Diary of the times of Charles II/Volume 1/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
The first of Sidney's correspondents, whose letters are now offered to the public, in point of age, is his sister, the Dowager Countess of Sunderland, the eldest daughter of Robert, Earl of Leicester, and of Dorothy, the daughter of Henry, Earl of Northumberland.
Dorothy Sidney was born in 1617, at Sion House, the seat of her grandfather, the Earl of Northumberland, who at the time of her birth was a prisoner in the Tower, on suspicion of having been acquainted with the intention of one of the parties engaged in the Gunpowder Plot.
Her mother seems to have watched over her early years with the greatest care and tenderness; and, as she grew up gifted with great personal attractions, and the object of flattery from the most popular poet of his day,[1] it is not a little creditable to her head and heart that she does not appear to have been at all spoilt by it. There never was a mother more anxious to settle her daughter in life than Lady Leicester, and many and most amusing are the passages in which, writing to her absent Lord, who was the Ambassador at Paris, she communicates her speculations, hopes, and disappointments on this subject:[2] and happy indeed she must have been, when at length one of the best and noblest youths of England, the young Lord Spencer, afterwards created Earl of Sunderland, declared himself her suitor. They were married under every propitious omen, but their happiness was short-lived. He was killed at the battle of Newbury, fighting gallantly on the King's side, with "those melancholy forebodings of danger from the victory of his own party which filled the breasts of the more generous royalists, and which on the same occasion saddened the dying moments of Lord Falkland."[3]
The following extract from a letter of her father's, in which he attempts to give some comfort to his daughter, does honour to the writer, and proves how heavily the blow had fallen on them all.
"I know you lived happily, and so as no one but yourself could measure the contentment of it. I rejoiced at it, and did thank God for making me one of the means to procure it for you. That now is past, and I will not flatter you so much as to say I think you can ever be so happy in this life again; but this comfort you owe me, that I may see you bear this change and your misfortune patiently. . . . . . . . .
"I doubt not but your eyes are fall of tears, and not the emptier for those they shed. God comfort you, and let us join in prayer to Him, that he will be pleased to give his grace to you, to your mother, and to myself, that all of us may resign and submit ourselves entirely and cheerfully to his pleasure. So nothing shall be able to make us unhappy in this life, nor hinder us from being happy in that which is eternal."[4]
At the time of Lord Sunderland's death, they had three children; Robert, whose letters to his uncle are now published, and two daughters, the eldest of whom was afterwards married to Lord Halifax. And for the wardship and care of her son, his widow thus feelingly pleads to Charles I., through the intercession of her father:
"My Lord,
"The affections of my spirit and the weakness of my body will scarce suffer me to write; but the consideration I have of my poor orphans makes me force myself to desire your Lordship that you will be pleased in my behalf to beseech his Majesty to join your Lordship with me in the wardship of my son; for, except I receive your care and assistance in this business, I cannot hope to live or die with any satisfaction in what concerns my children's fortune. They are nearest to your Lordship if I should fail, and I cannot rely with confidence on any but yourself.
"What the King has graciously promised I cannot doubt, and therefore I make no request for that which I conceive is already given; but I hear that some of my dear Lord's kindred have endeavoured to injure me, which I did as little expect as I do now apprehend anything which may contradict a declaration of his Majesty's justice to one who am by this loss the unhappiest of all creatures.
"The wardship will be of so little value for some years, as, were I not full of affection for my son, I should not wish the trouble which I believe this business will bring to me.
"I would have written to the King myself, but the distempers I am in have so dulled the little sense I had, as I dare not say anything to his Majesty. Wherefore I do again beseech your Lordship to present my request with that humility which becomes me, and if it be possible for me to take any comfort in this world, it will be in knowing that my son shall remain in your Lordship's care, if it should please God to take me from him.
"I have written with much pain, and yet I must add to it a protestation of being so long as I breathe, with all sincerity of heart, your Lordship's
"Most humble, obedient daughter,
Lady Sunderland, during the first years of her widowhood, lived with her parents at Penshurst; but Lord Leicester tells us in his journal, that in September, 1650, "she went from thence to London, and from London to dwell by herself at Althorpe." During her residence there she is said to have endeared herself to the country round by acts of charity and hospitality; and Lloyd, in his Memoirs of the Loyalists, says, "She is not to be mentioned without the highest honour in this catalogue of sufferers, to many of whom her house was a sanctuary, her interest a protection, her estate a maintenance, and the livings in her gift a preferment."
In 1652 she was married a second time to Sir Robert Smythe, son and heir of Sir John Smythe, by whom she had one son. From the dry and concise way in which Lord Leicester has recorded this fact, it may be doubted whether he altogether approved of this marriage. He writes thus : 'On Thursday, the 8th of July, my daughter Spencer (Sunderland) was married to Sir Robert Smith, at Penshurst; my wife being present, with my daughters Strangford and Lucy Pelham, Algernon, and Robin Sidney, &c., but I was in London."
At the period of this correspondence with her brother Henry, Lady Sunderland was in her 62d year. Her letters breathe that kindly spirit for which she was distinguished in her youth, and are amusingly dashed with that love of scandal and taste for politics which we might expect to find in a lady of sixty-two, who had seen so much of the world, and who was intimately related to several of the leading statesmen of the day.
Lady Sunderland survived her second husband, and was buried in the vault of the Spencer family at Brighton, in 1684.[6]
Henry Sidney, the younger brother of Lady Sunderland, who was afterwards created Viscount Sidney and Earl of Romney, by William III., the author of the Diary, and the centre, as it were, of the correspondence now published, was born at Paris, in the year 1640, during his father's embassy at that court.
The first notice we have of him is that contained in his father's, journal, in which he gives an interesting account of the last hours of Lady Leicester, who died in 1669, when Henry Sidney was eighteen years old, from which it may be inferred that he was her favourite son; whilst it is equally clear from his sister's letters that he was the brother she loved best.[7]
When next we hear of him we find him at the age of twenty-five attached to the Court as Groom of the Bedchamber in the household of the Duke of York, an object of envy to the one sex and of admiration to the other, being confessedly the handsomest and most graceful man of his day. Whilst in this situation, he became deeply enamoured of his royal mistress, the Duchess of York. He had allowed his affections to soar too high, and he fell, for the Duke, being made aware of this, dismissed him abruptly from Court. Whether his love was requited or not is doubtful. If we trust to the scandalous chronicle of Hamilton it was amply returned, whilst Sir John Beresby says, "She was kind to him and no more." It is a fact, however, that, besides being the occasion of much public scandal, it led to important results; for the Duke of York, whether really jealous, or pretending to be so, threw off all the restraints and appearances of decency in his own intrigues; and the Duchess, finding that she had lost all hold on the affections of her husband, sought to recover it by adapting herself to his views in matters of religion. She entered into private discourse with his priest, and soon declared herself a Roman Catholic.[8]
Ten years after this, the first Duchess of York having died in the interval, Sidney appears again at Court, having obtained from the King a grant, during his life, of the office of Gentleman and Master of the Robes.[9] In 1678 he had the command of a regiment, and in the following year he was appointed Envoy to the States of Holland, having previously declined going as Ambassador to Paris.
In this situation, Sidney remained about two years, high in the favour and affection of the Prince of Orange; daring which time he made frequent visits to England, and it is to these periods that the most interesting portions of his journal refer.
Daring his absence at the Hague, he was elected member for Bramber, in the Parliament which met in October, 1680, and though he does not mention it himself, Rapin states that he took an active part in the great question of the exclusion of the Duke of York, both voting and speaking in favour of it. In so doing, he acted in direct opposition to his master's wishes, and we cannot be surprised to find, that when he called upon the King next day he should find him, as he says he did, in a very bad humour. He was allowed, however, to return to the Hague, but the part he afterwards took in forwarding to the government at home the strong memorial of the States upon the rejection of the Bill of Exclusion by the Lords, and which it was generally believed he did at the suggestion of Lord Sunderland,[10] determined his recall. He returned to England in June, 1681, and, contrary to his expectations, was kindly received by the King, with whom probably he was personally a favourite, for in some of their habits and pursuits they very much resembled each other.[11]
It appears from the Journal that Sidney had applied to the Prince of Orange for the command of the British forces in the service of the States, which had become vacant by the death of the Earl of Ossory; which the Prince would willingly have given him if the appointment were sanctioned by the King. Charles preferred the Duke of Albemarle, and proposed him to the Prince in the following letter.
"Whitehall, 8th December, 1682.
"I have formerly proposed a thing to you in which I am every day more confirmed in my opinion as a thing which in many respects is necessary to be done, and therefore I think it proper now to renew to you. It is to have a Commander in Chief of all my subjects who are or who shall be in the service of the States. I am satisfied it will tend to their better discipline and obedience; that it is for my honour and dignity, as well as for that of the nation, and that it will be advantageous to you in particular, in order to your greater influence upon them, to have such men from time to time set at the head of them, as shall make it their business to be serviceable to you; besides, you will find that either in case of recruits or other levies of men in England, it will be no small encouragement for men to go over when it shall be known that a man of quality and interest here is to have the immediate commandment of them under you, and by that the opportunity of access to you, to do them right upon all occasions that shall arise.
"Of this the late Lord Ossory is a very good instance, and you find so good an effect of the credit he had both here and amongst the men under his command, that I need no other argument to convince you of how good use it will be to have that place filled as it ought to be. The man I think upon is the Duke of Albemarle, who hath all the qualifications that are necessary, to make himself to succeed the other, who was so well approved by every body, and particularly by yourself. If it should be said that the States will not be ready to do it because it may draw some charge upon them, that objection might very well be answered, yet to take it off entirely, I am content there should be neither pay nor salary tied to the place, but that whosoever hath it shall discharge it upon their own expense, without expecting any thing more than the name and character of commander under you of the English, with the same powers 'that were enjoyed by the late Lord Ossory.
"I do not doubt but you will be of my opinion when you have well considered it, so as I will say no more but to assure you that I will ever be yours,
The Prince of Orange, however, was not of the same opinion with the King; and what is more extraordinary, considering the relative positions of the three parties, did confer the command upon Sidney, who certainly continued to hold it till he was deprived of it by James, a few months after his accession.
We are told by Collins, that on the day of that King's coronation, when the crown was accidentally about to fall from his head, (a fact that has been stated by several writers,) Sidney stepped forward to fix it there, saying, that it was not the first time that a Sidney had supported the crown. Whether this be true or not, certain it is that, before three years had passed away, no hand in England was more zealously engaged to tear it from his brow, and place it on that of another.
Though deprived by James of the command of the British forces in Holland, he does not appear at that time to have distrusted him, for, after the defeat of Monmouth, he was sent back with Bentinck to the Prince of Orange:[13] but this confidence did not last long. The decided favour of the Prince soon rendered his continued stay in England something more than painful and irksome to him; and Burnet says, "he was so apprehensive of the dangers that he might be cast into, that he travelled nearly a whole year in Italy."
As matters however ripened in England, and prepared the way for the Prince of Orange, Sidney moved nearer to the scene of action, and fixed himself in Holland. He became the chief agent of communication with the disaffected in England, and the great promoter of the Revolution. Notwithstanding which, he hazarded a return to England so late as June, 1688, when he wrote the letter to the Prince, advising him to secure the services of Mareschal Schomberg; and he accompanied Zuleystein, who had been sent to congratulate the King on the birth of the Prince of Wales, on his return to the Hague. It was upon this occasion that he carried with him the invitation and declaration of adherence to the Prince, signed by the members of the Association, which consisted of the Earls of Shrewsbury and Devonshire, Lord Lumley, the Bishop of London, Admiral Russel, and himself.
Sidney, with Burnet, Herbert, Schomberg, and others, accompanied the expedition into England, and, upon its successful termination, the honours and rewards which he had earned by his great services in the cause were lavished upon him by a generous master. The day after the proclamation of the King and Queen, he was appointed one of the Privy Council and Gentleman of the Bedchamber; soon afterwards he was made Colonel of the King's regiment of foot-guards, and upon the coronation of William and Mary he was created Viscount Sidney and Baron Milton; and in the following year he was appointed Lord Lieutenant, Vice-Admiral, and Commissary of the County of Kent.[14]
He accompanied the King in his campaign in Ireland, and was with him at the battle of the Boyne; and, on the King's leaving that country, he was made one of the Lords Justices of Ireland. Soon afterwards he was recalled, and appointed one of the chief Secretaries of State, having, if Lord Dartmouth is correct in his statement, received grants of the confiscated estates in that country to the value of seventeen thousand pounds a year.[15]
In 1692 he was again sent as Lord Lieutenant-General and Governor to Ireland, a post of great difficulty, in the management of which he seems to have entirely failed. Burnet says, "that a Parliament had been summoned there by the Lord Sidney, but they met full of discontent, and were disposed to find fault with every thing; and there was too much matter to work upon, for the Lord Lieutenant was apt to excuse or justify those who had the address to insinuate themselves into his favour,[16] so that they were dismissed before they brought their Bills to perfection. The English in Ireland thought the Government favoured the Irish too much; some said this was the effect of bribery, whereas others thought it was necessary to keep them safe from the persecutions of the English who hated them, and were much sharpened against them. * * * * There were also great complaints of an ill administration, chiefly in the revenue, in the pay of the army, and in the embezzling of stores. * * * * * So the King called back Lord Sidney, and put the government into the hands of three Lords Justices, Lord Capel, Sir Cecil Wyche, and Mr. Duncomb."
Sidney's ill success in Ireland was no bar to his further honours. Upon his return he was made Master-General of the Ordnance; and in the following year he was created Earl of Romney, and Lieutenant-General of the Forces; and, on the resignation of the Earl of Portland, Groom of the Stole and first Gentleman of the Bedchamber.[17]
Burnet, speaking of Sidney, describes him as "a graceful man, and one who had lived long in the Court, where he had some adventures that became very public. He was a man of a sweet and caressing temper, had no malice in his heart, but too great a love of pleasure." This sweet and caressing temper, combined with great personal attractions, produced their full effect; and there are many proofs, is the present collection of papers, of the influence they gave him over the hearts of women; of which influence he appears to have been withheld by no principle from taking every advantage.
The adventures referred to by Burnet, that became very public at Court, besides his reported intrigue, when quite a young man, with the Duchess of York, and to which allusion is made in a letter of Montague's in this collection, appear to relate chiefly to the case of a Mrs. Worthley, a person of an ancient family and highly connected, who, unfortunately for herself, upon the death of her husband, fell in Sidney's way, and lived with him as his mistress for twenty years. At length, deserted and in distress, having in vain applied to Sidney, she threw herself at the feet both of Charles and James, and published her case and her injuries to the world.
From among many of her letters of appeal to him, the two following have been selected as written in a milder and quieter spirit of remonstrance than many others.
"My Lord,
"I wish some good angel would instruct my pen to express something that would incline your Lordship to moderate your hate towards me that have loved you only too well, and would increase that slender portion of love you have for your own honour.
"Could your Lordship make cripples of my tongue and pen, by confining me to a jail, as well as my limbs, you might then hope for a conquest; but, my Lord, though I am perfectly lame, and have in a manner quite lost the use of my limbs, yet my pen will never lose its vigour, nor will my tongue be silent. How happy should I now esteem myself if I could say or do any thing that would make you reassume your former good-nature! but do not misconstrue me, my Lord; I mean only that part of your good-nature that would oblige you to do what is reasonable, 'and not to return to your embraces. Your Lordship must pardon me if I still am perfectly yours without desiring your conversation. I am the best-natured fool living, but it is not to that degree as to be a silent fool neither. I would willingly, if your Lordship pleases, take a little fresh air between this time and Michaelmas, and all that at present I desire your Lordship to do is to let me have half a year's money next Monday. You know that I have lately begged that you would be pleased to send me a £100 to pay some small debts, . . . . . . . . . .
"Pray, my dear Lord, do not deny me so poor a business as a little money now at Midsummer, for fear it may again transport me to do something that will go very much against the grain with me to do towards the man that in my soul I do adore and still love too well. I wish I did not. I am sure you never loved money well enough to deny me or any body any reasonable sum out of a meanly miserable esteem for dross, but you have no other way to be revenged on me but to strip me naked and confine me; but, my Lord, how poor and how ignoble a revenge is this of yours to me, a poor, deluded woman, that hath loved you above myself, nay, above heaven or honour, and hath generously spent my youth with you in discontent and suffering! Whereas I might have had plenty and ease with others; and, if my too great confidence in your great worth and honour and generosity has betrayed me to irrecoverable ruin, yet, my Lord, you must certainly pity me, though you hate me: but I will not yet despair but that I may live to hear my Lord Sidney say, that he hates himself because he hated her, without any just cause, who is sincerely yours,
"P.S. My Lord, though there was too much noise in King Charles's[18] and King James's Court, let me humbly beg of your Lordship not to be, by your continued cruelty to her (who is not envious, but happy in seeing you so), the author of any new noise in King William's and Queen Mary's Court; for I assure your Lordship I do not desire it, for I am now wholly inclined to peace, love, and Christian amity. I hope you do not forget your hopeful son in Holland; and that you had my letter, with the inclosed bill, that came to me from him."
"My Lord,
"My creditors' unreasonable proposals, which I hope Colonel FitzPatrick has acquainted you with, have obliged me to withdraw from London for the present, till I know what your Lordship would have me to do; and I wish you would consider that you must one day come to die, and that it will be too late when you come to lie upon a deathbed to wish you had been more kind and considerate of my sufferings for so many years together, and that now I must abscond or else bring your name upon the public stage, which you, if you please, may see I am very unwilling to do, I must now beg of your Lordship to order me another quarter's money, or I must return to London sooner than I am willing.
"How I wish I were to accompany King William in his progress into Cheshire; that I might once before I die make a visit to the good old wooden house at Stoak, within three miles of Nantwich, where I was born and bred; and, if your Lordship does attend on the King in his progress, let me beg of you to make a step to Stoak; 'tis but fourteen miles from West Chester, and I hear the King goes to Chester. You will find my cousin, Edward Mynshull, will give you a very generous entertainment, and so will my cousin, Sir Thomas Mainwaring, of Badelly; and Stanley, of Houghton; and Chemley, of Vale Royal; and forty more of my relatives there, if you please to do them the honour of visiting their innocent, clownish habitations; and when you have viewed Stoak Hall, where I was born (for so it is vulgarly called), then I must beg of your Lordship to tell me whether you don't think it was an agreeable portion for me to be attended from your door by a Constable and a Beadle.[19] Gaysworth, too, will be able to entertain you—that was my great grandfather's: but my Lord Macclesfield complains that the old house is ready to fall upon his head. I love Gaysworth, because my mother was born there. I remember you told me you had been at Brewerton Green. I like Stoak as well—you will find my Lady Brewerton and her daughters at the good old house on Brewerton Green—the young ladies live there like nuns. I wish Queen Mary would make them courtiers, and I wish your Lordship would incline to do what is reasonable by me, that I might go into Cheshire and there end my days. I should enjoy more happiness in one month in Cheshire than I have done in all the twenty-five years I have misspent in London. "My Lord, I wish you a pleasant progress, and that you may meet with as much satisfaction as you desire. And if your Lordship will please to order me a £100 as I have desired, it will be a satisfaction to me to pay poor people that want bread.
"If, my Lord, you will be so kind as to make a visit to Stoak, pray ask my cousin Ned Mynshull whether the heir of Pool be likely to outlive me or not, for if he were dead the estate comes to me, and, though it be but £400 a year, yet it will be acceptable to me, if it be but to pay her debts who is sincerely yours till death,
This is among the latest of the series of her letters, and there is no further light thrown upon the history of this poor lady. Lord Romney himself survived his master and benefactor William about two years. He died of the smallpox, on the 8th of April, 1704, and was buried in St. James's Church.
In point of abilities it would appear that the Earl of Romney, high and important as were many of the offices which he filled, was not rated high by his cotemporaries. Swift speaks of him, as he always does of those who had offended him, which was his case, with scurrilous abuse. He calls him "an idle, drunken, ignorant rake, without sense, truth, or honour;" but such testimony is worthless. Neither is the opinion of his brother Algernon Sidney, who spoke of him in disparaging terms to Barillon,[20] and who, from his over-estimate of himself, looked down with contempt upon all others,,[21] much to be relied upon, but that of Lord Dartmouth is, who gives the following curious account of Lord Romney's appointment to be Secretary of State. "When he was made Secretary of State, the Duke of Leeds told me he happened to go into the King's closet soon after he came out, and the King asked him if he had seen the new Secretary. The Duke answered no, he met nobody but my Lord Romney, little thinking he could be the man. The King told him he knew he would laugh at his being so, but he could not think of a proper person at present, and knew he was the only Englishman he could put in and out again without disobliging him. The Duke said he did not laugh before, but could not forbear when he heard he was to be at the Secretary's office like a footman at a play, to keep a place till his betters came."[22]
As far as we can judge from his own journal, and the opinion of cotemporaries, Sidney showed no want of energy or ability when Minister at the Hague; and subsequently, as the great channel of correspondence with the Prince of Orange, if success be any proof of good management and address, nothing could have been better done. And in his public character generally it is no small merit in him to have pursued an honest, straightforward, and consistent course, in times when, with the exception of Sir William Temple, and very few others, duplicity and corruption were the order of the day.
The next in order of birth in this series of correspondents is Robert, the second Earl of Sunderland, the nephew of Henry Sidney: a name better known to history than that of the Earl of Ronmey. He was born in 1641, and was only one year younger than his uncle, and succeeded when a child to the title and estates of his father, who was killed at the battle of Newbury.
The young Earl of Sunderland was sent to Oxford, and was resident there in 1660. Among other friendships formed there, he became very intimate with the celebrated William Penn. Whether he attended with him the preaching of Thomas Loe, the layman and Quaker, for which the latter was fined for non-conformity, does not appear, but he was certainly engaged with him in a riot, into which Penn was led by his zeal against what he considered Popish practices, and for which he, with several others, including probably the Earl of Sunderland, was expelled.[23]
Much of the earlier part of his life was passed in travelling on the continent, under the care of Dr. Pierce,[24] preparing himself for those diplomatic employments in which he was afterwards much engaged. His first public appointment was that of Ambassador Extraordinary to the Court of Spain, whither he went in 1671, with instructions if possible to attach that power to the interests of England, or, at all events, to secure her neutrality, in which object he failed. He was next sent Ambassador to Paris, and afterwards as one of the Plenipotentiaries at Cologne, for the establishment of a general peace. He returned to England in 1674, when he was made a Privy Councillor. Five years afterwards he went a second time to Paris as Envoy, and, upon his return home, he was appointed by Charles one of his principal Secretaries of State.
His character, including a sketch of his political life, has been thus ably drawn by Sir James Mackintosh:—
"Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, who soon acquired the chief ascendency in the administration, entered upon public life with all the advantages of birth and fortune. His father fell in the royal army, at the battle of Newbury, with those melancholy forebodings of danger from the victory of his own party, which filled the breasts of the more generous royalists, and which on the same occasion saddened the dying moments of Lord Falkland. His mother was Lady Dorothy Sidney, celebrated by Waller under the name of Saccharissa. He was early employed in diplomatic missions, where he acquired the political knowledge, insinuating address, and polished manners which are learnt in that school; together with the subtlety, dissimulation, flexibility of principle, indifference on questions of constitutional policy, and impatience of the restraints of popular government, which have been sometimes contracted by English Ambassadors, in the course of a long intercourse with the Ministers of absolute Princes. A faint and superficial preference of the general principles of civil liberty was blended in a manner not altogether unusual with his diplomatic vices.
"He seems to have gained the support of the Duchess of Portsmouth to the administration formed by the advice of Sir William Temple, and to have then gained the confidence of that incomparable person, who possessed all the honest acts of a negotiator. He gave an early earnest of the inconstancy of an over-refined character, by fluctuating between the exclusion of the Duke of York and the limitations of the royal prerogative. He was removed from the administration for his vote on the Bill of Exclusion. The love of office soon prevailed over his feeble spirit of independence, and he made his peace with the Court by the medium of the Duchess of Portsmouth, who found no difficulty in reconciling the King to a polished as well as a pliant courtier, an accomplished negotiator, and a minister more versed in foreign affairs than any of his colleagues.
"Negligence and profusion bound him to office by stronger though coarser ties than those of ambition. He lived in an age when a delicate purity in pecuniary matters had not begun to have a general influence on statesmen, and when a sense of personal honour, growing out of long habits of co-operation and friendship, had not yet contributed to secure them against political inconstancy. He was one of the most distinguished of a species of men who perform a part more important than noble in great events, who, by powerful talents, captivating manners, and accommodating opinions, by a quick discernment of critical moments in the rise and fall of parties, by not deserting a cause till the instant before it is universally believed to be desperate, and by a command of expedients and connexions, which render them valuable to every new possessor of power, find means to cling to office, or to recover it, and who, though they are the natural offspring of quiet and refinement, often creep through stormy revolutions without being crushed.
"Like the best and most prudent of his class, he appears not to have betrayed the secrets of his friends whom he abandoned; and never to have complied with more evil than was necessary to keep his power. His temper was without rancour; he must be acquitted of prompting or even preferring the cruel acts which were perpetrated under his administration; deep designs and premeditated treachery were irreconcileable both with his indolence and his impetuosity; and there is some reason to believe that, in the midst of total indifference about religious opinions, he retained to the end some degree of that preference for civil liberty, which he might have derived from the example of his ancestors and the sentiments of some of his early connexions."[25]
Such is the character, and it is a very favourable one, drawn by a master hand, of this nobleman who, by the adoption of measures involving a total want of either religious or political principle, combined with great talents, made himself almost essential as Minister to three successive Kings. The charge which presses most heavily against him is that of treachery to James, who distinctly accuses him of having driven him upon those wild and arbitrary measures which caused his ruin,[26] with the intention of ruining him, whilst, through the medium of his wife and his uncle Henry Sidney, he had previously secured the favour of the Prince of Orange.
The Earl of Sunderland, on the other hand, in his letter of justification,[27] published after he fled to Holland, states in vindication of himself that he opposed to the utmost all those measures, and only acquiesced in them when it was hopeless to resist.[28] There can be no credit, however, given to these statements, when we find him in the same letter asserting that he had never increased his fortune by indirect means, when it is now notorious that he received an annual pension of 25,000 crowns, besides occasional gratuities from Louis XIV.;[29] and we find him in another letter, written about the same time to William, pleading as a claim to his favour that he had served the public very importantly in contributing what lay in his power to that glorious undertaking, which drove his old master from the throne.[30]
Upon the advance of the Prince of Orange to Windsor; the flight of the King and the breaking out of the people into riots, destroying the Roman Catholic Chapels, and attacking the houses of Papists, Lord Sunderland fled, disguised, it is said, in woman's clothes to Holland,[31] where he appears to have lived some time in great discomfort. This, however, did not last very long, for, though he was expressly excepted from the Bill of Indemnity, we find him not only returned to England in 1691 but, soon afterwards, though not the declared yet the actual Prime Minister of William. "The person," says Burnet, "that had the King's confidence to the highest degree was the Earl of Sunderland, who, by his long experience and his knowledge of men and things, had gained an ascendant over him, and had more credit with him than any Englishman ever had." He gave him a pension of £2,000 a year. He visited him at Althorpe in his way to the north, "which was the first public mark of the high favour he was in," and soon afterwards gave him the Lord Chamberlain's staff. This, however, was the signal for a general attack upon him.
"The Tories," says Burnet, "pressed hard upon him, and the Whigs were so jealous of him, that he, apprehending that, while the former would attack him, the others would defend him faintly, resolved to prevent a public affront, and to retire from Court and from business, contrary to the earnest desire of the King." The following account of the manner of his resigning, and of his reasons for doing so, is given in a letter from Secretary Vernon to Lord Sunderland's friend, the Duke of Shrewsbury.[32]
"I make the more haste to acknowledge the honour of your Grace's letter of the 25th, because I would not delay acquainting you that my Lord Sunderland would not stop to be addressed from Courts and therefore last night he delivered up his key and staff. He was with the King about a quarter of an hour before the Cabinet sate; and when he came out of the closet, he took me down to his lodgings, and said that he had pressed the King that he might resign, not being able to bear any longer the life he had led *****
"I begged only that he would suspend his resolution till the next day *** He was unalterably fixed to hear no more of it, and never to meddle with that or any other public employment **** He said it was not on account of the Parliament only that he came to this resolution, for he had otherwise led the life of a dog, having done all that was in his power for the service of a party, whom he would never oblige to live easily with him or to treat him with common civility.
"The King is very much concerned at his going off; he hath been keeping it there three Sundays successively, and all endeavours used to turn him from it. The King finds himself in great want of some one he may be free with **** I cannot but be concerned at these changes, and do not see what good consequences they may have. This was certainly an able and active man, and I believe it was not impossible to remove the jealousies that were taken on both sides. How far he will act in future behind the curtain, I know not; but his inclinations, I fear, are wholly turned from any thing that can be called Whig."
How Strong those feelings of jealousy and suspicion were, may be collected from the words in which Admiral Russel, writing to the Duke of Shrewsbury two years before, speaks of a visit with which Lord Sunderland had threatened him.
"1696.I am under some pain about the honour designed me by a great Lord. I confess my fault and folly, that I cannot bring my tongue and countenance to seem satisfied with a man I am not, but I will do as well as I can. It is an old saying that 'when the fox is abroad, look to your lambs.' No man is ever secure from his tricks; but he can play none that are very prejudicial, if he be not too much trusted and relied upon." And Montague, first Lord of the Treasury in 1698, alluding to a financial struggle in which he had succeeded, says, "this contest and some other accidents have freed us from a companion that was intended for us, who would have been worse than all this, but I think we are got clear of that fire-ship for ever. If he annoys us now, it must be by hoisting the enemies' colours, and under that declaration I do not fear him."[33]
Vernon's opinion of Lord Sunderland's ability, and his concern at the loss of him, were justified by the event. Barnet says that "during the time of his credit, things had been carried on with more spirit and better success than before. He had gained such an ascendant over the king, that he brought him to agree to some things that few expected he would have yielded to, and managed the public affairs in both houses with so much steadiness and so good a conduct, that he had procured to himself a greater measure of esteem than he had in any former parts of his life; and the feebleness and disjointed state we fell into after he withdrew contributed not a little to establish the character which his administration had gained him."[34]
Disappointed with the world, and indignant at what he deemed the ingratitude of his party, Lord Sunderland retired to Althorpe, from whence he wrote to the Duchess of Shrewsbury—"I can say, with exact truth, that, for five or six years that I have had the honour to be near the King, I have assisted the party I joined, and every individual man of that party, according to my dealing with them, to the best of my understanding; but if nineteen things are done and the twentieth left undone, though it is impossible, you know, how it is; and yet my politics are not changed, nor shall they." That they would have changed, however, had he been allowed an opportunity of showing them, can scarcely be doubted, as was the case with other friends of his, of whom he writes—"I am informed that some of the House of Commons who usually were thought to be influenced by me, have gone wrong of late, in particular Sir W. Trumbull, Mr. Duncombe, and Mr. Methuen. For the two first, I think people need only consider one moment the difference between men in good places and good-humour, and out of them angry and unsatisfied. I believe nobody has seen or heard of any in these circumstances that have not changed a good deal."[35] Lord Sunderland had seen a good deal of the world and of mankind, but with all this knowledge he must have been very ignorant of himself when he imagined that he could be happy in the retirement of Althorpe.
Two short months served to undeceive him; and we find him, in the month of March, preparing the way for his return to the King's service. He writes-—"My judgment and my inclinations are still the same, but I submit both to the King, who was more displeased and angry at what I did than I imagined, and took it with less indifferency in relation to his affairs than I could have thought without presumption, which obliged me, who owe him so much, to be disposed of as he pleases, provided that he gives me leave to serve him as a Privy Councillor only without a place, which would now be insupportably ridiculous, after having quitted one so lately."[36] He came to London in July; but, so far from finding that encouragement from his old friends, the Whigs, which he expected, the animosity of every party immediately revived, and was carried to such a height, that William, who had just returned from the continent, requested him to retire again into the country, though anxious to remain in London on account of the approaching marriage of his son with Lady Anne Churchill, the second daughter of the Earl of Marlborough.
Thus ended the political life of the Earl of Sunderland; and, from his own experience of its miseries and discomforts, his estimate of a statesman's life was not probably very different from that of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who says, in a letter to Lord Somers, written from Rome in 1701—"Had I a son, I would sooner breed him a cobbler than a courtier, and a hangman than a statesman."[37]
Convinced at last that it was quite impossible to conquer the suspicion and dislike of all parties, the consequence of his previous conduct. Lord Sunderland submitted without further effort; and the following passage, in a letter from his friend the secretary Vernon, written in 1700, about two years before his death, shows the melancholy condition to which he was reduced in his latter days, and the state of public feeling towards him.
"I don't know what my Lord Sunderland will do upon my summons for his coining to town; but by what he writ to me yesterday, of the 13th instant, I perceive he had then no thoughts of leaving the country. His expressions are, that he had resolved a great while against coming to town; of late he had met with many things to confirm those thoughts and nothing to change them; that a man out of employment, without a party, of no credit, pretending to nothing, and of his age, most be mad, if he would begin the world anew. He hopes the King and government will be safe by leaving all things to the Parliament. If my Lord Sunderland comes up, it is certain that whatever is done or left undone will be attributed to him. What is disliked, he shall hear of over and over; and if any thing hits right to some people's wishes, they will like the counsel but hate the counsellor."[38]
The Earl of Sunderland died in the year 1702, in the 61st year of his age.
Anne, Countess of Sunderland, the wife of the Earl, whose history has been just sketched,[39] and whose letters form an important part of this collection, was the second daughter of the Earl of Bristol; her mother was Lady Anne Russel, daughter of the second Earl of Bedford, described by Eyelyn as "a grave and honourable lady."
She was the intimate friend of two men of very different characters, Henry Sidney and Evelyn; and it is to one or other of these parties that the letters now published are directed. It will be seen that the style and tone of their letters vary nearly as much as did the characters of those to whom she wrote; so that if by any chance in writing to her friends she had misdirected their respective letters, that which would probably have much amused the one would have rather surprised and perplexed the other.
No one, perhaps, has ever been more differently represented by cotemporaries than this Lady Sunderland. If we trust to Evelyn's testimony, she must have been a very admirable person. Speaking of Althorpe, he says—"Above all this, it is governed by a lady who, without any show of solicitude, keeps every thing in such admirable order, both within and without, from the garret to the cellar, that I do not believe there is any thing in this nation or in any other that exceeds her in such exact order without ostentation, but every thing substantially great and noble. The meanest servant is lodged so neat and cleanly, the service at the different tables, the good order and decency—in a word, the entire economy—is perfectly becoming a wise and noble person.[40] She is one who, for her disinterested esteem for me, from a long and worthy friendship, I must ever honour and celebrate. I wish, from my soul, my Lord, her husband, whose parts and abilities are otherwise conspicuous, were as worthy of her, as, by a fatal apostacy and court-ambition, he has made himself unworthy of her. This is what she deplores, and it renders her as much affliction as a lady of great sense and much prudence is capable of."[41] And the Duchess of Hamilton incidentally mentions her as being "as good a woman as any in England."[42]
On the other hand, if we believe the Princess Anne and her uncle, the Earl of Clarendon, she must have been an accomplished hypocrite; and, to use her own phrase, as great a jade as ever lived.[43] The former, in writing to her sister, the Princess of Orange, describes her as a fit partner for one of "the subtleist workinest villains that is on the face of the earth."
Between these conflicting opinions, the reader will form his own judgment, as far as these letters enable him to do so, as well as of the nature of that intimacy which existed between Lady Sunderland and Henry Sidney, which, certainly, if there be any truth in the rumours of that day, was of a different kind from that "long and worthy friendship" which existed between her and Evelyn.[44]
That she was a woman of energy and talent, and that with these qualities she inherited much of her father's disposition to political intrigue, there can be no doubt. The part she took, or which was assigned to her by her husband at the time these letters were written, was that of ingratiating herself with the Prince of Orange, which she was fully enabled to do by means of Sidney. She was wise enough to see very early in the correspondence that that was the "plant to be cultivated;" and which, in fact, did in due time grow up to give shelter to her house.
Lady Sunderland's friendship with Evelyn lasted through life, and after his death was continued to his widow. She consulted him in all her difficulties. He occasionally distributed her charities,[45] and was the director of her serious and religious studies.[46] Upon the appointment of Lord Sunderland to be Secretary of State, Lady Sunderland writes thus to Evelyn in reply to his congratulations.
"I am most confident of your friendly wishes, and value them extremely. For this honour which the King has done my Lord, I cannot think it worth rejoicing much at it, as times now are. I have every reason to be glad for what you mention. I could say much to you of my thoughts of this matter, but it is my waiting-day. I pray God direct my Lord, and prosper him to the good of his country and to God's glory. Pray for him and for me, I beg of you.
"Be so charitable as to furnish me with a prayer particular to this occasion.
"I am sincerely your friend,
Towards the end of the year 1678, when the House of Commons was engaged in its proceedings against Lord Danby, and the whole nation was occupied with the Popish Plot, Lady Sunderland writes upon these stirring subjects to Evelyn.
"I think, when you went, the business of my Lord Treasurer was afoot which proceeded to an impeachment, containing six articles. The two first, which they built most upon, was what Mr. Montague's letters furnished, which they divided into two articles, which went by the name of High Treason. The treating with the King of France for peace, as they must suppose without the knowledge of the King, because these letters bore date the 25th, and the King's revealed will declared in Parliament on the 20th—was for the raising of the army to go on with a thorough war with France. They say this is treason, and therefore they impeached him of traitorously assuming the regal power to himself in treating of peace and war of his own Council. The other was about the breach of the Act of Parliament in keeping up the army. These were the two acts of treason; the others are misdemeanors of a great kind too long to write; but it was their intent, by putting in treason, to have obliged the Lords to have committed him, and then they made no question but to have proved all upon him; but, after a long debate, it was found not to be treason according to the Act, and that for declaratory treason. Only the Lords would not allow of the sequestering him of his place in the House as the Commons requested. This they carried clear, and his Lordship does yet keep the King's ear; but, between you and I, I fear he will find that he is ill advised if he thinks to carry it with a high hand, for I believe he will prove a wounded deer, and be very unserviceable to the King in the place he is in at least. That is the opinion of wise people, but, to-morrow, they say, will be a hot day, and shew us much.
"You see how willing I am to tell you what I can. Whatever there is that should not be omitted, excuse, for it is out of my province writing on these matters; but what ought I not to do to satisfy one to whom I have so great obligation; but when I consider how well you spend your time, I am like to bum this scribble. Pray do you do so as soon as you have read it.
"Now, as to the plot, methinks it looks as if God Almighty would bring it all out, whether we would or not, and shew us our wilful, sinful blindness. The day you went, Bedloe cast his eye upon a man who followed his coach, and on the sudden called out that they should lay hold of him, for that he was the man he had described to the two Houses, and that he could never find. Upon which the man was seized, loaded with chains, and sent to Newgate. Bedloe swears that he was one of those that killed Godfrey, and that, if he would confess, he could make great discoveries. Upon which the Lords obtained his pardon of the King, and went on Monday with it to the dungeon, where they were a considerable time: my Lord Winchester, Lord Essex, Lord Shaftesbury, and Lord Grey.
"The King went to my Lord Winchester, and asked him what they had discovered. He answered, not anything, that the fellow seemed to be an idle fellow, and contradicted himself, which very well satisfied the King, but they had entered into a solemn oath not to discover anything; and, on Monday night, they obtained a warrant from Secretary Williamson to search Somerset House,[47] where they found all the people, save one, that he told them of, and they seized them. This made a great noise yesterday; and this fellow, who is a silversmith, and used to clean the plate at the Queen's Chapel, was brought before the King and Council, and, upon search made, they are now satisfied that the murder was done at Somerset House. The King himself begins to believe it. My Lord Bellasis is still named as the chief in it by this fellow. Several other very scurvy circumstances he told, and several more he has told in private to a Committee of the House of Commons last night, who were writing down what he said two hours at the prison.
"One thing I must not omit which was said of Somerset House, that in the search there, after the men this fellow accused, they found between fifty and sixty Irish and other priests; but, not having a warrant to seize them, they did not do it. It was odious enough to the people before this discovery. I am called away, and can only assure you of my sincere friendship.
"Pray for me,
"I can never do anything considerable, I fear, to express my gratitude to Mr. Evelyn for all the goods I have received from him, but I can never omit those little things that are in my power, to shew him how much he is in my thoughts. I fancy it will be a satisfaction to you to hear that my Lord Essex is one of the Commissioners of the Treasury in the place of my Lord Arlington; the rest remain as they were. Yesterday was the first day of their opening; yesterday, likewise, the bill for incapacitating my Lord Treasurer and for banishing him was sent down from the Lords to the Commons, but 'twas flung out with great scorn, and they proceed to a bill of attainder, and seem now not to be content with less. They talk also of making his two sons, by an act, incapable of bearing any office in the Kingdom. This is all the news I can send you.
"Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Godolphin, and I dined yesterday at Parsons' Green, when we wished for you, and resolved to come quietly to Deptford. Our friend Mr. Godolphin seems to like his employment much better since my Lord of Essex was joined with him.
"My little boy is very well, and I am entirely and sincerely yours,
The course of their true friendship did not always run quite smooth. Lady Sunderland was one who could ill bear even the appearance of a slight, and she writes to her friend more than once in this strain:
"I must own to you that I take it a little unkindly your seeing me no oftener when you were in town and going out of town, without thinking of one who has ever been most sincerely your friend ever since I had the happiness to know you. But mortifications of this nature, though grievous, yet I hope will do me good; and meeting with them so often as I have done in the world will, I hope, make me value and love the world every day of my life less than the other, there being nothing in it, in my opinion, to tempt one if our friends forsake us. Whatever I say of this kind, pray take it as I mean it, very kindly, for if I were not so, I should never complain.
"I am sure I will never give you cause by being less than I have proved myself your friend and servant, "A. S."
Evelyn was not disposed to submit to these reproaches without a remonstrance and reply.
He says: "I received your reproaches, though a little unjust, as a great mark of your favour shewn to me. I make no apology for saying unjust upon any other account than the inequality of my merits. First: I do assure your Ladyship that I have never failed in the duty which I owe to you, and which you do so justly exact—that of waiting upon your Ladyship every time I have been in town. I came up but on Friday, and thought your Ladyship was gone to Althorpe, till I was undeceived by my Lord Spencer, whom I met accidentally last evening. Yesterday I intended to wait upon your Ladyship, but was told by a friend you were not at home; so that I hope your Ladyship does absolve me of that want of duty and good manners as well as of gratitude.
"If I were upon equal terms with your Ladyship in other circumstances, then nothing I should take more to heart than your displeasure at my sincerity, because I do not importune your Ladyship for trifling replies, nor do I ever intend to mortify you, nor have you any cause to complain of my regards. I trust then, Madam, that your Ladyship will reproach me again in this manner, when I fail of doing you any real service which is in my power.
"Madam, I most heartily congratulate you on the recovery of my Lady Bristol. I did not know till now that she had been at all indisposed."
In the Spring of 1681, Lady Sunderland, who, notwithstanding all her protests against being too much occupied with the things of this world, seems always to have had a keen eye to her own interests and those of her family, applied to Evelyn to propose the marriage of her son, Lord Spencer, to the daughter and rich heiress of his friend. Sir Stephen Fox; a negotiation which he reluctantly undertook, but which will be better explained in his own words.
"16th May.Came my Lady Sunderland to desire that I would propose a match to Sir Stephen Fox, for her son, Lord Spencer, to marry Mrs. Jane, Sir Stephen's daughter, I excused myself all I was able; for the truth is, I was afraid he would prove an extravagant man; for, though a youth of extraordinary parts, and had an excellent education to render him a worthy man, yet his early inclination to extravagance made me apprehensive that I should not serve Sir Stephen by proposing it like a friend ; this being now his only daughter, well-bred, and likely to receive a large share of her father's opulence. Lord Sunderland was much sunk in his estate by gaming and other prodigalities, and was now no longer Secretary of State, having fallen into displeasure of the King for siding with the Commons about the succession; but which, I am assured, he did not do out of his own inclination, or for the preservation of the Protestant religion, but by mistaking the ability of the party to carry it. However, so earnest and importunate was the Countess, that I did mention it to Sir Stephen, who said, that it was too great an honour, that his daughter was very young, as well as my Lord, and he was resolved never to marry her without the parties' mutual liking, with other objections which I neither could nor would contradict.
"He desired me to express to the Countess the great sense he had of the honour done him, that his daughter and her son were too young, that he would do nothing without her liking, which he did not think her capable of expressing judiciously till she was sixteen or seventeen years of age, of which she now wanted four years, and that I would put it off as civilly as I could."[48]
The following letter from Lady Sunderland, urging this point, is no bad specimen of her diplomatic powers.
"I received your letter, and have all the grateful sense of your kindness to me in the worlds I have been in such a hurry with a great deal of unexpected company that I have not had a moment's leisure, and yet this business lies so much upon my heart that I cannot let this post pass without assuring you sincerely that I had rather marry my son to Sir Stephen Fox's daughter, with twelve thousand pounds, if our circumstances would admit of it, than to any other I can think of for twice the sum. So great a value have I for those two good people, he and his Lady. By the next post I shall lay before you all our reasons, and I don't doubt but I shall continue you how truly I desire this alliance, and how happy I shall think my son if it please God he may be matched among such good people.
This letter was accompanied by the following statement of the value of the Sunderland estates in Warwickshire and Northamptonshire; and it is curious, as in the course of it she alludes to a general depreciation of landed property that had occurred.
"The estate settled, on the marriage of the Earl of Sunderland, upon his eldest son, as it is now let.
| "The Manor of Wonne-Leighton, in Warwickshire, is now let for |
£2,300 | 0 | 0 |
| Althorpe | 0,602 | 0 | 0 |
| Nobottle | 0,313 | 11 | 0 |
| Nobottle Woods (60 acres) | 040 | 0 | 0 |
| Great Brington | 0,218 | 17 | 0 |
| Little Brington | 0,187 | 15 | 0 |
| ————— | |||
| 3,662 | 3 | 0 | |
"The Manor of Worme-Leighton, when I was married, was let for £3,200, as will be made out by every body; and, not to value the thing more than it deserves, I dare say may, if it were managed as it ought to be, made much more of than it is, though not so much as when it was first settled, because lands every where are generally sunk, and particularly thereabouts.
"The rest of my Lord's estate is engaged, part of it for sixteen thousand pounds, which is the reason of my telling you we could noways marry my Lord Spencer and provide for our younger children with less than twenty thousand pounds; which will, as you perceive, do more than clear the estate, which, when done, in consideration of the rents of the land settled being so much fallen, my Lord will settle one thousand a year more on my son's marriage.
"I will not enlarge upon other particulars of present maintenance and such things, because, if the propositions now made be hearkened unto, I am sure we shall not disagree—Sir Stephen Fox being so reasonable, and we being so much inclined to have an alliance with him.
"I forgot to mention that the 64 acres of wood is most very good timber, and that which brings in the £40 is only the carting of underwood necessary to be done.
"Half of Worme-Leighton is in jointure to my Lady Sunderland."
The failure of her plan was a sad disappointment, but Evelyn got very well out of the scrape, gaining credit for a degree of zeal which he scarcely deserved.
"If I had not been very busy," says Lady Sunderland, "I had before now answered your kind letter, in which your concern at our disappointment is as kind as was your zeal and industry to bring it to the hopes we had; and in all this, as in other matters, I have been so much obliged to you that I find myself brim full of thanks, and much wanting in the expression of them. I shall ever pray to God to reward you with temporal and eternal blessings.
"For my own part, I have been so acquainted with disappointment that I have almost learned to be unconcerned at any, though they are very grievous if occasioned by our friends. This is not at all of that nature, but, on the contrary, I find all the reason to be satisfied with your friendly proceedings in it.
"I have not yet directly told my mother of its being off, because she had so taken her measures upon the belief of the certainty of it. By degrees I preach to her of the uncertainty of all things in this world, and that I would have her believe that something may happen to cross her satisfaction if she depends upon it, and in a day or two I will tell her."
"Mrs. Jane Fox" had a fortunate escape; Lord Spencer turned out what Evelyn had anticipated, and probably much worse. Speaking of him in 1688, and contrasting his character with that of his younger brother, Mr. Charles Spencer,[49] whom he calls "a youth of extraordinary hopes, very learned of his age, and ingenious," he says; "happy were it could as much be said of the elder brother, the Lord Spencer, who, rambling about the world, dishonours his name and his family, adding sorrow to sorrow to a mother who has taken all imaginable care of his education." His end was a melancholy one, being caused by a wound which he received in a duel, the consequence of a riot in which he was engaged at Bury, of which he died, after lingering long, at Paris, in 1688.[50]
To return to Lady Sunderland, some compensation for her disappointment in respect to this match was at hand, in the restoration of her Lord to his place, and to the favour of the King, which he had lost by the course he took with regard to the Exclusion Bill, and which he recovered through the influence of the Duchess of Portsmouth, who, jade as she was in the opinion of his Lady, was always a fast friend to her husband.[51] Lord Sunderland retained his place as minister during the remainder of Charles's reign, and increased his influence during that of his successor. There are several letters of Lady Sunderland's, written to Evelyn during this period, among which the following shews that not only in her own matters of business, but in that of others, she referred to him for his assistance and advice.
"I must now tell you what is my opinion as to Chelsey[52]—that my mother had better take £6000 for it than live a melancholy life there another winter. I am ever to trouble you with my affairs, but now we come upon you double. My mother and I do earnestly beg that you will be so kind as to negotiate the sale with Monsieur Foubert, who has told Sir Gabriel Sylvius that he will give £4000 for it. Although this offer is so inconsiderable, there is no hearkening to it, yet, from its coming voluntarily from him, I conceive he may be brought to give this £4000 for the house and gardens, and leave my mother mistress of the little houses called the tenements. If he will agree to this, we beg you to conclude with him, and do all you can; and now, my dear Mr. Evelyn, excuse the perpetual trouble which is given you by one who would think nothing too difficult that might express how sincerely she is what she ought to be.
"I am so sleepy I can say no more."
Upon the invasion of the Prince of Orange, Lady Sunderland accompanied her husband in his flight into Holland. She soon, however, visited England again; being engaged, no doubt, in paving the way for their joint return.
In the month of June, 1689, she writes to Evelyn, from London—
"I am going on Monday to Althorpe, which is a journey I must make before I leave England, and I wish it were over, for 'twill make me have many a sad thought; and yet I think I ought to be filled with praises to God Almighty, that by this method he has seduced my husband from the error of his ways, and indeed I think he is a true penitent; and, when melancholy thoughts lay hold on me, I fear 'tis a great fault; for the punishments are so little in comparison of my deserts, that wonder at his mercy ought to fill my heart, and leave no room for any sorrow but for haying sinned against so good and gracious a God. Indeed, when I think I may live and serve that God who has done so much for me and for my poor Lord, who is now in one and the same holy religion, it does transport me, and I think there is nothing I could not go through to save it. Pray for it, pray for him, for me, and believe me that I am
When the question as to the exceptions in the Bill of Indemnity was under discussion. Lady Bristol had recourse to her friend Evelyn, to whom she writes—"I should be very glad if you could be at the House of Commons' door to-morrow, that you may understand what is to be done in the Act of Indemnity; for, since I saw you, I am told there will be a great debate upon it; and, as you come from hence, be pleased to eat a bit of mutton with me and your good friend, Mr. Boscawen. You will be extremely welcome, and 'twill be a great satisfaction to me to understand what is passed. I will stay till two of the clock to receive that satisfaction."
There was a great debate upon it, which ended in her son-in-law being excepted from the Bill: and, if Evelyn gave her a true account of things, for which she was willing to defer her dinner to so late an hour as two o'clock, the evening could not have passed off very agreeably; for, among other speeches made on that day, Mr. Harbord said—"I am for catching the great fishes; to catch little rogues is not worth our while. I would not fall into the misfortune of not making examples. This Ecclesiastical Court was not managed by Jenner—he is a little fellow. But for a Secretary of State (Lord Sunderland) to renounce his God, and act in that commission, you had as good give up all as not to question him."[53]
In the spring of the year 1691, notwithstanding his being specially excepted from pardon, Lord and Lady Sunderland returned to England; secure, if called in question, of receiving it from his Sovereign. After this period, her letters to Evelyn are almost entirely on private and domestic subjects: as age crept upon her, and ill health disabled her, and, more than this, disappointment and discontent at the sort of exile in the country to which herself and her Lord were doomed[54] preyed upon her, she became more querulous, more full of complaints of her friends' forgetfulness of her, though there was no real abatement on either side of interest or affection to the last. In October, 1694, Evelyn had nearly lost his beloved daughter, Mrs. Draper. What his feelings were on the prospect of her recovery may be judged of from the following letter.
"For the now hopeful progress of my poor daughter's recovery, of which we had very uncertain hopes till Monday night, we think ourselves in a great measure obliged to those of our friends who have been so kindly concerned for us, but to none more than to your Ladyship, and to the prayers which it has pleased God to hear, which may the same God abundantly return into your own bosom!
"On Saturday night last was se'nnight we did hardly expect to see my poor child alive the Sunday morning. Some almost imperceptible remission of her fever, and extreme thirst, which still kept her from the least repose, held us in sad suspense till Monday last, when, by the mercy of God, she was visibly better. She is now taking some rest and notice of those about her, which, till of late, she did hardly do. I bless Almighty God that she was prepared to go to a better life, and this was the only comfort in my affliction; and this. Madam, is the subject of my humble thanks to God.
"I am just now come for a night to Dover Street, and I have heard by a good friend of my Lord Spencer's happy marriage to a great Lady, of as great fortune, great prudence, and great beauty. There could be nothing less due to the great merits of my Lord's; nor, I am sure, any thing more agreeable to my true and hearty wishes. I congratulate all imaginable happiness to your Ladyship and your illustrious family."
"I can very sincerely assure you, my dear Mr. Evelyn, that your letter of the 9th was very welcome; and I am as glad as any friend you have in the world that it has pleased God to restore to you your only daughter. May she live to God's glory, and the true comfort of her worthy parents, shall be my hearty prayer.
"You had not heard the news of my Lord Spencer's marriage from any but myself, had not there once been a rub in it; and, when that was got over, the melancholy news I heard of poor Mrs. Draper made it, I thought, improper to trouble you. 'Tis now concluded, and the writings drawn in the lawyers' house, who say they will be ready in a fortnight, by which time the Duchess of Newcastle and her daughter will be in town, and I and Lord Spencer will be there to meet them.[55] I beseech God to give both them and us his blessing in this weighty affair, that she may prove every way a good wife for a very honest, good-natured man, as indeed, without any partiality, I think he is.
"My service to Mrs. Evelyn, with whom I do truly rejoice for her daughter's recovery. If it be not a trouble, present my service to Mrs. Draper. I wish her joy of her son.
The son[56] thus alluded to lived only a year; and, upon hearing of its death, Lady Sunderland writes in this strain of condolence and complaint.
"Though I have the mortification to think myself quite forgotten by Mr. Evelyn, I have this to comfort me, that I have done nothing to deserve the loss of that friendship you once thought me worthy of; and I find myself as much concerned for the late loss you have had in Mrs. Draper's fine boy, as any friend you have. I know your tender good-nature on these occasions, and indeed I think 'tis only oneself that teaches one in these losses, for we are so comfortably sure that the poor innocent babies are taken out of a naughty world to be very happy, that I have often wondered at the excessive sorrow I have sometimes seen on these occasions, but that we always prefer our own satisfaction, be it never so transitory, to the most solid good for others.
"Notwithstanding all I have said, I assure you I am as sorry as I ought to be for any affliction that befalls my friend, and though I do not pretend to be free from many faults, want of tenderness in my friends' concerns I am no way guilty of.
"Your kind letter received to-day, with the assurance of your concern and prayers for me, was very pleasing and comfortable to your old lone friend. I am very glad to give you the satisfaction you desire, in letting you know that I mend, though slowly, and yet, when I consider that 'tis but three weeks since I received so great a bruise, that 'tis an amazing thing to think all my bones were not broken. I find much matter for praise and thanksgiving, and none to repine at the slowth of my recovery. I beseech God to grant that I may never be unmindful of this great deliverance from misfortunes worse than death. Pray for me, my good friend, that I may be sensible, as I ought to be, of all his providences to me, and of this in particular."
With one more letter which breathes a kind and affectionate spirit, and which was written, probably, to the widow of Evelyn,[57] and when she was a widow herself, for in it there is no mention made of him, we close the correspondence and the story of Lady Sunderland.
"Last night I received a letter from you dated the 5th of this month, full of complaints that you never hear from me, for which I should be highly to blame did I give occasion, but, indeed, my dear good woman, I try all ways to get my letters to you, and never fail once a week; how it happens I cannot tell, but the post of late is in a sad way; we have letters which do not come till they are soiled and dirty, that the like was never seen, and sometimes they come with new ones. I am sure I am incapable of neglecting any thing that is either kind in itself, or that I know will give you any comfort; for, as I would not be without your love, so will I never fail you in mine, in little or in great.
"I thank God I am much better this summer than I was last; still I have remembrances of my weakness, which I am apt to think I shall never quite recover; but I sleep very well, and seldom feel any illness in my head, but my eyes are much decayed, but nothing but what is very supportable, and I hope I have a thankful heart for the many comforts which remain to me, unworthy as I am; among which your friendship is every day commemorated, as you are prayed for by me.
"If you leave Nanny with me till she troubles me 'twill be very kind, and she will not suddenly return, for she is truly welcome, and as well as ever I saw her. She does not grow fat, but her flesh is like brawn, and she grows tall with it. I am sure I love her as my child, and I hope you will not think me too bold if I use her as such.
"May I ask your thoughts on what I am sure you must have heard, though it may not be with the sad particulars I have, of a friend of yours; if you see the Bishop of Lincoln inquire of him, it really grieves and frightens me.
"Nanny says she loves Mamma, Aunt Pen, and Dad, and Neddy, dearly, and all her friends, but that she does not go to them for fear she should not come to me again.
"We have had four days of fine weather, and I hope that summer is come at last."
Lady Sunderland survived her friend Eyelyn about ten years; she died on the 16th of April, 1715.
Another of Sidney's distinguished correspondents is Sir William Temple, who, though in no way related to him, or to any of the Sunderland family, was so intimately connected with the Sidneys by personal and hereditary ties, that he may fairly be considered as forming one in the family picture.
Sir William Temple was born in London, in the year 1628; his grandfather, Sir William Temple, had been Secretary to Sir Philip Sidney, and his father, Sir John Temple, had married the sister of the celebrated Dr. Hammond, rector of Penshurst. At the age of seventeen he was sent to Emanuel College, Cambridge, where he remained till 1648; and the two following years of his life were passed in travelling on the continent. In 1654 he married the daughter of Sir Peter Osborne, an amiable, talented, and excellent woman, to whom he had been long engaged; and the next five years of his life were passed in happy and studious retirement in Ireland, from which he was summoned by the restoration of the king, in 1660, to engage in those scenes of public and political strife for which he was never really qualified by disposition or by habit. The fifteen years that followed were the active and busy years of his life, in the course of which he was frequently employed, either as envoy or ambassador, at different courts and places, at the Hague, at Aix-la-Chapelle, and at Nimeguen, ranking high in reputation generally as a diplomatist, but acquiring much the greater portion of his fame by his successful management of the celebrated treaty, known by the name of the Triple Alliance, between England, Holland, and Sweden, against France. This treaty was concluded in 1668, and it seems that much of his success was owing to his frankness of manner and honesty of purpose. These were qualifications, however, which made him a very unfit servant for such a master as Charles, and he was recalled from the Hague in 1670. The triple cord which he and De Witt had woven was snapped; the King and his Ministers devoted themselves to the interests of France, and Temple retired to the delights of his study and his garden at Sheen.
In 1674, the war with Holland having ended in failure and disgrace, he was again called for and appointed Ambassador to the States; and it was on this occasion that before his departure he requested an interview with Charles, in which he quoted to him the saying of Gourville, that a King of England to be great must be the man of his people; and Charles, laying his hand upon his, replied: "And I will be the man of my people." Temple was delighted, and believed him, and very soon found that he had been thoroughly taken in.
In 1678 he was associated with Sir Lionel Jenkins as mediators in the Congress at Nimeguen. He was then offered the place of Secretary of State; and so anxious was Charles at that time to obtain the credit which he would have gained by his services, that he offered to pay half the sum of £10,000 which was asked by Secretary Coventry, as the price of his resignation. Temple declined the offer and the office, and was again sent as Ambassador to the Hague, being probably influenced to accept this post by his regard for the people of Holland generally, and by his sincere attachment to his friend the Prince of Orange.[58]
On his return, in 1679, he found the King completely embarrassed, involved in violent contention with the Parliament, and utterly at a loss to know what to do. In this time of difficultly Charles treated him with perfect confidence; and then it was that, to relieve him from his troubles, he proposed to him that new and strange scheme of government which was the last great act of his political life— the plan of a great council of thirty of the most eminent men of all opinions and all parties. The plan, as might have been expected, proved a complete failure; jealousies and quarrels ensued; Temple himself gradually withdrew from their meetings; and at length, with Lord Essex and others, he was struck out of the list of Privy Councillors.
From this time, Temple, who had sate as member for the University of Cambridge, retired altogether from public life, and passed the rest of his days between Sheen and Moor Park, bidding the world farewell in these words: "And so I take leave of all those airy visions which have so long busied my head about mending the world, and at the same time of all those shining toys and follies that employ the thoughts of busy men, and shall turn them wholly to mend myself; and, as far as consists with a private condition, still pursue that old and excellent counsel of Pythagoras—that we are with all the cares and endeavours of our lives to avoid diseases in the body, perturbations in the mind, luxury in diet, factions in the house, and seditions in the state."
There are few instances in which the resolutions of public men to live in retirement for the remainder of their days are steadily adhered to, if the opportunity of escaping from it offers itself; but such was really the case with Temple. Until 1685, he lived entirely at Sheen, without ever visiting the Court or the town; he waited occasionally both on Charles and James at Richmond, where he was received by both sovereigns, but especially by James, with marked attention. In 1686, he removed to Moor Park, leaving his son, John Temple, in possession of his place at Sheen; and it was on his way there that he waited upon James for the last time, when he begged "his protection to one that would always live a good subject, but who, whatever happened, would never again enter into public employment; and he desired his majesty never to give credit to whatever he might hear to the contrary."
In the revolution of 1688,. it is certain that he took no part; but did it not rest upon the authority of his sister. Lady Giffard, it would be difficult to believe not only that he was not acquainted with the Prince's intentions, but that he was one of the last people that believed it; nor could his son obtain his father's permission to meet him on his landing. Upon the abdication of James, be considered himself relieved from the obligation of this promise, and they both waited upon the Prince at Windsor, where he was again pressed to enter into his service as Secretary of State, which, however, be consistently declined.
A sad domestic calamity awaited him: his son was appointed to the office of Secretary at War; within a week after his appointment, be committed suicide, by throwing himself into the Thames, leaving this writing behind him: "My folly in undertaking what I was not able to perform has done the king and kingdom a great deal of prejudice. I wish him all happiness and abler servants than John Temple." The circumstance alluded to is supposed to be his having engaged for the fidelity of General Hamilton, who, being employed to negotiate with Tyrconnel, the Governor in Ireland, betrayed the trust reposed in him.
William, though he could not persuade Temple to take any office, frequently advised with him upon matters of importance; and it is known that Bentinck was expressly sent to him to ask hie advice as to the expediency of refusing the Royal Assent to the Bill for Triennial Parliaments. Sir W. Temple advised him to pass the Bill; and he employed Swift, who was then his private secretary, to carry his reasons to the Earl of Portland; they did not, however, prevail.
Early in the year 1695, Sir W. Temple lost his wife, an excellent and very superior woman; his sister. Lady Giffard, lived with him till his death, which took place in the year 1699; he was buried, according to his own directions, with as small expense as was convenient, in Westminster Hall, near two of his children, who had died young, and his heart, according to his own express desire, was interred "six feet underground on the south-east side of the stone dial in the little garden at Moor Park."[59] The following extracts from the memoir of Sir W. Temple, written for the satisfaction of his friends hereafter, upon the grounds of his retirement and resolution never to meddle again with any public affairs from this present February, 1680, will put the reader in possession of the exact condition of things previous to the departure of Sidney as envoy to the Hague.
"Upon my arrival in England (in the spring of 1678–9, from the Hague), I met with the most surprising scene that ever was. The Long Parliament dissolved, and the resolution taken for the Duke's coming into Holland, and that he was to part next day." . . . .
"I never saw any man more sensible of the miserable condition of his affairs than I found his Majesty, upon many discourses with him which my foreign employments and correspondences made way for; but nothing touched me more than when, upon the sad prospect of them all, he told me he had none left with whom he could so much as speak of them in confidence, since my Lord Treasurer (Danby) was gone." . . . .
"I found that the council of my Lord Treasurer's removal had been carried on by the Duke of Monmouth, in conjunction with the Duchess of Portsmouth and Lord Essex, who was then in the greatest confidence with the Duke of Monmouth, and by him and Lord Sunderland newly brought into the Treasury. I found my Lord Sunderland, at least, in compliance with this knot, and that all were resolved to bring my Lord Shaftesbury again to Court."
"On the other side, I believed the Parliament to grow every day more violent upon the support they received from the humours raised by the Plot, and the inventions given them by the ambitions of persons playing that game. I saw a probability of matters growing to that pass that his Majesty might be forced to part with them, and yet I saw not authority left in the Crown either to do that without the venture of greater mischiefs, or to live without another parliament till the present humours cool. Both these considerations meeting together, cast me upon the thoughts of the King establishing a new council of such a constitution as might either gain enough with the present Parliament, by taking in so many persons of those who had most among them, and thereby give ease and quiet both to the King and his people."
This plan having been received and adopted with equal amazement and pleasure, and as a thing sent from Heaven, Sir W. Temple says, "Upon the new constitution of the Council, my Lord Sunderland had, by Mr. Sidney, desired that we might join together in perfect confidence and distinct from any others in the course of the King's affairs; whether I would enter into the other secretary's office or no, which, I said, I was very willing to embrace. . . . . This confidence had not run on above a fortnight when my Lord Sunderland asked me if I were willing my Lord Essex should be received into it, which I consented to, though with intimation to Lord Sunderland of the opinion I had for some time of late of Lord Essex, who, I thought, I knew better than he did, so we met for a while once a day, by turns, at each of our houses, and consulted upon the chief affairs which were then on the anvil, and how they might best be prepared for the Parliament or Council; but matters growing very untoward, by the practices of Lord Shaftesbury, with the Duke of Monmouth's cover at least, and upon the ill-humour of the House of Commons about the business of religion, and my Lord Halifax appearing unsatisfied, by observing where the King's confidence was, I proposed to my Lords Sunderland and Essex to receive him into all our consultations, which I thought would both enter him into credit with the King, and give us more ease in the course of his affairs. Lord Essex received the overture with his usual dryness, and told me I should not find Lord Halifax the person I took him for, but one that could draw with nobody, but still climbing up to the top himself. However, I continued resolute in pressing it, and so at length the thing was concluded, and we fell all four together into the usual meetings and consultations."••••••••
•••••••••••• "During all these transactions (alluding to the public questions, such as the exclusion of the Duke of York, &c.), the three Lords and I continued our constant meetings and consultations; and with so much union and so disinterested endeavours for the general good of his Majesty's service and the kingdoms, that I could not but say to them, at the end of one of our meetings, that we four were either the honestest men in England, or the greatest knaves, for we all made one another at least believe that we were the honestest in the world." ••••••••••••
"The three Lords and I went on unanimous in our consultations, considering how to make way for a calmer and better tempered session of Parliament, after the short prorogation which had been made. To which purpose we again endeavoured the removal of the Duke of Lauderdale, or at least the admission of other nobles of Scotland in those affairs. We concluded the measures with Holland in all points to the satisfaction of their Ambassadors, and thought of such arts of council as might express his Majesty's care for the suppression of popery, even in the intervals of Parliament."
Such is the description given by Sir William Temple of the happy state of this self-constituted cabinet council, when Henry Sidney, the uncle of Lord Sunderland, who was entirely of their party and entered into all their views, was appointed Envoy to the States of Holland. But soon "a change came o'er the spirit of his dream." His plan of the council, from which so much had been expected, had already shown symptoms of failure. The machine he had invented being too cumbrous, and formed of too jarring materials to bear the strain and friction to which it was exposed, soon went to pieces; and, with regard to his own particular friends, in three short months from the time that he thus writes of them, he had sufficient proof that, as far at least as he himself was concerned, they were very far from being "the three honestest men in England."
In the mean time, Sidney sailed for Holland, bearing with him instructions to cultivate the friendship of that power, and to strengthen the alliance with England by new guarantees; and no less positive and earnest were the private injunctions he received from his friends who sent him there, to secure to each of them the favour and friendship of the Prince of Orange, in case of accidents.
- ↑ She was the Sacharissa of Waller.
- ↑ Many a mother will enter into Lady Leicester's feelings when she thus wrote, in 1636, to her husband at Paris. "It would joy me much to receive some hope of that Lord's addresses to Doll, which once you wrote to me of, for next to what concerns you, I confess she is considered by me above any thing of this world." And again: "Holland professes to my sister, that he desires the parties here might have an absolute refusal; but I am confident that if he had showed himself real to my Lord Devonshire's marrying Doll, which he professed, they would never have employed him in making a marriage for another, which makes me conclude that either his lady commands him to hinder Doll, or else he is so weak and so unfaithful as his friendship is not worthy the least." And on the breaking off her daughter's marriage with Lord Lovelace, on account of his loose character, she says, "My dear heart, let not these cross accidents trouble you, for we do not know what God has provided for her; and howsoever let us submit to his will, and confess that his benefits are far beyond our deserts, and his punishments much less than we have reason to expect."—Collins's Sidney State Papers, ii., 495.
- ↑ ' Mackintosh's Hist. Rev.
- ↑ Collins's Sidney State Papers. For the whole of this letter see Appendix A, end of vol. ii., where also is given, in an extract from a letter of Mr. Sudbury to the Earl of Leicester, a very interesting account of the effect of the fatal tidings on Lady Leicester and Lady Sunderland.
- ↑ In Mr. Upcott's Collection.
- ↑ Collins's Sidney State Papers.Blencowe's Sidney Papers.
- ↑ "Then the writings being brought, and a thin book held under the place where she should set her name, she took the pen more strongly than I expected. She put it into the ink herself, and wrote her name to 4 or 5 several writings. Then said she to me, "My dear heart, I thank you, and I pray God to bless to our dear boy (Henry) that which I have done for him."—Blencowe's Sidney Papers, p. 274.
The following extract to her will shows this feeling more strongly. "Having received a liberty from my dear Lord and husband to dispose according to my will of such things as he has at any time bestowed upon me, or that I have bought with the money that has been in my own hands, I do therefore give to my son, Henry Sidney, the French plate, the Mortlake hangings, all my pictures, my black cabinets, my looking glasses, my porcelain, books at Leicester House and Penshurst, or whatever has been bought with my own, except such things as may be useful to my Lord; and in respect of divers wrought beds, gilt leather hangings, and several other things which have been provided by me, I desire, that if it stand with my Lord's liking, that he will appoint these things for him after his own decease, or that he may have in lieu of them £500 in money; and, because it will be very convenient to my son Henry Sidney's concernment to make what money may be gotten between this and Michaelmas, I desire that Smith and Higgins may be employed to sell these several things to the best advantage: these requests I do recommend to my dear Lord and husband, under my hand and seal,
"D. Leicester,
"10th July, 1659." - ↑ Burnet mentions a curious fact of this Duchess, that "Morley (Bishop of Winchester) had been her father confessor, and that she practised secret confession to him from the time that she was twelve years old." Mem. de Grammont. Burnet's Hist., Oxf. Ed., i., 394. Reresby's Mem.
- ↑ The patent is a curious one. "He is appointed Master of the Robes, apparel and other necessaries for the use of the King, his heirs, and successors, to receive £5000 a year out of the exchequer, to the end that provisions incident to the place may be paid for more husbandlike, and bought cheap. £4500 to be paid for the maintenance of the place, and to be accounted for annually."—Collins's Life of Sidney.
In writing to his master when in Holland, his steward, Gilbert Spencer, mentions to him the following privilege which he possessed as incident to his office. "As you are master of his Majesty's Robes, I am told you have the power to name two poor men to appear before the King to have their feet washed on Maundy Thursday; if I knew your honour's pleasure in it, I would appoint Noll and one other poor creature like him to be two; it will be about £3 help to each person." The following amongst many other passages proves that his Majesty was a very indifferent paymaster. "Since my last I have spoken with Mr. Godolphin about your entertainment, and also the robes, to which I had this answer, that money was short, but that they would think of money for you, which was all the answer I got. I conceive, under favour, that your best way would be to write very pressingly for it, and the sooner the better."—See Journal. - ↑ This does not appear, however, to have been the fact. Sir W. Temple says: "They believed it a thing directed and advised from hence, and, in a word, by Lord Sunderland, to Mr. Sidney, his uncle, as a matter that would be of weight to induce the King to pass the bill. But besides that, Lord Sunderland protested to me, after council, that he knew nothing of it, till he received a copy from Mr. Sidney, who sent the original to the secretary. I thought he could not understand the King so ill as to believe that would be a motive to him to pass the bill, or that it could have any other effect than to anger him at the Dutch for meddling in a matter that was domestic not only to the nation but to the crown." It is pretty clear from the Journal that the Prince of Orange was at the bottom of this plan of the Memorial.—Temple's Works, ii., 542.
- ↑ The following letter, from his friend Mr. Thynne, throws some light upon Sidney's pursuits at the Hague.
London, August 22, 79.
Sir,
I cannot let the inclosed, from Mr. Secretary, pass through my hands without giving you an assurance that it is with great satisfaction that I hear of your welfare and safe return to the Hague, which is now a place, I presume, not much more pleasant than London, which is the most solitary that ever I knew, and were not to be endured if it had not the advantage of Lady Selwyn's company. I hear that you have likewise found some conversation among the English ladies, which, though it yield you some satisfaction and entertainment, affords no great divertisement to the Count, your rival, who I suppose is not ignorant of your power among the ladies. I suppose you are as idle at this time ad myself, or else should not presume to write this to a Public Minister, but it is because this place affords nothing more serious, unless it be the profession with which I declare myself, Sir,
Your most humble and obedient servant,
H. Thynne. - ↑ Original Letter.
- ↑ "Sidney was sent with Bentinck into Holland, a choice which seemed to indicate an extraordinary deference to the wishes of the Prince, and was considered in Holland as a decisive mark of a good understanding between the two governments."—Mackintosh's His. Rev. p. 356.
- ↑ Collins's Life of Henry Sidney.
- ↑ Note to Burnet, iv. 425.
- ↑ Burnet mentions an instance of this, in which he was counteracted by "the pious care" of Queen Mary. "The state of Ireland leads us to insert here a very particular instance of the Queen's pious care in the disposing of bishopricks. Lord Sidney was so far engaged in the interest of a great family in Ireland, that he was too easily wrought on to recommend a branch of it to a vacant see. The representation was made with an undue character of the person, so the Queen granted it. But when she understood that he lay under a very bad character, she wrote a letter in her own hand to Lord Sidney, letting him know what she had heard, and ordered him to call for six Irish bishops, whom she named to him, and to require them to certify to her their opinion of that person. They all agreed that he laboured under an ill fame, and till that was examined into, they did not think it proper to promote him; so that matter was let fall. I do not name the person, for I intend not to leave a blemish upon him, but set this down as an example, fit to be imitated by Christian princes."—iv. 209.
- ↑ Collins's Life of Sidney.
- ↑ "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty.
"The humble Petition of Grace Worthley,
"Sheweth that your Petitioner, having tried with all submissions upon her knees to Mr. Sidney to induce him to do those things that are but her due from him, both by his word and numbers of solemn promises, can prevail nothing with him more than that he will have her banished the town, which she never will submit to, and is fallen from four score pounds a year to fifty. So that your Petitioner is afraid to go a hundred and fifty miles off, only upon his bare word, for so poor a pension; but is resolved to starve in town, if neither your Majesty will be her friend with Mr. Sidney, or the law will give her nothing.
"Your Majesty's poor unfortunate Petitioner has been informed that Mr. Sidney has abused her to your Majesty; but, to prove how false all his abuses, or at least his informers, are—Your Petitioner had a husband, that, out of the great zeal he bore to his Royal Highness, your Majesty's dear brother, went with him to sea in the Dutch war that happened in the sickness year, and there got his death, as can be made appear by the people of the house where he left your disconsolate Petitioner, who are yet alive, and where I continued till within five weeks of my being brought acquainted with Mr. Sidney.
"May it therefore please your Majesty both to judge and to plead the righteous cause of the distressed and the innocent, as you in your Princely power and equity shall think meet. And your Petitioner, as in duty bound, shall ever pray for your Majesty." - ↑ It is possible the Beadle and the Constable may have been very necessary guards upon the occasion alluded to; for this lady had a spirit which, when roused, made her very formidable. The following letter to her cousin. Lord Brandon, is a proof of this—"Sept. 7th. —82.
"My Lord
"I am sorry I have any occasion to give you trouble, but much more to hear that you and Mr. Sidney are not good friends, for I am sure he has ever loved and honoured you: but, my Lord, all the things in this world are fickle and inconstant as fortune herself; but I was a little afflicted to hear Mr. Sidney say he believes I was bribed to go to Whitehall, and that he suspected you set me to work; to which I only answered, that I never had the honour yet to see your face, and that I did not know whether you had a face or no * * * I am sorry Mr. Sidney is so credulous as to believe all the idle inventions of malicious people against me and my son, which, if he were not perfectly blind, he might see is only pure spite and malice. He treats me with a great deal of cruelty, which I think is very severe, first to have spent my precious youth so dismally as I have done, and now, for a reward of all my sufferings, to be abused and despised, and my son rejected, as if he were none of his, and all this to please his great Mistress; but he will find I have more than an ordinary soul, and, though I cannot manage a sword, a pistol I can; and, if he does not think good to make me some better satisfaction for the many years of my youth which he has obliged me to spend with him, I shall pistol him and be hanged for him, which I had rather do than sit still and starve, or be any longer a laughing-stock for any of Mr. Kirke's bastards. This you may sincerely believe from her who is, my Lord, the humblest of your servants," Grace Worthley."
On another occasion she treats certain warrants with which he had threatened her with singular disrespect. She tells him "I will make madder work than ever I have done yet, and, if it must come to that, I shall not be afraid of your taking me up with your own warrant, by virtue of your being a Privy Councillor, as your man, George Watson, every quarter, when he pays me your plentiful allowance of £12. 10s., sends me word you will; but, if you please, you may send your warrants to the common Countess of Oxford and her adulterous bastards, to be employed as all such warrants ought to be, and which, for good manners' sake, I omit to tell you how." - ↑ Barillon, speaking of Algernon Sidney, in a letter to Louis XIV., says he is on bad terms with his brother, who is in Holland, and laughs at the Court for making use of him as a negociation.—Dalrymple's Memoirs, i., 339.
- ↑ When Sidney's large book upon Government came out in the reign of King William, Sir W. Temple asked me if I had seen it. I told him I had read it all once. He could not help admiring at my patience, but desired to know what I thought of it. I said it seemed to me to be wrote with a design to destroy all Government. Sir William answered, "that was for want of knowing the author, for there was one passage in it that explained the whole, which was this. 'If there be any such thing as divine right, it must be where one man is better qualified to govern another, than he is to govern himself.' Such a person seems to be designed by God and nature to govern the other for his benefit and happiness." Now, I, that knew him very well, can assure you that he looked upon himself to be that very man so qualified to govern the rest of all mankind.—Lord Dartmouth's Note to Burnet's Hist., ii., 341.
- ↑ Lord Dartmouth's Note, iv., 8. In this collection there is the following agreeable letter, without a name or the date of the year, directed to the Honourable Mr. Sidney, at his house in Jermin Street, London.
"You have very honest principles between man and man, but so corrupted and pernicious to religion and loyalty, that without you soon make your peace with God and the King after this 27th of January, you have not many days to live. Make use of this friendly caution, and repent before repentance is in vain." - ↑ "An order came down from Charles II., that the surplice should be worn according to the custom of ancient times. It was an unusual sight at that university * * *. William Penn, who conceived that the simplicity and spirituality of the Christian religion would be destroyed by the introduction of outward ceremonies and forms, could not bear it. Engaging. therefore, his friend Robert Spencer and some other young gentlemen to join him, he fell upon those students who appeared in surplices, and they tore them over their heads. The college took it up, and Penn and several of his associates were expelled"—Clarkson's Life of Penn.
- ↑ This Dr. Pierce became afterwards Rector of Brington, in Northamptonshire. In a letter addressed to his patron, the Dowager Lady Sunderland, he thus speaks, both of his pupil and his own preferment. "It has cost me a sequestration from your Ladyship's presence, and from the immediate pleasure which I enjoyed in the education of your son, whose choice rudiments of nature, having been properly seasoned and crowned with grace, gave him such a willingness and aptitude to be taught, as reconciled my greatest pains with ease and pleasure. So that the education of my dear Lord was not so much an employment as it was my recreation and reward."—Kennet's Reg., 216.
- ↑ Mackintosh's Hist. Rev.
- ↑ "The drift of that letter (Sunderland's letter of justification) being to reconcile himself to the people, he most falsely pretended to have constantly opposed all those measures which are now so much railed against, whereas in reality he did not only approve of them, but generally ran before the rest. He would often times, indeed, try the foid by his secret agents. Sir Nicholas Butler, Mr. Lob, and even Father Fetre himself, that he might seem only to oppose those dangerous methods which had their origin from him alone."—Life of James II., 283.
- ↑ See Letter in the Appendix.
- ↑ "Neither is it an excuse that I have got none of those things which usually engage men in public affairs. My quality is the same it ever was, and my estate much worse, even ruined, though I was born to a very considerable one, which I am ashamed to have spoyled, though not so much as if I had increased it by indirect means."
- ↑ For the recall of the English troops from Holland, who would have interfered with Louis's views, he received a good sum. Nothing could be more explicit than his terms. "Si le rappel des troupes de Hollande, dit il convient aux intérêts de la France, j'ay tout le credit necessaire pour l'obtenir. Mais un tel service merite une récompense proportionnée au peril de oelui qui l'auroit procuré. Dans les affaires d'importance il faut s'expliquer nettement, et savoir à quoi s'en tenir."—Barillon.
- ↑ "Many who remained at Court could scarce contain showing to the world their inward pleasure at this occasion (the defection of James's troops); for, the express arriving just as his Majesty was going to dinner, his concern was too great to think of any thing but how to remedy the comfortless situation of affairs. So, calling for a piece of bread and a glass of wine, he went immediately to consult what measures were fittest to be taken. At which time the Lords Sunderland, Churchil, and Godolphin, instead of compationating at least the anguish of so kind and bountiful a master, were seen unawares going hand in hand along the gallery in the greatest transport of joy imaginable."—Life of James II., 218.
- ↑ Evelyn Mem. i., 660. Reresby, 372. Lady Sunderland denies, though very equivocally, the fact of the disguise.—See Letter.
- ↑ The following account of this transaction is given in a note to Burnet's Hist.—"The King had given ten thousand pounds to the Earl of Dorset to quit the Chamberlain's staff, and gave it to the Earl of Sunderland, upon which Lord Norris fell very violently upon him in the House of Commons, as a man whose actions had been so scandalous during his whole life, that he never had any one to excuse one crime, but by accusing himself of another. Therefore he hoped they would address his Majesty to remove him from his presence and council, which, though not seconded, was universally well received.
"Some of his friends told him they had computed how the numbers would run in the House of Commons upon any address that should be moved for there against him, and that they did not think there would be more than 160 for it. '160,' said he for it, 'that's more than any man can stand against long; I am sure I won't;' and so resigned the next day, but the King continued to advise with him in private upon all his affairs. To confirm this anecdote, and to show the haste he was in to put himself out of this danger. Lord Hardwicke told me that in a conversation he had with the Duke of Somerset about this Earl of Sunderland, the Duke said that, upon the apprehension of this attack in the House of Commons, the Earl desired the Duke and Lord Chief Justice Holt, both of them his most particular friends, to give him a meeting, to consult with them what he should do upon the occasion, either to retire, or to stand to it. The appointment was for the evening before the day, as he was told, (after the appointment) the attempt was to be made, and the address to be moved for, and they came accordingly, but found the Earl was gone to the King at Kensington, He left word, however, that he begged them to stay, for he would be bade very soon, and he was so. When they met, the Earl fell into other discourse with them, and, whilst he was talking, Holt observed he had not the key upon his coat, and, interrupting, said, 'My Lord, where is your key?' 'At Kensington,' said the Earl. 'Why so quick, my Lord,' replied the Chief Justice, 'you might have stayed till to-morrow.' 'To-morrow, my lord,' said the Earl, 'to-morrow would have ruined me, to night has saved me,' and so told them what he heard was the design, and that he knew the King must have submitted to it"—Note of Lord Dartmouth, Burnet's Hist., iv., 369. - ↑ Shrewsbury Papers.
- ↑ Among other good acts of his, it appears from a statement of the Duchess of Marlborough that his good offices were employed, and successfully, in reconciling William and the Princess Anne. "I never heard of any body that opposed this reconciliation, except the Earl of Portland; but the person who wholly managed the affair between the King and the Princess was my Lord Sunderland. He had upon all occasions relating to her showed himself a man of sense and breeding, and, before there was any thought of the Queen's dying, had designed to use his influence to make up the breach, in which, however, I am persuaded he could not have succeeded during the Queen's life. Her death made it easy for him to bring the King to a reconcilement."—Account of the Conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough.
- ↑ Letter to the Duke of Shrewsbury, January, 1698.
- ↑ Letter to the Duke of Shrewsbury.—Shrewsbury Papers. 535.
- ↑ Shrewsbury Correspondence.
- ↑ Shrewsbury Correspondence.
- ↑ They were married in 1663. Pepys tells a strange story, which was probably the mere gossip of the day, of some difficulty which delayed though it did not prevent the marriage. Speaking of Lord Bristol, he says, "I hear also of another difficulty now upon him, that my Lord Sunderland, whom I do not know, was so near to the marriage of his daughter, as that the wedding-clothes were made, and portion and every thing agreed upon and ready. And the other day he goes away, nobody yet knows whither, sending the next morning a release of his right and claim to her, and advice to his friends not to inquire into the reason of this doing, for he hath enough of it, and that he gives them liberty to say and think what they will of him. So that they do not demand the reason of his leaving her, having resolved never to have her.
"1st July, 1663.If there he any truth in the story at all, the objection was soon got over, for they were married in less than a month afterwards." - ↑ The following commission to Mrs. Evelyn proved that Lady Sunderland was a good manager, and looked well after her servants. " My service to Mrs. Evelyn—I wish she could recommend me a good and understanding man that were sightly to wait, who might be between a clerk of the kitchen and a steward, that were a very good accountant, and who understands choosing of meat, and very honest—enough so as not to think of taking poundage. His wages should be the better for it. 'Twould be a great obligation." —Mr. Upcott's Manuscript.
- ↑ Evelyn had good reason to speak well of Lady Sunderland. She had treated him and his son with a generous hospitality, of which we have no idea in modern days. "I went" he says, "to Althorpe, in Northamptonshire, 70 miles. A coach and four horses took me and my son at Whitehall, and carried us to Dunstable, where we arrived and dined at noon; and from thence another coach and six horses carried us to Althorpe, six miles beyond Northampton, where we arrived by seven in the evening. Both these coaches were hired for me by that noble Countess of Sunderland, who invited me to her house at Althorpe, where she entertained me and my son with extraordinary kindness. I stayed there till Thursday." When Thursday came, he says, "I left this noble place and conversation, my Lady having provided carriages to convey us back in the same manner as we came, and a dinner being prepared at Dunstable against our arrival."—i. 653.
- ↑ "The Duchess of Hamilton, although a staunch Presbyterian and hearty revolutionist, at all times contradicted the story of the Queen's false big belly on the authority of the Countess of Sunderland, whom she reckoned as good a woman as any in England."—Additional Note to Burnet's Hist.
- ↑ "I then went," says Lord Clarendon, "to the Princess, my wife having told me she wondered she did not see me. I found her in her bedchamber, only one of her dressers with her . . . . . She told me she found the King much disturbed about the preparations that were making in Holland . . . . . She then spoke with great dissatisfaction of my Lord and Lady Sunderland, especially of my Lady Sunderland. I said I was much surprised to find her Royal Highness in this mind towards that Lady, whom all the world thought to have great interest with her, and asked if I might presume to inquire what the matter was. She said she thought her one of the worst women in the world. After a pause, I took the liberty to say that I wished her Royal Highness had not thought so well of her heretofore, that I was sure she had a just caution given her."—Clarendon's Diary, ii. 189.
- ↑ Both Barillon and Bonrepos, in their letters to Louis, allude to the "commerce de galanterie," which it was generally supposed existed between Henry Sidney and Lady Sunderland. "On leur prit," says Barillon, in July, 1678, "il y a quelque temps des lettres qu'elle (Lady Sunderland) ecrivoit à Mr. Sidney qui est presentement aupres du Prince d'Orange, et fort bien avec lui. Le Roi d'Angleterre a eu connoissance de ces lettres[I 1] que Madame de Sunderland à et my Lord S., s'est tiré d'affaire en disant que quand même ces lettres de sa femme ne seroient point supposées, il seroit impossible qu'il y eut aucun part, qu'on ne savoit que trop que sa femme etoit soupçonnée d'ávoir un commerce de galanterie avec Sidney, et qu'il n'etoit pas vraisemblable qu'il mit toute sa fortune et sa vie entre les mains d'un homme quil doit hair."
- ↑ Evelyn's Memoirs.
- ↑ Evelyn was a great diner out, and happy was Lady Sunderland to secure him at her dinner-parties, either at her own house, or at her mother's, Lady Bristol's, at Chelsea. She was evidently a person who liked to see every thing, and, in indulging this taste, Evelyn was frequently her companion. He escorted her to the exhibitions; he took her to dine with his friend. Sir Robert Clayton, on the Lord Mayor's day—"being desired to carry her there on a solemn day, that she might see that Prince of Citizens, who, for the stateliness of his palace, prodigious feasting, and magnificence, had never been exceeded." If there was anything very curious to be seen. Lady Sunderland sent for Evelyn. "I took leave," he says, "in 1672, of my Lady Sunderland, who was going to Paris to my Lord, now Ambassador there. She made me stay dinner at Leycester House, and, after dinner, she sent for Richardson, the fire-eater," &c. &c. Again, "dining with Lady Sunderland, I saw a fellow swallow a knife and divers great pebble-stones, which would make a great rattling one against the other; the knife was in a sheath of horn." [I 2] If Evelyn, or indeed any of her friends, was sick, the next post was sure to bring a letter from Lady Sunderland with a certain cure. Who knows but that the following hint may make the fortune of some physician of this day? "I beg I may hear by the bearer how you do, for indeed I am truly concerned. I likewise desire you will try my receipt; indeed, I have known it do wonders. Just when you find the least grumbling of your fit, have so much new milk ready as will in a bucket come up above the calves of your legs. You must put your legs in as hot as 'tis possible to bear, covering it over with a cloth to keep in the heat. You must also have milk over the fire, very hot, to put in as the heat of the other goes off; so keep it, during all your cold fit, as hot as you can bear it. The first time, it will make you very sick and faint.
"You must drink candy-possett as you sit in the milk; and, as soon as your cold fit goes off, go to bed and sweat. Pray do this for three fits, and I hope in God it will cure you. I have never known it fail."—Mr. Upcott's Manuscripts. - ↑ Somerset House had been the Jointure House of the Dowager Queen Henrietta Maria. It was at this time occasionally the residence of Queen Catherine.
- ↑ Evelyn Mem. i. 533.
- ↑ The eldest son dying without issue, this Charles Spencer succeeded to the title and estate, and married for his second wife one of the daughters and coheirs of John Duke of Marlborough. His son, by her, succeeded to that title.
- ↑ See Letter.
- ↑ See Letter.
- ↑ This House at Chelsea has been since better known by the name of Beaufort House. About the year 1520, Sir Thomas More purchased an estate at Chelsea, and built himself a house, as Erasmus describes it, "neither mean, nor subject to envy, yet magnificent and commodious enough." "This House was afterwards in the possession of George Digby, Earl of Bristol, who bequeathed it to his widow, who, in January, 1682, sold it to Henry, Marquis of Worcester, created Duke of Beaufort. From 1683, it was known by the appellation of Beaufort House, and continued to be the occasional residence of that noble family till about the year 1720. After standing empty several years, it was purchased by Sir Hans Sloane, at public sale, for £2500, and was pulled down in 1740. The Gate, which was built by Inigo Jones for the Lord Treasurer Middlesex, Sir Hans gave to the Earl of Burlington, who removed it to his gardens at Chiswick."—Falkener's History of Chelsea, i. 132.
- ↑ Parliamentary History, v. 372.
- ↑ The Earl of Orford, writing to the Duke of Shrewsbury, in 1698, says—"He (Lord Sunderland) was with me after he had seen the King, and he told me he had a joy greater than it was possible for him to express: that the King had been pleased to shew so much goodness to him as to suffer him to retire to Althorpe, and never to think of business, which he was so unfit for. But it is very discernible in his face, and much more so in his Lady's, that this resolution and favour of the King's was not expected and not at all liked of."—Shrewsbury Correspondence.
- ↑ "Whatever," says Lord Sunderland, "may be the King's mind in relation to me, I will ever submit to it. I hope he does not doubt it, and I shall most willingly stay here, not only till after Christmas, but for seven years, if he thinks fit; though I have a great concern at this time, being most extremely anxious to see my son married . . . Endeavouring to marry a son to one's mind is so good a reason for being in town, and shall be so public that I suppose it may satisfy the most extravagant jealousy, but every thing that relates to me ought and shall yield to what the King likes best."-Shrewsbury Correspondence, 594.
- ↑ Evelyn gives the following account of the very comfortable establishment of the Draper family, in a letter to his friend, Dr. Bohon.—"My daughter Draper being brought to bed in the Christmas holidays of a fine boy, has given an heir to her most deserving husband—a prudent, well-natured gentleman, a man of business, like to be very rich, and deserving to be so, among the happiest pairs I think in England, and to my daughter's and our heart's desire. She has also a fine girl and a mother-in-law exceedingly fond of my daughter, and a most excellent woman, charitable, and of a very sweet disposition. They all live together, keep each their coach, and with as suitable an equipage as any in town."—Evelyn Memoirs, ii. 58.
- ↑ Evelyn died in February, 1706.
- ↑ The following character of the Prince of Orange is conceived and drawn in Sir William Temple's best style.—"The humour of kindness to the young Prince, both in the people and army, was not to be dissolved or dispersed by any medicines or operations, either of rigour or artifice; but grew up insensibly with the age of the Prince, ever presaging some revolution in the state, when he should come to the years of aspiring and managing the general affections of the people; being a Prince who joined to the great qualities of his royal blood the popular virtues of his country; silent and thoughtful; given to hear and to enquire; of a sound and steady understanding; much firmness in what he once resolves, or once denies; great industry and application to his business, little to his pleasures; piety in the religion of his country, but with charity to others; temperance unusual to his youth and to the climate; frugal in the common management of his fortune, and yet magnificent upon occasion; of great spirit and heart, aspiring to grow great, but rather by the service than by the servitude of his country; in short, a Prince of many virtues, without any appearing mixture of vice."—Temple's Works, i., 194.
- ↑ "Of Temple's character," says Mr. Macauley, "little more remains to be said. Burnet accuses him of holding irreligious opinions, and corrupting every body who came near him. But the vague assertion of so rash and partial a writer as Burnet, about a man with whom, as far as we know, he never exchanged a word, is of little weight. It is, indeed, by no means improbable that Temple may have been a free thinker. The Osbornes thought him so when he was a very young man. And it is certain that a large proportion of the gentlemen of rank and fashion who made their entrance into society while the Puritan party was at the height of power had, while the memory of the reign of that party was still recent, conceived a strong dissent for all religion. The imputation was common between Temple and all the most distinguished courtiers of the age. Rochester and Buckingham were open scoffers, and Mulgrave very little better. Shaftesbury, though more guarded, was supposed to agree with them in opinion. All the three noblemen, who were Temple's colleagues during the short time of his sitting in the cabinet, were of very indifferent repute as to orthodoxy. Halifax, indeed, was generally considered as an atheist, but he solemnly denied the charge; and, indeed, the truth seems to be that he was more religiously disposed than most of the statesmen of that age, though two impulses which were unusually strong in him, a passion for ludicrous images and a passion for subtle speculations, sometimes prompted him to talk on serious subjects in a manner which gave great and just offence. It is not unlikely that Temple, who seldom went below the surface of any question, may have been infected with the prevailing scepticism. All that we can say on the subject is, that there is no trace of impiety in his works, and that the ease with which he carried his election for an university where the majority of the voters were clergymen, though it proves nothing as to his opinions, must, we think, be considered as proving that he was not, as Burnet seem to insinuate, in the habit of talking Atheism to all who came near him.
"Temple, however, will scarcely carry with him any great accession of authority to the side either of religion or infidelity. He was no profound thinker. He was merely a man of lively parts and quick observation, a man of letters among men of the world. Mere scholars were dazzled by the Ambassador and Cabinet Counciller, mere politicians by the Essayist and Historian. But neither as a writer nor as a statesman can we allot to him any very high place. As a man he seems to us to have been excessively selfish, but very sober, wary, and far-sighted in his selfishness; to have known better than most people what he really wanted in life; and to have pursued what he wanted with much more than ordinary steadiness and sagacity; never suffering himself to be drawn aside either by bad or good feelings. It was his constitution to dread failure more than he desired success; to prefer security, comfort, repose, leisure, to the turmoil and anxiety which are inseparable from greatness; and this natural languor of the mind, when contrasted with the malignant energy of the keen and restless spirits among whom his lot was cast, sometimes appears to resemble the moderation of virtue. But we must own, that he seems to us to sink into littleness and meanness when we compare him, we do not say with any high ideal standard of morality, but with many of those frail men who, aiming at noble ends, but often drawn from the right path by strong passions and strong temptations, have left to posterity a doubtful and chequered fame."—Macaulay's Crit. and His. Essays, iii., 106.