the nature of the people. He was a younger son in a good gentleman's family, and bred in Christ Church, in the university of Oxford, where he was a student of the foundation, and a young man of parts and towardly expectation. He went from thence early into France, and was soon after secretary to sir Harry Nevil, the ambassador there. He had been sent ambassador to Venice, where he resided many years with good reputation; and was no sooner returned from thence into England, than he went ambassador into Holland, to the States General, and resided there when that synod was assembled at Dort, which hath given the world so much occasion since for uncharitable disputa- | tions, which they were called together to prevent. Here the ambassador was not thought so equal a spectator, or assessor, as he ought to have been; but by the infusions he made into king James, and by his own activity, he did all he could to discountenance that party that was most learned, and to raise the credit and authority of the other; which has since proved as inconvenient and troublesome to their own country, as to their neighbours. He was once more ambassador extraordinary in Holland after the death of king James, and was the last who was admitted to be present, and to vote in the general assembly of the States, under that character; of which great privilege the crown had been possessed from a great part of the reign of queen Elizabeth, and through the time of king James to that moment; which administered fresh matter of murmur for the giving up the towns of the Brill, and Flushing, which had been done some years before by king James; without which men thought those States would not have had the courage so soon to have degraded the crown of England from a place in their councils, which had prospered so eminently under the shadow of that power and support. As soon as he returned from Holland, he was called to the privy-council; and the making him secretary of state, and a peer of the realm, when his estate was scarce visible, was the last piece of workmanship the duke of Buckingham lived to finish, who seldom satisfied himself with conferring a single obligation. and the state of the court and kingdom, when the 66 The duke had observed, and discovered, that the channel, in which the church promotions had formerly run, had been liable to some corruptions, at least to many reproaches; and therefore had committed the sole representation of those affairs, and the vacancies which should happen, to Dr. Laud, then bishop of Bath and Wells, and sworn of the privy-council. And the king, after his death, continued that trust in the same hands, infinitely to the benefit and honour of the church, though, it may be, no less to the prejudice of the poor bishop; who, too secure in a good conscience, and most sincere worthy intentions, (with which no man was ever more plentifully replenished,) thought he could manage and discharge the place and office of the greatest minister in the court (for he was quickly made archbishop of Canterbury) without the least condescension to the arts and stratagems of the court, and without any other friendship, or sup- That proclamation, mentioned before, at the port, than what the splendour of a pious life, and break of the last parliament, and which ❝inhihis unpolished integrity, would reconcile to him; "bited all men to speak of another parliament,” which was an unskilful measure in a licentious produced two very ill effects of different natures. age, and may deceive a good man in the best that It afflicted many good men (who otherwise were shall succeed; which exposed him to such a tor- enough scandalized at those distempers which had rent of adversity and misery, as we shall have too incensed the king) to that degree, that it made natural an occasion to lament in the following dis- them capable of receiving some impressions from course, in which it will be more seasonable to en- those who were diligent in whispering and infusing large upon his singular abilities, and immense an opinion into men, "that there was really an invirtue. "tention to alter the form of government, both in There were more (too many more) honourable" church and state; of which, said they, a greater persons in that time of the privy-council, whose faculties were not notorious enough to give them any great part in the affairs, nor had their advice much influence upon them. Other very notable men were shortly after added to the council, who will anon be remembered in their proper places and seasons. What hath been said before contains information enough of the persons in employment, two crowns: and, his majesty following their advice, a peace was made with both, upon better terms and conditions, and in less time, than, from the known impatience of the war, could reasonably have been expected, or hoped for. And after some short unquietness of the people, and unhappy assaults upon the prerogative by the parliament, which produced its dissolution, and thereupon some froward and obstinate disturbances in trade, . there quickly followed so excellent a composure throughout the whole kingdom, that the like peace, and plenty, and universal tranquillity for ten years was never enjoyed by any nation; and was the more visible and manifest in England, by the sharp and bloody war suddenly entered into between the two neighbour crowns, and the universal conflagration, that, from the inundation of the Swedes, covered the whole empire of Germany. And so we shall return to the discourse, which this very long digression hath interrupted longer than was intended. " instance cannot be given, than this public declar"ing that we shall have no more parliaments." Then, this freedom from the danger of such an inquisition did not only encourage ill men to all boldness and license, but wrought so far upon men less inclined to ill, (though not built for examples,) that they kept not those strict guards upon themselves they used to do; especially if they found themselves above the reach of ordinary justice, and feared not extraordinary, they by degrees thought that no fault which was like to find no punishment. Supplemental acts of state were made to supply defect of laws; and so tonnage, and poundage, and other duties upon merchandises, were collected by order of the board, which had been perversely refused to be settled by act of parliament, and new and greater impositions laid upon trade: obsolete laws were revived, and rigorously executed, wherein the subject might be taught how unthrifty a thing it was, by too strict a detaining of what was his, to put the king as strictly to inquire what was his own. cydides said of the Athenians) "for honourable that which pleased, and for just that which profited;" and being the same persons in several rooms, grew both courts of law to determine right, and courts of revenue to bring money into the treasury; the council-table by proclamations enjoining this, that was not enjoined by the law, and prohibiting that which was not prohibited; and the star-chamber censuring the breach, and disobedience to those proclamations, by very great fines and imprisonment; so that any disrespect to acts of state, or to the persons of statesmen, was in no time more penal, and those foundations of right, by which men valued their security, to the apprehension and understanding of wise men, never more in danger to be destroyed. And here I cannot but again take the liberty to say, that the circumstances and proceedings in those new extraordinary cases, stratagems, and impositions, were very unpolitic, and even destructive to the services intended. As if the business of ship-money, being an imposition by the state, under the notion of necessity, upon a prospect of danger, which private persons could not modestly. think themselves qualified to discern, had been managed in the same extraordinary way as the royal loan (which was the imposing the five subsidies after the second parliament spoken of before) was, men would much easier have submitted to it; as it is notoriously known, that pressure was borne with much more cheerfulness before the judgment for the king, than ever it was after; men before pleasing themselves with doing somewhat for the king's service, as a testimony of their affection, which they were not bound to do; many really believing the necessity, and therefore thinking the burden reasonable; others observing, that the access to the king was of importance, when the damage to them was not considerable; and all assuring themselves, that when they should be weary, or unwilling to continue the payment, they might resort to the law for relief, and find it. But when they heard this demanded in a court of law, as a right, and found it, by sworn judges of the law, adjudged so, upon such grounds and reasons as every stander-by was able to swear was not law, and so had lost the pleasure and delight of being kind and dutiful to the king; and, instead of giving, were required to pay, and by a logic that left no man any thing which he might call his own; they no more looked upon it as the case of one man, but the case of the kingdom, nor as an imposition laid upon them by the king, but by the judges; which they thought themselves bound in conscience to the public justice not to submit to. It was an observation long ago by Thucydides, "That men are much more passionate for injustice, "than for violence; because (says he) the one "coming as from an equal, seems rapine; when "the other, proceeding from one stronger, is but And by this ill husbandry the king received a vast sum of money from all persons of quality, or indeed of any reasonable condition throughout the kingdom, upon the law of knighthood; which, though it had a foundation in right, yet, in the circumstances of proceeding, was very grievous. And no less unjust projects of all kinds, many ridiculous, many scandalous, all very grievous, were set on foot; the envy and reproach of which came to the king, the profit to other men: insomuch as, of two hundred thousand pound drawn from the subject, by these ways, in a year, scarce fifteen hundred came to the king's use or account. To recompense the damage the crown sustained by the sale of the old lands, and by the grant of new pensions, the old laws of the forest are revived, by which not only great fines are imposed, but great annual rents intended, and like to be settled by way of contract; which burden lighted most upon persons of quality and honour, who thought themselves above ordinary oppressions, and therefore like to remember it with more sharpness. Lastly, for a spring and magazine that should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply of all occasions, a writ is framed in a form of law, and directed to the sheriff of every county of England, "to provide a ship of war for the king's service, "and to send it, amply provided and fitted, by "such a day, to such a place;" and with that writ were sent to each sheriff instructions, that, "instead of a ship, he should levy upon his county "such a sum of money, and return the same to "the treasurer of the navy for his majesty's use, " with direction, in what manner he should pro- | "ceed against such as refused:" and from hence that tax had the denomination of ship-money; a word of a lasting sound in the memory of this kingdom; by which for some years really accrued the yearly sum of two hundred thousand pounds to the king's coffers: and was in truth the only project that was accounted to his own service. And, after the continued receipt of it for four years together, was at last (upon the refusal of a private gentleman to pay thirty shillings as his share) with great solemnity publicly argued before all the judges of England in the exchequer-chamber, and by the major part of them, the king's right to im-"the effect of necessity." So, when ship-money pose asserted, and the tax adjudged lawful; which judgment proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned (Mr. Hambden) than to the king's service. For the better support of these extraordinary ways, and to protect the agents and instruments, who must be employed in them, and to discountenance and suppress all bold inquirers and opposers, the council-table and star-chamber enlarge their jurisdictions to a vast extent, "holding" (as Thu was transacted at the council-board, they looked upon it as a work of that power they were always obliged to trust, and an effect of that foresight they were naturally to rely upon. Imminent necessity, and public safety, were convincing persuasions; and it might not seem of apparent ill consequence to them, that upon an emergent occasion the regal power should fill up an hiatus, or supply an impotency in the law. But when they saw in a court of law, (that law that gave them title and posses sion of all that they had) apothegms of state urged as elements of law, judges as sharp-sighted as secretaries of state, and in the mysteries of state; judgment of law grounded upon matter of fact, of which there was neither inquiry or proof; and no reason given for the payment of the thirty shillings in question, but what concluded the estates of all the standers-by; they had no reason to hope that that doctrine, or the preachers of it, would be contained within any bounds; and it was no wonder that they, who had so little reason to be pleased with their own condition, were not less solicitous for, or apprehensive of, the inconveniences that might attend any alteration. And here the damage and mischief cannot be expressed, that the crown and state sustained by the deserved reproach and infamy that attended the judges, by being made use of in this and the like acts of power; there being no possibility to preserve the dignity, reverence, and estimation of the laws themselves, but by the integrity and innocency of the judges. And no question, as the exorbitancy of the house of commons this parliament hath proceeded principally from their contempt of the laws, and that contempt from the scandal of that judgment; so the concurrence of the house of peers in that fury can be imputed to no one thing more, than to the irreverence and scorn the judges were justly in; who had been always before looked upon there as the oracles of the law, and the best guides and directors of their opinions and actions: and they now thought themselves excused for swerving from the rules and customs of their predecessors (who in altering and making of laws, in judging of things and persons, had always observed the advice and judgment of those sages) in not asking questions of those whom they knew nobody would believe; and thinking it a just reproach upon them, (who out of their gentilesses had submitted the difficulties and mysteries of the law to be measured by the standard of general reason, and explained by the wisdom of state,) to see those men make use of the license they had taught, and determine that to be law, which they thought reasonable, or found to be convenient. If these men had preserved the simplicity of their ancestors, in severely and strictly defending the laws, other men had observed the modesty of theirs, in humbly and dutifully obeying them." And upon this consideration it is very observable, that in the wisdom of former times, when the prerogative went highest, (as very often it hath been swoln above any pitch we have seen it at in our times,) never any court of law, very seldom any judge, or lawyer of reputation, was called upon to assist in an act of power; the crown well knowing the moment of keeping those the objects of reverence and veneration with the people: and that though it might sometimes make sallies upon them by the prerogative, yet the law would keep the people from any invasion of it, and that the king could never suffer, whilst the law and the judges were looked upon by the subject, as the asyla for their liberties, and security. And therefore you shall find the policy of many princes hath endured as sharp animadversions and reprehensions from the judges of the law, as their piety hath from the bishops of the church; imposing no less upon the people, under the reputation of justice, by the one, than of conscience and religion, by the other. To extend this consideration of the form and circumstance of proceeding in cases of an unusual nature a little farther; as it may be most behoveful for princes in matters of grace and honour, and in conferring of favours upon their people, to transact the same as publicly as may be, and by themselves, or their ministers, to dilate upon it, and improve the lustre by any addition, or eloquence of speech; (where, it may be, every kind word, especially from the prince himself, is looked upon as a new bounty ;) so it is as requisite in matters of judgment, punishment, and censure upon things, or persons, (especially when the case, in the nature of it, is unusual, and the rules in judging as extraordinary,) that the same be transacted as privately, and with as little noise and pomp of words, as may be. For (as damage is much easier borne and submitted to by generous minds, than disgrace) in the business of the ship-money, and in many other cases in the star-chamber, and at council-board, there were many impertinencies, incongruities, and insolencies, in the speeches and orations of the judges, much more offensive, and much more scandalous than the judgments and sentences themselves. Besides that men's minds and understandings were more instructed to discern the consequence of things, which before they considered not. As undoubtedly, my lord Finch's speech in the exchequer-chamber made ship-money much more abhorred and formidable, than all the commitments by the council-table, and all the distresses taken by the sheriffs in England; the major part of men (besides the common unconcernedness in other men's sufferings) looking upon those proceedings as a kind of applause to themselves, to see other men punished for not doing as they had done; which delight was quickly determined, when they found their own interest, by the unnecessary logic of that argument, no less concluded than Mr. Hambden's. And he hath been but an ill observer of the passages of those times we speak of, who hath not seen many sober men, who have been clearly satisfied with the conveniency, necessity, and justice of many sentences, depart notwithstanding extremely offended, and scandalized with the grounds, reasons, and expressions of those who inflicted those censures; when they found themselves, thinking to be only spectators of other men's sufferings, by some unnecessary inference or declaration, in probable danger to become the next delinquents. They who look back upon the council-books of queen Elizabeth, and the acts of the star-chamber then, shall find as high instances of power and sovereignty upon the liberty and property of the subject, as can be since given. But the art, order, and gravity of those proceedings (where short, severe, constant rules were set, and smartly pursued, and the party only felt the weight of the judgment, not the passion of his judges) made them less taken notice of, and so less grievous to the public, though as intolerable to the person: whereas, since those excellent rules of the council-board were less observed, and debates (which ought to be in private, and in the absence of the party concerned, and thereupon the judgment of the table to be pronounced by one, without the interposition of others, or reply of the party) suffered to be public, questions to be asked, passions discovered, and opinions to be promiscuously delivered; all advice, directions, reprehensions, and censures of those places grew to be in less reverence and esteem; so that, |