24 June 1646 Southampton was one of the privy councillors who, on behalf of the king, arranged with Sir Thomas Fairfax for the surrender of Oxford.
Before Southampton left Oxford a hasty rebuke from Prince Rupert led to a quarrel between the prince and Southampton, which led Rupert to send Southampton a challenge. Southampton chose to fight on foot with pistols. Sir George Villiers was appointed his second, but after all arrangements had been made for a duel the friends of the parties intervened and effected a reconciliation. In October 1647 Southampton, with the Duke of Richmond, Marquis of Ormonde, and others, ‘came to the king at Hampton Court, intending to reside there as his council,’ but the army vetoed the arrangement (Whitelocke, ii. 219). On 12 Nov. 1647 the king visited the Earl of Southampton at his house at Titchfield, on his way to the Isle of Wight, and Southampton followed the king thither. He afterwards claimed to have been the first to show the king at Carisbrooke the ‘Eikon Basilike;’ he affirmed that the book was written by Dr. Gauden and merely approved by Charles I ‘as containing his sense of things.’ In March 1648 he refused to assist in a new negotiation between the king and the independents. He was in London during the king's trial, and visited him after his condemnation. It is said that on the night following Charles's execution Southampton obtained leave to watch by the dead body in the banqueting hall at Whitehall, and that in the darkness there entered the chamber a muffled figure who muttered ‘Stern necessity.’ Southampton affirmed his conviction that the visitor was Cromwell. On 8 Feb. 1649 Southampton attended the king's funeral at Windsor.
After the king's death Southampton lived in retirement in the country. The parliament seems to have shown leniency in their treatment of his estate. He was allowed to compound for his ‘delinquency in adhering to the king’ by a payment on 26 Nov. 1646 of 6,466l., that sum being assumed to be a tenth of the value of his personal property. At the same time he was required to settle 250l. a year on the puritan ministry of Hampshire out of the receipts of the rectories in the county, the tithes of which he owned (Cal. Committee for Compounding, pt. ii. pp. 1507–8). His fortune was therefore still large, and he was liberal in gifts to the new king Charles and his supporters. After the battle of Worcester he offered to receive the prince at his house and provide a ship for his escape. He declined to recognise Cromwell and his government. When the Protector happened to be in Hampshire he sent the earl an intimation that he proposed to visit him. Southampton sent no reply, but at once withdrew to a distant part of the county. He corresponded with Hyde, with whom he had formed a close friendship at Oxford, and looked forward with confidence to the Restoration. When it arrived Southampton re-entered public life. His moderate temper gained him the ear of all parties. In the convention parliament he spoke for merciful treatment of the regicides who surrendered (Ludlow, ii. 290). At Canterbury, on his way to London, Charles II readmitted him to the privy council and created him K.G. On 8 Sept. 1660 he was appointed to the high and responsible office of lord high treasurer of England. This office he held till his death.
On 5 Feb. 1660–1 Southampton publicly took possession of the treasury offices (Pepys, i. 341). Next year he endeavoured to settle the king's revenue on sound principles, and to ‘give to every general expense proper assignments’ (Pepys, ii. 427). At the same time he acted on the committee for the settlement of the marriage of the king with Catherine of Braganza. He scorned to take personal advantage of his place, as others had done, and came to an agreement with the king by which he was to receive a fixed salary of 8,000l. a year. The offices, which had formerly been sold by the treasurer for his own profit, were placed at the disposal of the king. So long as he held the treasurership no suspicion of personal corruption fell on him. But it was beyond his power to reduce the corrupt influences which dominated Charles II's personal following. Like his close friends Clarendon and Ormonde, who had also been councillors of the new king's father, he retained the decorous gravity of manner which had been thirty years before in fashion at Whitehall, and was wholly out of sympathy with the depraved temper of the inner circle of the court. He at first hoped that he might be able to reform the conduct of the king and his friends, or at least set a limit on their wasteful expenditure of the country's revenue. According to Clarendon he lost all spirit for his work when he perceived that it was out of human power to ‘bring the expense of the court within the limits of the revenue.’ He spoke with regret of his efforts in behalf of the king during the exile, and openly stated that, had he known Charles II's true character, he would never have consented to his unconditional restoration. Clarendon credits him with sug-
