BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY. THE LIVES OF THE NORTHS. THK R7 HONs F1.AMOS NORTH. THE LIVES OF THE RIGHT HON. FRANCIS NORTH, BARON GUILFORD; THE HON. SIR DUDLEY NORTH; AND THE HON. AND REV. DR. JOHN NORTH. BY THE HON. ROGER NORTH, TOGETHER WITH THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR. EDITED BY AUGUSTUS JESSOPP, D.D. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1890. TO MARIANNE NORTH, A LINEAL DESCENDANT OF THE AUTHOR OP THESE LIVES, TO WHOSE GENEROUS ASSISTANCE AND SYMPATHIZING ENCOURAGEMENT THE ORIGINAL PUBLICATION OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY WAS LARGELY DUE. THESE VOLUMES, PRESENTING FOR THE FIRST TIME THE WORKS IN A POPULAR AND EASILY ACCESSIBLE FORM, ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY AUGUSTUS JESSOPP. CONTENTS. VOL. [. PA(i K Editor's Preface Hi Epistle Dsdigatory ntOM IftOOTAGi North, Son ok the Author l The Author's Prepack 3 Life ok the Right Hon. Francis North, Lord Guilford 10 EDITOR'S PREFACE. IT is just 150 years since the Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford was first issued in 4to, followed two years later by the Lives of Sir Dudley and of Dr. John North. A reprint of the former work appeared, in 8vo, in 1808, and an edition of the collected lives was published in three vols., 8vo, in 1826. Mr. Henry Roecoe, a sou of Mr. William Roscoe, of Liverpool, saw the book through the press, and added some useful Notes elucidatory of the text, together with an Index, on which he evidently bestowed great pains. All these editions have become scarce, while the great value of the biographies, as contributions to the history of the time with which they arc concerned, has become more than ever recognised. It had long been known that Roger North had left a considerable fragment of an autobiography in his own handwriting, and that this had once hern kept at Rougham. The original manuscript of this work came into the pos- session of the late Mr. Crossley, of Manchester, about fifty years ago, and more than one overture t*«>r its purchase had been made to that gentleman, but in vain. At his death, in 1883, it was sold by auction; and in 1887 I was privi- leged to print it for the first time. This volume, too, has already become very scarce ; it was published ouly for subscribers, and no copies have yet come into the market, nor is it likely that it will ever be procurable without difficulty. Meanwhile, there is evidently a growing demand for the Lives of the Norths; and it is believed that the issue of the present edition will be welcomed by the ever-increasing vm editor's preface. number of students of such history, and by those to whon Roger North is now known only by name as a charminc writer with a style of his own, but a writer whose works are accessible to but a comparatively small circle oi admirers. Most of Mr. Eoscoe's notes have been incorporated in the present edition. It was thought well, however, to remodel the Index entirely. As a Personal Index I believe it will be found exhaustive. A. J. Seaming Rectory, August, 1890. TO THE RIGHT HON. FRANCIS, LORD NORTH AM) GUILFORD, ONE OF THE LORDS OF THE BEDCHAMBER to hi8 royal highness the prince of wales. My Lord, IT is a piece of justice done to the memories of great and good men, who have been active in the service of their country, when their conduct and behaviour is set in a true light, and their character cleared from all exceptions whatsoever, which may proceed either from ignorance of the truth, or party rage. And it must afford no less encouragement to the present age, to follow their steps, when they shall find it is not often that a man of worth appears upon the great stage of the world, but after he has finished the part he was to act, and made his exit, some one or other rises up, and undertakes to vindicate the character of his departed friend. The performance of this, my Lord, appears to have been one of the principal ends the honourable author had in view, when he composed the following sheets : for though truth in history, and the public good flowing from thence, had ever the greatest share in his inducements, whenever he set pen to paper ; yet here there must be something put to the account of gratitude. And how large a debt of this nature must be due, from any one, to him that was the best of brothers and the best of friends, the whole world must be sensible. How well the writer has succeeded in his attempt to discharge it, must be left to the determina- tion of those who shall peruse this work. B 2 DEDICATION. And the same arguments ought to be no less prevalent with me towards the sending it abroad into the world, and preferring my request unto your Lordship, that it may have leave to pass under your protection. For as my father thought it his duty to leave behind him these papers, not only for the sake of truth, but to make some return for the benefits heaped upon him by this illustrious ancestor of your Lordship's, and his best brother ; so I think myself bound to make them public, for the former reason, and to beg they may be honoured with your Lord- ship's name in the front, as a public acknowledgment of the many favours your Lordship has conferred upon, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient, and obliged humble servant, Motjntagtj North. [1740.] THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE, i. IT may not be improper to acquaint the reader, in some sort, with what is to l>e found in the following sheets ; the design of which is to make some apology for an officious, I might say unqualified, undertaking to be a life- writer, and, as such, to dress up my remembrances of three honourable brothers and friends, the late Lord Keeper North, Sir Dudley North, and Dr. John North. They were all persons of celebrated worth and ability in their several professions ; and whose l>ehaviour upon the public stage, as well as in their retirements, was virtuous, wise, and exemplary. But now, if they are not quite forgot, that little, which is whispered of them, inclines to the sinister, and is wider from truth, than the distance which we are now at from the time when they flourished : and, if we look out for their names in history, all is the same. There is a two-handed one, Mr. Eehard, in folio, whose excellency is coming after a worse. The author, among his eulogies, could not find room to drop a good word of any of these, though he hath condescended to adorn the characters of departed quacks, poets, fanatics, and almanack-makers. When he could say no ill of them, it was prudent malice to say nothing. Better to forego the very marrow of history than do right to any of these. And if the consideration of common good, which always flows from the bright examples of good men, were not inducement enough, yet the usage of such poor-spirited 4 author's preface. writers, that hunt counter to that good, is a sufficient call to this undertaking ; whereby I hope to rescue the memories of these distinguished persons from a malevolent intent to oppress them, and, for that end, bring their names and characters above-board, that all people may judge of them as they shall appear to deserve. I have reason to be concerned, lest my tenuity of style and language, not meeting with candid interpretation, may, in some sort, diminish the worth that belongs to them. But I have no means of improvement in that affair ; and must lay aside that scruple ; for it is an office devolved upon me, which I cannot decline. There is no person, now living, who can, or at least will, do any thing towards it. There- fore, hoping for indulgence, I march on, and endeavour to rectify want of art by copia of matter, and that, upon honour, punctually true. But I am not at all concerned lest frequent eulogies (which, by way of avant propos, I must here declare will advance themselves) should make me appear as partial to my subject. For who is partial that says what he knows, and sincerely thinks ? I would not, as some, to seem impartial, do no right to any. When actions are honourable, the honour is as much the history as the fact ; and so for infamy. It is justice, as well his- torical as civil, to give to every one his due. And whoever engageth in such designs as these, and governs himself by other measures, may be a chronographer, but a very imper- fect, or rather insipid, historian. 2. I must here just mention some things which concern all these three brothers in common ; and that is their parentele and family relation: and then proceed to the lives, beginning with the eldest, the Lord Guilford, lord keeper of the great seal of England, then the second, Sir Dudley North, and come at last to Dr. John Norths master of Trinity College, Cambridge. 3. Sir Dudley North, knight of the Bath, and Lord North, Baron of Kirtling (vulgo Catlidge) in Cambridge- shire, was their father. His father was Dudley also, and had three other children. First, a son named John, who had three wives, of whom the first best deserves to be remembered; for she left him an estate in St. John's- Court by Smithfield, upon the ground where the chief author's preface. 5 house and garden was placed ; and now a set of fair houses are built, making three sides of a square, and is called North's-Court. He survived all his wives, and died with- out issue. The old lord had also two daughters, of whom one died single, the other, Dorothy, married the Lord Dacres of the south, and, by that match, had a son and a daughter; the son married the Irish Lord Loftus's daughter, and had divers children. He had an estate given him on purpose to change his name from Lennard (that of the Dacres family) to Barret. His eldest son is also matched, and hath children. His seat is at Bell- House Park, near Purfleet in Essex ; and they write their name Barret, alias Lennard. The Lord Dacres had issue by a former wife, of whom the now Earl of Sussex is descended. After the death of the Lord Dacres, his widow, the Lord North's daughter, married Chaloner Chute, who was once speaker to the pseudo-house of commons. She had no issue by him ; but his son Chaloner (by a former wife) marrying his wife's daughter (by the Lord Dacres) had issue three sons and a daughter. Chaloner, the eldest, died single ; 1 Edmund, the second, married the widow of Mr. Tracey, a daughter of Sir Anthony Keck, and having divers children, lived at the Vine in Hamp- shire. The youngest, Thomas, was once clerk of the crown in Chancery, and married [Elizabeth], the daughter of [Nicholas] Rivet of Brandeston in Suffolk, and left children, of whom Thomas Lennard Chute, the eldest son, now lives at Pickenham in Norfolk. And here concludes all the descent from the old Lord North by his only married daughter the Lady Dacres. 4. That nobleman was a person full of spirit and flame ; yet, after he had consumed the greatest part of his estate in the gallantries of King James's court, or rather his son Prince Henry's, retired, and lived more honourably in the country upon what was left, than ever he had done before. 3 1 16 Nov., 1685. (Chaloner W. Chute's History of The Vyne, 1888.) 2 He was the author of a volume of miscellanies in prose and verse, entitled, A Forest pro?niscuous of several Seasons 9 Productions. In four parts, fol. 1659. " The prose," says Horace Walpole, " which is affected and obscure, with many quotations and allusions to scripture and the classics, consists of letters, essays, characters, in the manner of Sir Thomas Overbury, and devout meditations on his misfortunes. The 6 author's preface. He bred his eldest son Dudley, the father of these three brothers, after the best manner; for, besides the court, and choicest company at home, he was entered among the knights of the Bath, and sent to travel, and then into the army, and served as a captain under Sir Francis Yere. At length he married Anne, one of the daughters and coheirs of Sir Charles Mountagu. He served his country in divers parliaments, and was misled to sit in that of forty, till he was secluded. After which he lived privately in the country, and, towards the latter end of his life, entertained himself with justice-business, books, and (as a very nume- rous issue required) economy. He put out a little tract of that subject, with a preface lightly touching the chief crises of his life. Afterwards he published a small piece entitled " Passages relating to the Long Parliament," with an apologetic, or rather, recantation preface. 1 He wrote also the history of the life of the Lord Edward North, the first baron of the family, from whose daughter 2 the dukes of Beaufort are descended. He was a christian specula- tively orthodox and good ; regularly charitable and pious in his family, rigidly just in his dealing, and exquisitely virtuous and sober in his person. All which will appear in his writings, although the style is not so poignant as his father's was. But, to pursue the relation, his lady, by the mother's side, was descended of Sir George Whitmore, once lord mayor of London ; which opens a large kindred towards Wales, of which it is said that above thirty came into coparcenary shares of the estate of Sir Charles Kemish. Her father was the before-mentioned Sir Charles Mountagu, of five the youngest brother, of the Boughton family, now honoured with a dukedom. From the other brothers as many noble families are also derived, as Manchester, Sandwich, and Halifax. Sir Charles had verse, though not very poetic, is more natural, and written with the genteel ease of a man of quality." {Royal and Noble Authors, vol. i. p. 232.) Copious extracts from this volume are given in the Memoirs of the Peers of England during the Reign of James L 9 p. 343. 1 Printed in the Somers y Tracts (vol. vi. p. 565. Scott's edit.). Horace Walpole has negligently ascribed this tract both to its true author and to the Lord Keeper Guilford. (See Royal and Noble Authors, vol. ii. pp. 36, 63.) 2 Christian North, wife of William, third Earl of Worcester. author's preface. 7 two other daughters, one married the Lord Hatton, and had divers children, and, amongst the rest, the incom- parable 1 Captain Charles Hatton. The other daughter married Sir Edward Bash, of Hertfordshire, who died without issue; then she married Mr. John Cary of the Falkland family, and master of the buck-hounds under King Charles II., and died also without issue. 5. This last Dudley North and his lady had six sons and four daughters who lived to appear in the world, besides some who died in minority, viz. Frances, Edward, and Dorothy. The eldest son was Charles, who received the honour of knighthood, and married Catherine, the daughter of William Lord Grey of Wark, and was, in his father's lifetime, called by writ to the house of peers, by the title of Charles Grey of Rolleston. They had two sons and two daughters who survived. The eldest son, William, is the present Lord North and Grey, who is matched with Maria Margareta, one of the daughters of Mr. C. de jonge van Ellemete, late receiver of the United Netherlands. 2 The second son, Charles, a major in the late wars in Flanders, died there of a calenture. The eldest sister, Catherine, died at sea, coming from Barbadoes : and the youngest, named Dudleya, having emaciated herself with study, whereby she had made familiar to ^er, not only the Greek and Latin, but the Oriental languages, under the infliction of a sedentary distemper, died also; and both without issue. Her library, consisting of a choice collec- tion of Oriental books, by the present Lord North and Grey, her only surviving brother, was given to the paro- chial library of Rougham, in Norfolk, where it remains. The Lord North's second son, Francis, the third son, Dudley, and the fourth, John, are the subject of the three life treatises intended to follow, where will be remembered the state of their families. The fifth son was Mountagu, a Levant merchant, who died without issue. The youngest, 1 [The reason w hy the honourable author joins the epithet incompar- able to this gentleman's name will be seen from a story which will be related in the life of Dr. John North.] Note in the first edition. a William Lord North and Grey died without issue, 31st. Oct., 1734 ; and on his death, the title of Lord North descended to Francis Lord Guilford, the grandson of the lord keeper. 8 author's preface. Eoger, married Mary, the daughter of Sir Eobert Gayer, of Stoke Poges, near Windsor, and having had two sons, Roger and Mountagu, and five daughters, Elizabeth, Ann, Mary, Catherine, and Christian, lives (out of the way) at Rougham, in Norfolk. 1 6. Of the four daughters of Dudley Lord North, the eldest, Mary, was married to Sir William Spring of Paken- ham, by Bury, in Suffolk. She had issue a son, but lived not to have any more, and the son died in his infancy. The second daughter, Ann, married Mr. Robert Foley, a younger branch of the (now) Lord Foley's family ; and their eldest son, North Foley, having married a daughter of Sir Charles Holt, of Warwickshire, lives now at Stour- bridge, in Worcestershire. The third daughter, Elizabeth, married Sir Robert Wiseman, a younger son of the Riven- hall family, in Essex, dean of the arches, who, dying with- out issue, she is since married to the Earl of Yarmouth. The fourth and youngest daughter, Christian, married Sir G-eorge Wenieve of Brettenham, in Suffolk. And they have left divers children; of whom the eldest, John, married a daughter of Sir Christopher Musgrave, and now resides in the place of his father at Brettenham. 7. This is the family relation of these three brothers, whose lives are upon the carpet before me. So much of par- ticularity concerning them (although a just pedigree ought to have taken in much more) may perhaps be thought superfluous, as not being of any general concern. Yet really the case is memorable for the happy circumstance of a flock, so numerous and diffused as this of the last Dudley Lord North's was, and no one scabby sheep in it, and con- sidering what temptations and snares have lain in their way, is not of every day's notice. It was their good fortune to be surrounded with kindred of the greatest estimation and value, which are a sort of obligation to a good beha- viour. It is very unfortunate for any one to stray from the paths of virtue, who hath such precautions, and sonorous mementoes, on all sides of him : and it is almost enough to be educated in a family wherein was no instance of irre- 1 This passage shows that Roger North only set himself to write the life of his brother after the birth of all his children, and when he was advanced in life. author's preface. 9 ligion or immorality either practised or allowed : such virtue or efficacy hath an early example to affect the manners of good-natured youth. I would not have it thought that, beyond this advantage, I hold forth a family relation, as matter of merit, to any one in particular ; but say only that, allowing no peculiar intrinsic worth in a particular person, derivable from the honour of his family (because his own value, and not his ancestors' must set him off), although such a circumstance is not to be slighted, yet there is some good comes of it, which is that the descendants must know that the world expects more from them than from common men : and such a perpetual monitor is an useful companion. And if there be any persons of such upstart principles that, with them, antiquity of families is rather matter of ridicule than of honour, let them enjoy their epicurean prospect, and see their posterity run riot into destruction, before the earth covers the corruptible ingredients of their composi- tion. THE LIFE OF THE RIGHT HON. FRANCIS NORTH, LORD GUILFORD; LORD KEEPER OF THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND. 1. MY design is to leave behind me all that I can remember or warrantably collect concerning the life of the Lord Keeper North. A work mnch needed ; and to which I am indeed provoked becanse I find an affected endeavonr of a prevailing sort of men in these latter times, and especially the more solemn writers of English affairs, to suppress all memory of his lordship's name and worth, to the end that his character and behaviour in the course of his great em- ployments should be utterly unknown to aftertimes, as if no such person had ever lived in the world. I shall allege but one instance, and that is an egregious one. A late double-columned historian, 1 in folio, of whom mention has been made already in the preface, writing the affairs in England and in particular what fell out in the reign of King Charles II., hath taken upon him to characterise the famous men that died in his several years ; and yet of the 1 Kennet. {Complete History of England, 3 vols, fol., 1706, vol. iii. 2.) II IS BIOGRAPHY NEEDED. 11 Lord Keeper North no single word slips from his pen, and one must look very hard to find so much as his name in the whole work : and, considering the value of that great justi- tiar (which I hope will be made appear in what follows), is not so notorious partiality in such a pompous writer of history wonderful r But not only there, but in all the other writers of those times when the quality of those things re- • lated require him to be named, however the actions or occa- sion might deserve, it is done in an ill-natured manner and with a leer, implying rather disgrace than any honour to his memory. And since his death we do not find in ordinary converse or consultation of things past, any mention of him or, at most, but as one that had been preferred to serve turns ; and so dying there was an end of him. 2. Now here, to make the fairest construction of this silence in a case so eminent and ascribe it chiefly to igno- rance, although I think time-servingness and malice hath the greatest share, I will show that in his lordship's case there was less obvious means for fame than in any other great man's case whatever. For first, he was quite out of favour with the busy agitating party of men in his time, then termed the fanatic party ; and those are the chief architects of fame : and having nothing ill to say of him, they would say no good, and therefore chose to say nothing at all. If he had acted in these men's measures and, betray- ing his master, took in with them and l>ecome their property, he had certainly been the most illustrious hero in the law that ever was heard of. Another reason is derived from his lordship's own conduct of himself, which was always with the greatest modesty and the least affectation of fame that could be. He rather withdrew himself from it, as being in his opinion an empty vanity ; and ever labouring to act well and substantially, as concerned for the trnth and intelligence of things and not for any honour to be got thereby, he scarce ever did any thing for buow or spoke a word for the sake of mere sound or ostentation ; but in all he did, to have reason on his side and to make himself therein readily understood, was all thai lie ainiedat : i >i h< t wise he bore himself retired (rem public view and eclal as much as ever he could. Itis no greed wonder therefore that nothing pompous hath been remembered of him. It' he had carried it high, headed par- 12 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. ties and embraced the management of what had not be- longed to him and the like, it had been otherwise ; or if he had printed his collections in the law, of which he had made some considerable, or the other tracts he had in his mind to make fit for the use of his time, or done any thing else which ordinarily great men do for fame and honour he might have left a name behind him great as he deserved ; but he never let any thing come to the press under his name but what belonged to his office, or was absolutely necessary for his vindication. It is no wonder therefore that (the malice or ignorance of historians apart) there is so little re- membrance of this noble person's life and actions (so near his time as we are) now extant ; and probably after a reign or two more, bating a formal list of Lord Keepers that lets none escape, his very name will be forgot. 3. Here is reason enough to incline any one endued with competent information on the subject, and a literate capa- city to digest and express what he knows thereof, to rescue this honourable person and his great abilities, his approved justice and integrity and universal good- will, from utter oblivion by writing the history of his lordship's life. But where do those qualifications concur ? The very expecta- tion of them puts me in mind of latter Lammas. But it is usual to say, what good cannot be done in perfection as it should be ought to be done though but in part or as it may be. And upon force of that consideration I am inclined to undertake it ; for, if I am wanting in capacity to write as the subject deserves, I am capable of informing others who may do it better ; and am therein farther urged by the con- sideration of my former felicities. For it was my good fortune to be so nearly allied to him and, by circumstances of education and profession, so closely attached to his per- son that we were almost inseparable. Therefore, upon the strength of the latter of these qualifications, whatever be- comes of the former which in sense of my own inability I forbear to claim, I am induced to undertake this great work, which I would have understood to be rather instructions than history. And if I am required to give an account of my great confidence therein I must allege that, if I am not the best instructed of any man living for it it is my own fault ; because I passed almost all the active time of my life in his FITNESS OF HIS BIOGRAPHER. 13 company. And now almost all persons of his intimacy, capable or concerned to remember much of him, are dead, or at least after so many years, thoughtless of all they might once have known concerning him : but I am at this time left a living and sensible witness of his most public and most re- tired behaviour ; and moreover a well-qualified compurgator of all his thoughts and actions : and who else should be called upon to show to posterity what he was ? And also that there was once a magistrate of a kind, since the loss of him (barring all comparisons) rather to be wished than hoped for. And not only to supply history, which (after the par- tial gree of the late authors) has been to all good purposes silent of him, but also to refel calumny, whether spread abroad in his life to supplant his interests and to enervate his authority, or late published after his death to depreciate his memory ; of which several species of malice we had and have yet some extant but little, and even that little very im- potent and inconsiderable : yet I cannot but think it in me a sort of duty to puff away such slight dust , because calumny which riseth after a man's death (the most unworthy and degenerous of all) needs most a friend to retund it ; be- cause, as a man's authority and power ceaseth, impudence gets ground and thinks to ramp it without check ; but of these affairs the particularities are referred to their proper situation. And here I must not omit one of the chief impulses upon my spirits to undertake this work ; I mean gratitude : for as on the one side no man is obliged to serve a friend or benefactor by any gross immoralities, for that must be termed conspiracy not friendship ; so, on the other side, no man ought to be wanting to a friend in any manner of justice for no better reason than that some folks will misconstrue it, as being done for partiality. I own that all my portion of knowledge and fortunes are owing to him ; which makes me a debtor in account of justice and honour due to his memory ; and for clearing myself as well as I may (protesting in the meanwhile to say nothing false or disguised ), shall I not say what is just and true of him? I defy all calumny on that account and I hope to acquit myself accordingly. And whereinsoever I may fail or come short of tli" fulness or ornament such a subject requires, I design securely to set down nothing but what either personally 14 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. I know and can attest, find declared in his writings, received from his own mouth or have from indubitable report of others nearly enough informed to be esteemed punctually true. I have another reason yet, which for true value may surmount all these ; and that is a tendency to public good: a charm that all writers anoint their front with. Therefore I say only this that if, in the character of a person of honour, I show an example of industry, ingenuity, probity, virtue, justice, and, in the course of all these, deservedly successful without one minute retrograde, but concluding all at once by a natural death and that in the height of his honour, I shall commit no act of disservice to mankind in general and least of all to those of the nobility, whose descendants em- barking in the profession of the law may find the greatest encouragement from it. It may be thought I have touched here too much upon the panegyric and forget how hard it is to make good such promises. I must trust to that ; and do but allege here that the nature of this work and my reasons for undertaking it, required no less ; which being the proper introduction I have not formalised upon what I am fully possessed is most true. 4. It will be hard to lead a thread in good order of time through his lordship's whole life; for there are many and various incidents to be remembered, which will interfere and make it necessary to step back sometimes and then again forwards ; and to say truth, I have not the punc- tualities of truth at my command and may err in some points of chronography. I shall therefore, for distinction's sake break the course of his lordship's life into four stages ; whereof the first shall be from his lordship's infancy to his being qualified to practise in the law and called to the bar : the second shall be from the time of his first practice until he was advanced to the post of a judge and made Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas : the third, while he acted as judge of the Common Law until he was preferred to be Lord Keeper of the Great Seal : and the fourth and last stage, while he sat as judge of Equity in the Chancery and attended the affairs of state at court until the time of his death, which happened at Wroxton, on the 5th of Sep- tember, 1685. And, in this method, I hope to evacuate my mind of every matter and thing I know and can re- MATERIALS IN HIS OWN PAPERS. 15 member materially concerning his lordship. And if some things are set down which many may think too trivial, let it be considered that the smaller incidents in the life of a busy man are often as useful to be known though not so diverting as the greater ; and profit must always share with entertainment : and let this be the apology for some light passages that will be found related in the course of this work. 5. His lordship left many papers wrote with his own hand, some more perfect than others and very few entirely so ; and those which are finished or nearly completed according as he intended them, I have put together in col- lections ; but as for those which are short and imperfect, consisting of some sketches of designs, hints, consultations, collections, inquiries, and the like, which commonly were the result of his thoughts and researches upon affairs then in agitation abroad and are like painters' first scratches, which commonly have more spirit than their more finished pieces, I shall insert the most material of them in the text of the relations to which they belong ; for these will repre- sent his lordship's way of reasoning with himself and others, and how close his thoughts were applied to the sub- stance and truth of things, more perhaps than (as was hinted of painters) his fuller tracts will appear to do ; and by this means I hope to give a clear account of all I know or can gather of his lordship's life, interior and exterior, whereby in one place or other there may be found a great man's life and entire character ; and be- sides what will serve to entertain any one who hath a mind to drone away a few minutes that sleep will not consume, and also improve (perhaps) some whom the love of truth, reason, and rectitude of will, shall dispose to be more attentive. 6. His lordship was the third son of the second Dudley Lord North, Baron of Kirtling, &C., 1 as is to be found in the preface before this work, and therefore shall not reite- rate it here. We have little to say of him during his minor years, but shall make amends afterwards ; for from the first to the last of his manhood he walked the public 1 Baptized 2 Nov., 1637. {Kirtling Register.) 16 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. stage of business ever erect and rising, and made no re- treat or exit but one, and that (as I said before) was from the top of his preferment and the world together. 7. His lordship was very young when he was first put out to school and then had but indifferent tutorage, for his first master was one Mr. Willis, that kept a school at Isle- worth. That man was a rigid presbyterian and his wife a furious independent. Those two sects at that time con- tended for pre-eminence in tyranny and reaping the fruits of too successful rebellion, which conjured up a spirit of opposition betwixt them so that they hated each other more than either the bishops or even papists themselves. Such is the ordinary curse of God upon men permitted to prosper in wickedness : and this woman was so zealous in her way, that thinking it a sin, she would scarce let her carnal husband have conjugal intimacy with her. She used to instruct her babes in the gift of praying by the spirit ; and all the scholars were made to kneel by a bed- side and pray : but this petit spark was too small for that posture, and was set upon the bed to kneel with his face to a pillow ; and in this exercise of spiritual prayer they had their directory from her. I have heard his lordship say, that all he could remember of his performances was pray- ing for his distressed brethren in Ireland. Very often men in their lives cross the humour of the age in which they had their first education ; and in fact it happened so here ; for this youth went from one of these fanatic schools to another for divers years, and afterwards being grown up was very averse to fanaticism ; as if he had in his education contracted rather a prejudice than a favour for it. 8. But much may be attributed to the finishing of him at Bury school, under Dr. Stevens, a cavalier master. He was so forward and exact a scholar there, that the bulky doctor in his pedantic strain used to say he was the crown of all his endeavours. Before he went to Cambridge the master employed him to make an alphabetical index of all the verbs neuter ; and he did it so completely that the doctor had it printed with Lilly's grammar, for the proper use of his own school. This, however easy to be done, (being only transcribing out of the dictionary) was com- mendable ; because boys ordinarily have not a steady ap- UNIVERSITY CAREER. 17 plication and, being required, seldom perform industriously and neatly such a task as that is. 9. From this school he was translated to St. John's college, in Cambridge, where he was admitted fellow- commoner under one Mr. Frost, the 8th day of June, 1653. And there he improved at the same rate, and being a fellow- commoner was acceptable to the very best of the society as well for his company, which was more than ordinary agreeable and facetious, as for his forwardness in all in- genious studies and the sciences called liberal. Here he learnt what was to be had of University philosophy old and new : applied to mathematics and made great advances in them, capable of the utmost course therein if other affairs of his life inconsistent with such applications had not for- bad that. But he was ever a judge of new propositions after the synthetic way (for the analytic was not then much professed), and if they failed could show where ; and here he began his use of music, learning to play on the bass-viol, and had the opportunity of practice so much in his grandfather's and father's families, where the enter- tainment of music in full concert was solemn and frequent, that he outdid all his teachers and became one of the neatest violists of his time. He was much encouraged and assisted in all ingenious studies by the conversation of one Mr. Matthews, of Sidney college, who was his elder brother's tutor and very eminent for a master (literally) of all arts and sciences and was entrusted with the education of divers noblemen as their tutor ; and a famous man he had been indeed if his heart could have been showed with- out a microscope. 10. His lordship was originally designed for the profes- sion of the law ; and accordingly, after two or three years spent at the University, removed to the Middle Temple into a moiety of a petit chamber which his father bought for him. He was admitted in the year [27 Nov., 1655], when old Chaloner Chute was treasurer. It was he that sometime officiated as speaker to the pseudo-House of Commons 1 and had married the Lady Dacres, 2 his lord- 1 From 27 Jan. to 14 April, 1659. 2 Dorothy, daughter of Dudley the third Lord North, m. 1st, Richard, c 18 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. ship's aunt, and so was in the place of an uncle. This Mr. Chute was a man of great wit, and stately carriage of himself : I shall mention here what I have been credibly told as one instance of his loftiness, even while he prac- tised in Chancery. It was in short but this : if he had a fancy not to have the fatigue of business, but to pass his time in pleasure after his own humour, he would say to his clerk, " Tell the people I will not practice this term ;" and was as good as his word : and then no one durst come near him with business. But when his clerks signified he would take business, he was in the same advanced post at the bar fully redintegrated as before, and his practice no- thing shrunk by the discontinuance. I guess that no eminent chancery practiser ever did or will do the like ; and it shows a transcendent genius superior to the slavery of a gainful profession. But to proceed : when Sir Dudley North, his lordship's father, carried him to his brother-in- law, then treasurer of the Middle Temple, to be admitted, he treated hard with him about the fine of admission, which is in the treasurer's power to tax and he may use any one well if he pleaseth. Mr. Treasurer asked Sir Dudley what he was willing to give, and (the common fine being five pounds) he answered, Three pounds ten shillings, " Well," said the treasurer, " lay down the money." Which being done, he called for the young man's hat, and swept it all in and gave it him ; and marking the admis- sion nill, or nothing, " let this," said he, " be a beginning of your getting money here ;" where his lordship made good the omen. 11. How sedulously he applied himself to the study of the law I need not allege ; his performances in the course of his profession, to say nothing of his preferments (though sometimes perhaps owing to good fortune) demonstrate he was not wanting in that application : but it was singular and remarkable in him that, together with the study of the law, which is thought ordinarily to devour the whole studious time of a young gentleman and at best is but an unpolite study, he continued to pursue his inquiries into thirteenth Lord Dacre ; 2nd, Challoner Chute of the Vyne, 1634, His son Challoner married her daughter Catherine. § 58. A lawyer's studies. 19 all ingenious arts, history, humanity, and languages; whereby he became not only a good lawyer but a good his- torian, politician, mathematician, natural philosopher, and I must add, musician in perfection. I have heard him say, that if he had not enabled himself by these studies, and particularly his practice of music upon his base or lyra viol (which he used to touch lute fashion upon his knees) to divert himself alone, he had never been a lawyer. His mind was so airy and volatile he could not have kept his chamber, if he must needs be there staked down purely to the drudgery of the law whether in study or practice : and yet upon such a leaden proposition, so painful to brisk spirits, all the success of the profession regularly pursued depends. And without acquiring a capacity of making a solitary life agreeable, let no man pretend to success in the law. I have heard his lordship often remember a lesson the citizens used to their apprentices — " Keep your shop, and your shop will keep you as being no less true of a lawyer with respect to his chamber. But he was far from being a recluse ; and as he loved conversation, so at fit times he was abroad with agreeable company at entertain- ments such as the inns of court gentlemen ordinarily use. 12. I never heard that he frequented either dancing or fencing schools ; which two rendezvouses are very dangerous as well as expensive to young gentlemen ; and that con- sideration outweighs all the pretended advantages that the female faction propose from those assemblies. And for security of future good consequences and escaping the bad, I think it may be a general rule in the institution of a lawyer never to come to either ; for since it is well known that the accidents of good or bad company determine ordi- narily a young man to his happiness or ruin, and that the worst of company is to be met with there, one may bate the decorums of the step or the skill of parry and thrust in one who is to wear a long robe, and contend only with his oral faculty. I might say as much of places of game ; but that entertainment is a gulph which swallows more elder than younger brothers, and more that have money gotten to their hands than such as have but enough to live in a way as may enable them to get more ; but I cannot say that his lordship was a stranger to any art or skill that was 20 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. practised amongst the better sort of company. He joined in every decent thing ; and whatever games were stirring at places where he retired, as gammon, gleek, piquet, or even the merry main, he made one ; but ever had a notable regard to his purse to keep that from oversetting, like a vessel at sea that hath too much sail and too little ballast. 13. It is impossible for any youth to gather sociable good qualities without running some hazard of the bad ; and much of the better where it happens will be ascribed to a well-inclined nature, that, after excesses (which youth can- not wholly avoid) discerning the inconvenience, takes up. But yet in some of the wavering and less thinking geniuses the worst of company will cause the worst of effects ; whereas in a tolerable society at first such natures might have come off well enough. It were rare sailing if winds and weather were either at command or foreseen. So, in the launching young people into the world, it were happy if natural pro- pensities and company could be known beforehand or modelled to the occasion. Therefore that great work ever did, and ever will, depend much upon the common acci- dents of human life ; and it is a great question, whether too much or too little use of over-ruling authority or persuasive discourses do most or least harm. Probably either coming opportunely may do good ; but, inopportunely, excites aversion rather than reconciliation to what is so. Let a youth be prepared at home without any prejudice of evil examples or encouragements, and then be sent out, as his lordship was, to shift for himself ; the rest must be left to Providence. 14. His lordship had reason, and also the good hap, to be sensible of his condition, and that it concerned him in the last degree to make the best of his profession. For his family was not in a posture to sustain any of the brothers, by estates to be carved out of the main sustentation of the honour. It was apparent that his lordship was far from a morose or so much as a retired disposition ; he had sprightly motives to follow the joys his fancy suggested as much as any wit of them all, and was sensible of the labour and pains he was to undergo and set himself to it as labourers- to their work for a livelihood ; and after he had broke him- self to the study of the law so as might have rendered it LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. 21 easier to him, yet he had his inclinations to divert himself and ramble as persons of better fortunes did. But, through the strength of his reason, he recollected himself and per- severed and engaged in no entertainments abroad that were inconsistent with his studies. I have heard him say more than once that, if he had been sure of a hundred pounds a year to live on, he had never been a lawyer. 15. His lordship's grandfather took a fancy to have him be with him in the country ; for he loved to hear him talk of news, philosophy, and passages in London. He made him play at back-gammon, and riddle whenever he thought fit ; for which, all he got was saving a little charges at the Temple, and an annuity of twenty pounds a year ; which latter was taken away from him in displeasure, as is related afterwards. 1 But this course of life, together with bowling, fishing, billiards, park, hunting, visiting, and such country diversions which might have plunged a young man in idle- ness and resignation of all endeavours towards a profession, did him no hurt at all ; but rather the contrary, for he always had his boxes of books up and down by the carrier ; and, in the country, alone by himself read in his course, and commonplaced full as much, or perhaps more than he should have done in London. And the only disadvantage he had there was want of a studious society ; but constantly at terms, he got leave to repair to London and there re- cruited his discontinued friendships, which were of vast benefit to him, as will be related afterwards. 16. He used constantly the commons in the hall at noons and nights, and fell into the way of putting cases (as they call it), which much improved him ; and he was very good at it, being of a ready apprehension, a nice distinguisher, and prompt speaker. He used to say that no man could be a good lawyer that was not a put-case. Reading goes oft* with some cloud, but discourse makes all notions limpid and just ; for in speaking a man is his own auditor (if he had no others at hand) to correct himself. Besides, there are diversities of opinions, and contentions in reasoning, which excite thoughts that otherwise would never have risen. And mistakes, almost incredible to the mistaker, 1 Cf. § 30 22 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. being observed, cause a recurrence, for surety, to the autho- rities, where an inspection convinceth, and withal corrects the faulty assurance some will have in a mere memory. 17. It was his lordship's constant practice to common- place as he read. He had no bad memory, but was diffident and would not trust it. He acquired a very small but legible hand ; for where contracting is the main business, it is not well to write, as the fashion now is, uncial or semi- uncial letters to look like pigs' ribs. His writing in his commonplaces was not by way of index but epitome ; because, as he used to say, the looking over the common- place book on any occasion gave him a sort of survey of what he had read about matters not then inquisited, which refreshed them somewhat in his memory : and that had not been obtained in a way of mere what and where, as the style of most indexes runs. When this manner of writing is comprehensive or pregnant it is called abridgment, of which there are divers large ones of the common law in print, as Fitzherbert, Brook, ecause a ready speech (if it be not nature's gift) is acquirable only by practice, and is very necessary for a bar-practiser. I remember that, after the fire of the Temple, 2 it was con- sidered whether the old cloister walks should 1x3 rebuilt or rather improved into chaml>ers ; which latter had been for the benefit of the Middle Temple. But in regard it could not be done without the consent of the Inner house, the masters of the Middle house waited upon the then Mr. Attorney Finch, to desire the concurrence of his society upon a proposition of some benefit to l>e thrown in on that side. But Mr. Attorney would by no means give way to it, and reproved the Middle Templars very wittily and 1 Robert Brady, M.D., Master of Cai us College, Cambridge (1660- 1700). The works referred to by Roger North are, probably, (i) An Introduction to Old English History \ 1684 ; and (ii) An Historical Treatise of Cities and litnyhs, lH'.M). Both are in folia 2 See tbe very graphic account of this calamity in Roger North's Autobiography, chap. iv. 26 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. eloquently upon the subject of students walking in evenings there and putting cases, " which," he said, " was done in his time, as mean and low as the buildings were then, however it comes," said he, " that such a benefit to students is now made so little account of." And thereupon the cloisters, by the order and disposition of Sir Christopher Wren, were built as they now stand. And agreeable to this, Serjeant Maynard, the best old book-lawyer of his time, used to say that the law was " ars bablativa," which humoursomely enough declares the advantage that discoursing brings to the students of the law. And certainly, above all things, the art of prompt speaking is to be cultivated as far as may be according to the aptest rules of oratory, because it wonderfully sets off a bar-practiser. And many by that very talent uncultivated and owing to pure nature, have succeeded beyond others much more learned. He had such a relish of the old year-books, that he carried one in his coach to divert his time in travel, and said he chose it before any comedy. A true notion of the use of any thing, however out of the road of common approbation, will administer such a superlative taste. 21. I do not know that his lordship had read over in course all the year-books ; but I verily believe he had dis- patched the greatest part, and that he began with the book termed Hen. VII. which hath some years in the antecedent reigns. That book he used to say was the most useful or rather necessary for a student to take early into his hand and go through with, because he had observed much of the common law, which had fluctuated before, received a settlement in that time, and from thence as from a copious fountain it hath been derived through other authors to us, and now is in the state of common erudition or maxims of the law. He thought a lawyer could not be well grounded without a knowledge of these ancient reports : for they were compiled by men solemnly authorised and not as now, when every ordinary practiser (to say nothing of the late judges ; and even their reports have been most taken when they were practisers) pub- lisheth his reports as he pleaseth ; and the bookseller pro- curing an imprimatur, there is no more to be said. And thus the shelves are loaded with reports ; all which to ANCIENT METHOD OF PLEADING. 27 read, much more to commonplace, is not only labour but hardly possible to be done. And how erroneous and con- tradictory not only to other books and even in the same cases, but also to themselves in many instances, are most of them ! And what student or lawyer ever pretended (ingenuously) to know what was in them all P Or what question can happen that may not be very plausibly argued pro and con out of them ? Or what arguers on either side can now want a case in point (as they value themselves) to conclude with ? 22. Thus it is become almost necessary to make a pandect of law, by establishing the authority of single points that are clear, suppressing all the rest ; and thereby purge out all inconsistencies, contradictions, and dubitations ; which being once done the law learning may have more credit and not be called soft wax. But to return to the year- books, it is obvious what deference ought to be had to them more than to the modern reports ; for, passing by the very short and material rendering the sense of the pleaders and of the court, it must be observed thai the whole cause as well the special pleadings as the debates of the law thereupon was transacted orally at the bar, and the prothonotaries, ex officio, afterwards made up the records in Latin. And the court often condescended to discourse with the Serjeants about the discretion of their pleas and the consequences with respect to their clients. And the court did all they could to prevent errors and oversights. And reason good; for else their records must go up to the King's Bench to be canvassed for error, which they did not desire should be. And these transactions faithfully reported was anciently a code of the common law, which the courts deferred very much to and the practisers had by heart. But now the pleadings are all delated in paper and so pass the offices, and the court knows nothing of much the greater part of the business that passeth through it : and when causes, which they call real, come on and require counting and pleading at the bar, it is done for form aod unintelligibly ; and whatever the serjeant mumbles, it is the paper book that is the text : and the court as little meddles with as minds what is done of that sort at the bar; but the questions 28 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. that arise are considered upon the paper book. All the rest of the business of the court is wrangling about pro- cess and amendments, whereof the latter had been mostly prevented, if the court (as formerly) had considered the first acts of the cause at the bar when offered by the Ser- jeants. And this way also the skill of pleading lies not in a student's notice for him to gather up together with the law part of the case ; but he must read over records and entries, a discipline that would split a brisk gentleman by making a jade of his patience. And really forms are better understood and learned by writing than by reading ; for that exercise allows time : which consideration hath made clerkship so recommendable to beginners that most enter the profession of the law that way. It was not inoroseness, but reason, that inclined his lordship to deal so much as he did with the year-books ; and however at present that sort of reading is obsolete and despised, I guess there will not be found a truly learned, judicious, common lawyer without it. 23. After a good foundation out of books, his lordship together with his farther studies joined an attendance on the courts of justice. For an observation of the practice gave a great life and spirit to what had been gained by reading. His design, with the community of his profes- sion, was to enter his claim to business at the King's Bench bar which inclined him to make his preparatory attendance there ; but yet he thought fit, as he had been also advised, to attend as a student most at the Common Pleas : for there all suits are drawn forth upon the ancient and genuine process of the common law ; and, as the Lord Nottingham in one of his speeches expresseth, the law is there at home. The time of that court is not taken up with factious contentions, as at the King's Bench where more news than law is stirring. And his lordship, when- ever he was in the way of learning any thing never failed to have his note-book, pen and ink ready : and in that he wrote as a reporter and afterwards, generally that very day, he posted his gatherings into a fair book ; for then he could supply out of his memory what was imperfectly taken, and recover things that had not been noted and dispose all into some tolerable order : for a young reporter's REPORTS OF CASES AND LAW FRENCH. 29 note book is so disorderly wrote, or rather scratched that none but himself, nor he after a few days, can make any thing of it. 24. I do not find that he had opinion enough of his early reports taken while he was a student, to preserve them either fair or foul ; for none such have come to my hand. But just upon his coming to the bar he attended at the Common Pleas whilst Hales 1 was a judge there. And some cases are found at the beginning of his reports taken there. And I perceive by that book, that one year's reports to Hil. 1657-8, are of the Common Pleas, and from thence they run all as of the King's Bench. By this time he found his strength at that exercise and began to be very careful of his reports. He was also an attendant (as well as exerciser) at the ordinary moots in the Middle Temple and at New Inn ; whereof the former is the supe- rior and governs the exercises ; and took notes. In those days the moots were carefully performed, and it is hard to give a good reason (bad oues are prompt enough) why they are not so now. And he contrived to stay in London to be present at famous pleadings, as particularly that of Sir Heneage Finch, and some others. The ready use of the law French came easily to him, because he well under- stood the vernacular ; and he had acquired such a dexterity in writing it with the ordinary abbreviations, that he seldom wrote hastily in any other dialect : for, to say truth, barbarous as it is thought to be it is concise, aptly abbreviated, and significative. And I believe his aptness, when in haste or writing to himself only, to write in law French, proceeded from his long use and practice of noting at the bar ; which had created in him both an ease and a dexterity in it. 2 When he had time and place to write at his ease he usually wrote English, and accordingly drew up his reports. 25. His lordship, long before he was called to the bar, undertook the practice of court-keeping. His grandfather thought he preferred him mainly, when he made him 1 Hales, It is thus Roger North always spells Sir Matthew Hale's name. 1 Previous to the Revolution, the law reports were taken down and published in French. 30 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. steward of his courts. And the young lawyer procured of other neighbours and relations to have the charge of their manors; and so made the employment considerable to him. He did not, as many others of late, take a share of the profits and make some attorney a kind of substitute to do all the business ; but kept all his courts himself and wrote all his court rolls and made out his copies with his own hands ; for he pretended to no clerk then. His grandfather had a venerable old steward, careful by nature and faithful to his lord, employing all his thoughts and time to manage for supply of his house and upholding his rents : in short, one of a race of human kind heretofore frequent but now utterly extinct ; and there is scarce any of the breed left that is affectionate as well as faithful, and diligent for love rather than for self-interest. This old gentleman, with his boot-hose and beard, used to accompany his young master to his court-keeping ; and observing him reason the country people out of their pence for essoins, &c, he commended him, saying, ' 4 if he could be contented to be a great while getting a little he would be a little while getting a great deal," wherein he was no false prophet. I have heard his lordship say, " he thought this court-keeping business " (which he used to recommend to others) " did him a great deal of service; for it showed him the humours of the country people and accustomed him to talk readily with them and to meet with their subtilties." They seldom came forward without some formed stratagem to be too hard for Mr. Steward. Some would insist to know their fine, which he would not tell till they were admitted and then he insisted for his fees ; no, they would know the fine, and some cunning fellow would jog and advise them to pay the fees, and not dispute that. And abundance more of their contrivances he used to speak of. 26. He was most put to it in cases of infancy and uses declared in deeds that did not appear. As for the former, if none came for the infant to be admitted, he seized, not as for a forfeiture but quousque, &c, and made a warrant to the bailiff, quod respondeat domino de proficuis : which did not, as he said, make the lord accountable who in that re- spect had a prerogative, as, upon a reversal of an outlawry, no money goes out of the king's coffers ; but if any friend court keepim; and copyholders. 31 would pay the fine he admitted the infant and hirn guardian. As to latent uses, which often happen in wills (and some- times referring to deeds of settlement) for long terms of years, he would not admit at all, and no action lav because he had the lord's order: For though he might fine to the value it did not answer, because at that rate men might enfranchise the copyhold in spite of the lord's teeth. He hath said that the greatest trouble he had in those affairs, was to satisfy some greedy lords, or rather ladies of manors, in setting the fines and in being in some measure an exe- cutioner of their cruelty upon poor men. And in verv good earnest, it is a miserable thing to observe how sharpers that now are commonly court-keepers pinch the poor copy- holders in their fees. Small tenements and pieces of land that have been men's inheritances for divers generations, to say nothing of the fines, are devoured by fees. So that, if it were only to relieve the poorest of the land owners of the nation from such extortions and oppressions without more, there is reason enough to abolish the tenure. It was somewhat unequal, when the Parliament took away the royal tenures in capite, that the lesser tenures of the gentry were left exposed to as grievous abuses as the former. The state of that matter seems now at the worst, for copyhold tenures continually waste and cannot be renewed or in- creased, so that most manors arc nioiv than half lost. Either abolish all base tenures or let gentlemen enlarge them as they please ; and that perhaps may tend to some repopulation, which is more needed than any means of extortion. 27. His lordship while he was a student and during his incapacity to practise above-board, was contented to under- pull, as they call it, and managed divers suits for his country friends and relations, "which," he said, "was useful to him in letting him into a knowledge of the offices and the methods used there ;" for he was always in person present at every turn in whatever business he undertook. In a cause for his father against Sir John Lawrence, he re- covered <£300 and brought in a very moderate bill of charges ; which pleased his father who expected a great deal more. He made use of Mr. Baker, a solicitor in Chancery who for his singular integrity was famous, and 32 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. on this occasion ought to be remembered with honour. His lordship had a veneration for this Mr. Baker as long as he lived. When his lordship paid his bill, the virtuous solicitor laid by a sum (according to an usual rate) for him, saying that it was their way and they were allowed at the offices somewhat for encouragement to them that brought business. By this we see what country and other attornies get by Chancery suits. But his lordship would not touch a penny but turned it back upon the good man's hands. 28. He also managed a suit for his grandfather with the like success, and in the close of that somewhat comical happening I am provoked to relate it. And indeed what have we to remember of a young man, but things that really fell out and in his circumstances not inconsiderable ? After this suit ended, his lordship sent to his grandfather the bitter pill, the solicitor's bill of costs, and the old man sent him the money and he paid it. And afterwards the noble client reviewed his bill over and over, for however moderately and husbandly the cause was managed he thought the sum total a great deal too much for the lawyers. And among other items, he observed great num- bers of sheets in the bill and so for the answer and depo- sitions, besides many breviates, orders, &c, as belong to a Chancery case. And he had heard in the country of such bills whereof no entry at all was in the offices (no miracle in our days), and then knowing Frank North to be a nimble spark, he concluded that these items were suppositions and that he had swallowed the money, and after the way of wilful people, upon a bare suspicion concluding a certainty, he deliberated how to catch him (as it were) in the fact and then to expose him to perpetual shame and ruin. And pur- suant to this pious resolution, he writes to Mr. Langhorn of the Temple 1 (who afterwards suffered in Oates's plot) to cause searches to be made and to send him word if any such proceedings, of which he gave him the account, were entered in the offices. Whether it was by guess, perfunctory 1 " He was in all respects/' says Burnet, " a very extraordinary man. He was learned and honest in his profession, but was out of measure bigoted in his religion. He died with great constancy." {Own Times , vol. ii. p. 810. See his trial, KovoeVs State Trials, vol. vii. p. 418.) his grandfather's suit. 33 searches, or the person employed took the money and cheated the offices, I know not ; but it is certain that Langhorn returned answer, "that no such proceedings were to be found upon the file in any of the offices where they should have been entered, or any copies of such made out." This was nuts to the old lord who thought he had outwitted Frank : and, while he was in London, used to talk very mysteriously of him ; as that " Frank had wit enough, but honesty, honesty, was a rare thing/ 9 The meaning of all which the family about him did not in the least apprehend. When Frank was about to come down, the old man wrote to him to bring with him the papers that belonged to his case. And so it rested till the young man arrived ; and then, for about a week, all was well ; in which time, all the news and London matters were talked over and dispatched. And then, after dinner, the old lord turned to Frank, and "Where are the papers ?" said he. The other answered, " he would go fetch them." This did not work well but still the event was expected ; and after a little pause, Frank returned with a bale of papers under his arm and set it down upon the table, standing by it in expectation of what would be said to him. The old lord, being utterly frustrated in his expectations, turned about the room quicker than ordinary ; and as he mended his pace, Frank was in great doubt what was to become of him. At last he ventured to say, M My lord, what is your plea- sure I shall do with these papers ? " The old lord stopped short, and turning said, " Wipe your with them.' , That answer was not at all expected ; and, after a little pause, he asked again "what he should do with them? ,, And his lordship stopped short again and, twice as loud as before, said he, M Why, don't I tell ye ? wipe your with them." And there ended all his concern about those papers ; and Frank was restored to favour. 29. This historiette manifests the little safety there is in false dealing, as much as the loftier accounts of hazards or decadences of great ministers of the court: for if this young lawyer, for want of experience or (we must say) of honesty, had dabbled in a very common practice of sham- ming ;i false Mil, he bad been caught and undone. And on the other side, being faithful and just with the testi- D 34 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. mony of things to diseulpate him, what a triumph had he over a severe old man that had rejoiced to have exposed him ! And how strongly is the consequence of a very trite maxim (in mouths, but rare in hearts) verified by this in- stance, that honesty is the best policy ! And there is this farther lesson in it, that young men in making their for- tunes must depend, and are obliged to bear with humours and injustices from those they depend on : And in that school of the world they learn to be reasonable and just themselves ; for few men ever value reason and justice till they have sharply felt and so have been made sensible of the contrary. 30. There was an emergence in the family of his lord- ship's grandfather, which as to the economy of it was of the last importance : and in regard it drew in his lordship to be the chief actor in the scene and, as things then stood, a bold undertaker, and shows him so early thought fit to be employed and intrusted in nice performances, I shall give a relation of it. The old lord, besides his reverend steward mentioned before, had two other servants of a French race who were his favourites. One was called Bertram St. G-enes, that had scarce English enough to make himself understood ; but a gross sycophant and (if honest) most unfit for business. He had married the other sister, and had children, for whom a habitation was prepared near hand. He was a very little fellow and served as a valet de chambre, and had thereby means to insinuate to the preju- dice of the rest of the family. But the other, Monsieur le Blanc, in English (as he was called) White, was a brisk, gay spark, that had been bred at court (such as it was) a page to Sir John Danvers, one of the king's judges. He could dance, sing, and play very neatly on the violin, was good company, and served as a gentleman waiter, and was most acceptable in his musical capacity. It fell out, very unluckily for the family, that the old lord quarrelled with his good steward ; and, as his humour was to be very tyran- nical and vindictive, so he had taken a resolution never to be in the wrong. And he cared not whom he persecuted nor how unjustly or unreasonably, if it tended, as he thought to justify any thing he had done : and the more mistaken he found himself the more violent was he in his A FAMILY EMERGENCE. 35 proceedings, as if by that means he was to set himself right. These are the dregs of an old courtier. But surely he tormented the poor old man by revilings and law- suits, and at last broke his heart and he died. But upon the first turning him off there was a place fallen, no less than the premier minister in that family ; and the question came who should succeed him. Sir Dudley North, his lordship's father, was really afflicted at the hard usage of the old steward ; and more at the ruin he foresaw would follow if that rascally monsieur, who was worse than good for nothing, was made steward . There never was an instance of filial duty to a parent more eminent than that of Sir Dudley North to his father. He lived to a good old age before the barony descended upon him, and had stood as an eldest son of a peer at the state in the House of Lords at sixty-three. He never would put on his hat or sit down before his father, unless enjoined to do it. So far was he from moving any thing to him that he knew would dis- please him, and so egregious was this dutiful demeanour that all people took notice of and admired it. And some were so assured to say, that Sir Dudley had his reward in living to see all his own children, who were not a few male and female, both dutiful to him and settled prosperously according to their several pretensions in the world. But Sir Dudley, dreading the advancement of this Bertram, en- couraged his son Frank who seemed a favourite also to represent to the old lord the unfitness of that fellow to be his steward ; and he accordingly ventured to say, 44 he hoped his lordship did not intend to make choice of him." 44 Why so ? 99 said the old lord ; 44 what can you charge Bertram with ? " He answered, 44 that for many years he had the charge of his wine and strong-beer cellar, and never gave his lordship an account of that or any thing he was intrusted with." This was but too true and could not be denied. Then the old man rearing himself a little, 44 Who then," said he, " would you have to be steward ? " He answered, Mr. White. And that was worse and worse be- cause he was a favourite also ; and Frank North's designa- tion of him in that manner could not fairly be quarrelled with. Whereupon the old lord rose up and lapping his cloak about, as he used when angry, without saying more 36 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. went out leaving the young man in great suspense not knowing what was to become of him. The old lord went to his cabinet and took out a codicil he had made to his will, and carried it to his son Dudley ; and, " Look here, son," said he, " I had given Frank twenty pounds a year, but he has offended me and here is his reward ; 99 so threw it into the fire. And from that time contrived all the ways he could to defame and ruin him. Sir Dudley repaired his son Frank by a lease of a house in London, and encouraged him by his approval of his fidelity and courage. But the old man still made use of Frank for his diversion ; and, teeth outwards, was kind to him : but he must sometimes bear a gird or two upon account of the steward, which at last proved to be the monsieur. But he lived not long enough to do much mischief ; for a government long kept in good order will not be put out all at once. And, after Frank (at his next term) was gone to London the old lord made a servant write to him, and at the bottom were these words : In consilium ne accesseris antequam voceris ; that is, do not offer your advice before it is asked. The reason of which was that the bitterness of his repentance might not wear off. This was the last transaction in that family which much concerned his lordship : and if these relations are thought of small import, to mend that fault I can add only that they concern my subject and are true : and, from a private family, let the imagination transfer the scene to some royal and imperial court changing the names of per- sons and oflices and the whole may be seen sprout up into the altitude of state intrigues. 31. I have so far conducted his lordship as to be ready for the bar. But before I touch upon that, I shall take some notice of his character as the same appeared in this first stage of his life. He was of low stature, but had an amiable, ingenuous aspect, and his conversation was answerable being ever agreeable to his company. His hair grew to a consider- able length, but was hard and stiff and did not fall as the rest of the family, which made it bush somewhat and not without a mixture of red and grey. As to his humour, he was free from vanity himself and hated it in others. His youthful habits were never gay or topping the mode, like other inns of court gentlemen, but always plain and clean HIS ( II ARACTER. 37 and showed somewhat of firmness or solidity beyond his age. His desire was rather not to be seen at all than to be marked by his dress. In those things, to the extreme was his aim ; that is, not to be censured for a careless sloven rather than to be commended for being well dressed. But as to his appearing in public, the composition of his temper was extraordinary ; for he had wit, learning, and elocution, and knew it and was not sensible of any notable failings whereof to accuse himself ; and yet was modest even to a weakness. I believe a more shamefaced creature than he was never came into the world : he could scarce bear the being seen in any public places. I have heard him say that, when he was a student and ate in the Temple hall, if he saw any company there he could uot walk in till other company came, behind whom, as he entered, he might be shaded from the view of the rest. And he used to stand dodging at the screen till such opportunity arrived ; for it was death to him to walk up alone in open view. This native modesty was a good guard against vice, which is not desperately pursued by young men without a sort of boldness and effrontery in their natures. Therefore ladies, and other fond people, are greatly mistaken when they desire that boys should have the garb of men and usurp assurance in the province of shamefacedness. Bashfulness in the one hath the effect of judgment in the other. And where judg- ment, as in youth is commonly wanted, if there be not modesty what guard has poor nature against the incentives of vice r Therefore it is an happy disposition ; for when bashfulness wears off judgment comes on: and by judg- ment I mean a real experience of things, that enables a man to choose for himself and in so doing to determine wisely. 32. His loose entertainments in this stage were, as usual with gentlemen cadets of noble families in the country, sporting on horseback ; for which there was opportunity enough at his grandfather's house [at Kirtling], where was a very large and well-stocked deer park j and at least twice a week in the season there was killing of deer. The method then was for the keeper with a large cross bow and arrow to wound the deer, and two or three disciplined park hounds pursued till he dropped. There was most of the country sports used there for diverting a large family, 38 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. as setting, coursing, bowling ; and lie was in it all ; and, within doors, back- gammon and cards with his fraternity and others : wherein his parts did not fail him for he was an expert gamester. He used to please himself with rail- lery, as he found any that by minority of age or majority of folly and self-conceit were exposed to be so practised upon. I could give instances enough of this sort and not unpleasant, if such trifles were to be indulged in a design such as mine is. His most solemn entertainment was music, in which he was not only master but doctor. This for the country ; where, to make good his exhibition, he was contented (though in truth forced) to pass the greater part of his time. But in town, he had his select of friends and acquaintance ; and with them he passed his time merrily and profitably for he was as brisk at every diver- sion as the best. Even after his purse flowed sufficiently a petit supper and a bottle always pleased him. But he fell into no course of excess or vice ; and whenever he was a little overtaken it was a warning to him to take better care afterwards : and against women his modesty was an effectual guard, though he was as much inclined as any man which made him desirous to marry. And that made his continence a positive virtue ; for who may not be good that is not inclined to evil ? The virtue of goodness is where a contrary inclination is strove with and conquered. He was in town a noted hunter of music meetings ; and very often the fancy prevailed to go about town and see trades work ; which is a very diverting and instructive entertainment. There was not anything extraordinary which he did not, if he might visit, for his information as well as diversion ; as engines, shows, lectures, and even so low as to hear Hugh Peters preach. I have heard him say, that when Hugh had made his close, he told his congregation that a gifted brother had a desire to hold forth ; and then up rose Sir Peter Pet: 1 and he, though a mere layman, prayed and preached his turn out. That gentleman lived to be an old man in town ; and most people knew him that little thought 1 Sir Peter Pett was one of the founders of the Royal Society ; Fellow of All Souls ; author of A Discourse Concerning Liberty of Conscience (8vo., 1661). See Wood, Ath. Oxon. (Blisse),yo\. iv. 576, and Register of the Visitors of the University of Oxford {Camden Society, 1881). CALLED TO THE BAR. 39 he had been once a preacher. The old Lord and Lady Anglesey (while she lived) supported him ; and at the revo- lution Sir Peter and his lordship published books, wherein one of the chief performances lay in the commending each other : which notable band of friendship had its root in the time of the Irish rebellion. 33. Now, being to leave his lordship in this stage invested with a title and beginning to practise the law, 1 I must observe his preparatives. He was not called to the bar ex gratia, or for favour, as when the person is not of standing or hath not performed his exercises : but being early admitted, his time was fully run out and he per- formed all his moots 2 both in the inns of Chancery (for it is the custom for the inns of court to send down readers, to moot in the inns dependent on them) and also in the hall ; and not perfunctorily, as of latter times the use is by way of opus operatum, as for tale and not for weight, but in well-studied arguments wherein he followed the example, it may be the instruction, of his friend and patron Sir Jeoffry Palmer, whose moots are excellent readings, as the original manuscripts resting in my custody may show : and I have also some like testimonies of his lordship's endeavours that same way. I have heard him say that it is prudent not over-soon to launch into practice ; a for it is observed that no person increaseth his store of law after 1 It appears from the books of the Middle Temple, that the Lord Keeper was ealled to the bar on the 28th June, 1601. 2 The mode of performing the moots is thus described by Dugdale. " The pleadings are first recited by the students, then the case heard and argued by the barristers; and lastly by the reader elect and benchers, who all three argue in English ; but the pleadings are recited, and the case argued by the utter barristers, in law French. The moot being ended, all parties return to the cupboard, where the mootmen present the benchers with a cup of beer and a slice of bread.'' (Orig, Jurid. p. 209.) The custom of mooting has Leen discontinued for upwards of a century. 3 By an order ot the lord chancellor and the twelve judges, dated 18th June, 1664, no one was to be admitted to the bar, unless he had kept exercises in some inn of court for sevr?i years ; and after being called, he was not to practice publicly in court until he had been called three years : thus making the term of probation ten years. " For that the over early and hasty practice of utter barristers doth make them the less grounded and sufficient, whereby the law may be disgraced and the client prejudiced." (Dugdale s Orig. Jurid, p. 323.) 40 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. he is called to the bar and enters upon practice. His judgment and knowledge of forms may increase but his book learning is at a stay, because business, either found or pursued, fills his head ; so that even reading doth him little good. Wherefore it is said, that he who is not a good lawyer before he comes to the bar will never be a good one after it. After he was called to the bar (which, as they term it, was ex debito justitice) he did not, as many less qualified have done, bustle about town and obtrude themselves upon attorneys and perhaps bargain for busi- ness ; but lay quiet : and the chief alteration in his way of appearing was this. Instead of his being posted within the court as a student to take notes, he did the same stand- ing at the bar ; and if chance or a friend brought a motion, of course it was welcome. 34. The exhibition allowed his lordship by his father, was at first sixty pounds per annum : 1 but the family being hard pinched for supplies towards educating and disposing many younger children, and his parents observ- ing him to pick up some pence by court-keeping besides an allowance of twenty pounds per annum from his grand- father and a little by practice, they thought fit to reduce him to fifty pounds. This sat hard upon his spirits and produced divers notable-penned letters, post after post, complaining upon all the topics of an hard case that could be thought of. He never pleaded so earnestly for the best fee that ever he had. At length there comes a letter from his father, which he opened with precipitous haste in hopes of a favourable answer ; and there he found, — " Frank, I suppose by this time having vented all your discontent you are satisfied with what I have done, &c." There sunk all his hopes upon that point. But, to do right to his good father, he paid him that fifty pounds a year as long as he lived, saying he would not discourage industry by reward- ing it, when successful, with loss. 35. One of his lordship's first clients, and for whom he had a great respect because he had the office of keeping his courts early, was Mr. Stutvile of Dalham near New- 1 The sum allowed Jeffries when a student was still less, being £40 and £10 for clothes. (Lives of the Chancellors, vol. i. p. 179.) MR. STUTVILE. 41 market. This gentleman was a compound of irregularity and one of his feats had like to have cost him dear ; for he was taken napping with the wife of one Robinson : on which death, without honourable satisfaction, was to follow. The giving the law satisfaction, that is money, was the milder dose of the two ; and that must be a peremptory bond for the payment of fifteen hundred pounds on which condition the bond was to be void. This bond was made by a scrivener and very well ; though at the close of the condition the words " else to remain in full force 99 were not added. After the sealing, Mr. Robin- son brought his bond to the scrivener and swore to be the death of him if he did not mend it, by adding these words. u Here is a condition," said he, " to make the bond void but none to make it good." " It is good," said the scri- vener, " if there be no words to avoid it ; and I may spoil, but cannot mend the bond." That was all one, he must do it and did it. And then the scrivener honestly told the obliger what he had been forced to ; so that was laid up for a plea to avoid the bond. But Mr. Robinson, advising with counsel about suing, was told his bond was utterly voided by his adding words to the condition after sealing. Then he was advised not to put it to suit till the scrivener was dead. His lordship and other of Mr. Stutvile's counsel perceiving that, contrived to bring the point soon to a trial, by preferring an information in the King's Bench against Robinson for forgery ; and if, upon the scrivener's testimony, he should be convicted, that record would remain against the bond for ever. Robinson, finding himself caught and no remedy, complied by delivering up the bond and so got rid of the information. But this unexpected success made such an impression on Stutvile's wild brains, that he thought there could be no law-suit desperate ; and from that time he never did any man justice, but ruined himself by perverse law-suits and at last died in a gaol. Perhaps if he had paid the fifteen hundred pounds his punishment had been less. 36. After his lordship was called to the bar, the first thing he took care for was a practising chamber, as they call those which are not above two pair of stairs high. The ground chamber is not so well esteemed as one pair of 42 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. stairs, but yet better than two ; and the price is accord- ingly. He sold his little student's chamber and also the lease of a house his father gave him, which raised near three hundred pounds ; and, with that sum, he bought his life in a corner chamber one pair of stairs in Elm Court. A dismal hole for the price ; for it was not only dark next the court but, on the back side, a high building of the Inner Temple stood within five or six yards of his win- dows : But yet some more room and a large study being gained he thought himself greatly preferred : and he soon filled his shelves with all the useful books of the law which he wanted. His mother had made a collection of legacies and gifts to him when very young; and, when he first went to the inns of court, she gave him an exact account to the time cast up with the interest, and paid him the sum total at once ; and with that stock he made out a good student's library. 37. About this time, his brother Dudley, who had lived in London divers years in the several states of preparation for trading as a Turkey merchant, was sent abroad by his master in a long round-about voyage by Archangel in Russia to Smyrna ; an account of which voyage will be found in the relation of that gentleman's life. He had, at his going out, from his father but a single hundred pound stock to trade with ; and his lordship augmented it by lending him two hundred pounds, which was all the wealth he could value himself upon, beforehand ; and of that, by the voyage and mortality, he ran no small risk. This was a melancholy parting ; for they had been bred and much conversant together, and, fraternal relation apart, were joined in the strictest personal friendship ; and now when they were arrived to a state of enjoying each other in per- fection, worldly engagements obliged them to separate. But this kindness of his lordship's was rewarded by living to see his brother come home wealthy and, soon after, flourishing not only in the city but also at court in the king's service. 38. These two brothers and friends held a continual correspondence by letters ; but more frequent and expa- tiated at first than afterwards, when business increased so much upon both as abated the ardour of writing often and INTERCOURSE WITH HIS BROTHER DUDLEY. 43 long. It fell out that when Mr. Dudley North first arrived at Smyrna, or soon after, the factory was served by one Broadgate as their chaplain, sent out for that end by the Turkey Company. 1 He had been a fellow of St. John's college in Cambridge and preferred to a living in Essex, where the gentleman there residing was so offended at his unfitness and ill carriage that, to get rid of him, he made an interest and palmed him upon the Turkey Company, and so he came to be sent to Smyrna. The young factors are commonly generous fellows and stand much upon honour (in those parts at least, whatever they prove when they come home) : they revere and gratify their pappas, as they call him, if he behave himself well but, if otherwise, they lead him a life (as they say) like a dog. This person was a presbyterian bigot and not without a flaw in his cranium. And he made account that he was to preside over boys and to teach them religion : and to that end had framed a catechism and got it printed ; and a bale of these stitched in blur paper went al<>iiL r with him, and were delivered out to all the factory ; and he took particular notice of Mr. Dudley North, telling him that his brother Francis was his fellow collegiate and intimate friend and, for his sake, he would be very kind to him. But the parson was guilty of so many barbarous impertinences (as may be found particularised in that gentleman's life) that the young factor wrote to his brother Francis, telling the various extravagancies and follies committed by him there, and desiring to have an account of him and his character. His lordship soon wrote and informed him that Broadgate was the laughing-stock of the college ; and so made good payment in stories of him here. This letter was communis cated about in the factory and the parson understood how he came to be so derided as he was. Upon that, he goes to Mr. Dudley North and desired to have his brother's letter, that he might sue him in England for taking away his reputation. The merchant would not do that, but told the parson that, if he had it, it would do him no service for he would prove that he had no reputation before the letter came, so could lose none by that : and then, turning 1 See Life of Sir Dudley Xorth, § 90. 44 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. over his copy-book of letters, he read to him his leading letter to his brother, in which were all the stories and terms of derision as could be to make him contemptible. This was plain enough to the parson ; and it was all he got by his attempt. This was one of those notable men that obliged the little fellow- commoner of St. John's college with opportunities of making ridiculous remarks. As, for instance, that he spent his time watching at his window; and if he saw strangers in the court, then he made his clock strike that it might be plain to them that a clock struck in his chamber. And, if many scholars were in the court, he went down on purpose to make them cap him. And the book, that lay on his table, had broad pieces in the leaves which visitants, opening, might dis- cover ; and other such kind of vain follies whereof the early observation might possibly help to make his lordship nauseate all kind of vanity, as he did for ever after. 39. The loss of this good brother was, in some measure, repaired by the frequent enjoyment of another, John North, who had also for some years been bred with him ; but, being settled in another way of study in the university of Cambridge, they came not often together but at friends' houses in times of recess and, sometimes, by recourse of the scholar to London. And their endearments increased continually ending in a perfect and untainted love and friendship to each other : of which more may be said in the life of this brother John, afterwards Dr. North. 40. About this time his lordship, notwithstanding his being called to the bar, followed his studies very close and attended the courts at Westminster and reported diligently ; and if there were any famed cause to be argued and deter- mined, in what court soever it was, he would be a present auditor and reporter of it ; especially before Hales while he sat in the Common Pleas. And, obliging himself to that spider-kind of life which a young lawyer leads in his chamber, he began to contract certain splenetic reflections touching his health, always thinking some fever, consump- tion, or other disease creeping upon him, and inclined much to physic for prevention. Once he repaired to Dr. Bokenham, of Bury, with a list of complaints. But the doctor could find no ground for any of them nor to suspect INCREASE OF BUSINESS. 45 him ill; but laughed at him and sent him away. This correction assuaged the spleen a little ; but he was not cured till a deluge of business drowned all such kind of thoughts. But he had one symptom which often alarmed him, which was much spitting; but in truth it was a bene- fit of nature ; for it was plain that a noxious phlegm dis- charged itself in that way ; for while his spitting continued he was always well, but if that stopped he was as surely ill. He was all his life solicitous about his health and fearful of getting cold, for which end he went thick clad and wore a broad stomacher on his breast ; and commonly a little leather cap, which sort was then called skullcaps ; but those devolved to other uses I shall mention after- wards. 41. Soon after his being called to the bar, he began to feel himself in business and, as a fresh young man of good character, had the favour of divers persons that out of a good will went to him, and some near relations. He was once asked if he took fees of such. " Yes," said he ; "they come to do me a kindness ; and what kindness have I if I refuse their money ? M The attorn ies also were very civil to him and brought him motions, which gave him oppor- tunity of showing himself ; and these obligations he re- membered to the last, and returned them when it came to his turn to oblige with any just favour he could show : and he never failed to do it. His acquaintance was so diffused through the whole relation and dependence of Sir Jeoffry Palmer, that he had them all entirely, and indeed, as well before as after he was called to the bar, he lived as one almost ingrafted in the family ; and not only his interest was greatly derived from thence but his conversation was almost confined to them ; and they were all so easy and friendly to each other, that they lived and conversed as if they had been literally of a family. His wheel of good fortune turned upon the favour of Mr. Attorney Palmer, whereon the crisis of his preferments in the law moved. But before I come to set forth the history of that and en- large farther upon his lordship's better fortunes, I will dispatch one or two of his most sensible griefs. 42. The first was the loss of a sister, named Mary, who was married to Sir William Spring, in Suffolk, and 46 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. died 1 not long after the birth of her first child, and the child not long after her. He had a particular engagement of friendship and brotherly love to that lady who, besides the advantage of her person, had a superior wit, prodigious memory, and was most agreeable in conversation. I do just remember so much of her (for I was very young when she married) that, for hours and hours together, she di- verted her sisters and all the female society at work to- gether (as the use of that family was) with rehearsing by heart prolix romances, with the substance of speeches and letters as well as passages ; and this with little or no hesita- tion but in a continual series of discourse : the very memory of which is to me, at this day, very wonderful. She insti- tuted a sort of order of the wits of her time and acquain- tance, whereof the symbol was a sun with a circle touch- ing the rays and, upon that in a blue ground were wrote dvrapKrjg in the proper Greek characters, which her father suggested. Divers of these were made in silver and enamel, but in embroidery plenty, which were dispersed to those wittified ladies who were willing to come into the order ; and for a while they were formally worn, till the foundress fell under the government of another and then it was left off. 43. Next to this, the loss of his lordship's bosom friend Mr. Edward Palmer, Mr. Attorney Palmer's younger son, afflicted him. I have heard him say he never was so sen- sible of a passion of grief as upon his death ; and for a long time after he eased himself often upon the impotence of crying. For besides the living amity between them in that moment lost, he was present, embraced and held him in his arms when he died ; than which nothing could more aggra- vate his sorrow. This friendship began by mess-making in the Temple hall and brought his lordship into other beneficial acquaintance, as of the Hydes, 2 then related to 1 23 Oct., 1662. 2 Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon, was entrusted with the great seal 29 Jan., 1658. He held it till 3 Aug., 1667. Sir Nicholas Hyde, uncle of the great Earl of Clarendon, was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench 5 Feb., 1627. He died 25 Aug., 1631. Edward Hyde, third son of the Earl of Clarendon, died young and unmarried. He is the " younger son" alluded to by Roger North. ATTORNEY GENEBAlAs DEVIL. 47 the greatest employments in the law : one of that name, whose younger son was of the Middle Temple, had the great seal as lord chancellor, and another was lord chief justice of the King's Bench ; and this acquaintance owned his lordship for a relation, and was cultivated by him with all the application he could make. But this Mr. Palmer first brought his lordship to the attorney-general's know- ledge and familiarity, and the very great benefits to him thereby. For he not only had his direction and assistance as well as encouragement in his studies, but was by him, as it were, led by the hand into the highway of preferment. For that great and sudden increase of his lordship's prac- tice, which I mentioned before, may not be entirely ascribed to capacity. It is more than probable that in process of time he had advanced himself by the pure strength of his genius, but not by such large strides as he made in getting money and loping into preferments, as he did, without the aid of friends and good fortune ; for circumstances of per- sons and times were most propitious to his character. And of those happy contingents the first was this friendship of Sir Jeoffry Palmer, which conduced much to the lustre of his lordship's reputation. 44. And therein the attorney-general did no less serve himself ; for he made use of his cousin North (as he most kindly used to style him) in being personated by him in Westminster hall, and otherwise by his consults upon motions of law depending : for, at the latter end of his time, he grew very infirm and weak and when he could not attend in the court of King's Bench to give accounts and answers to the court in the kind's affairs, as belonged to his office, he directed his lordship with instructions to do it for him, and he acquitted himself therein with such decent modesty, as well as neat and concise speaking, as got him no little credit. Mr. Jones 1 at the bar, who had the capital practice of that court, was much disturbed at the advances this young gentleman made so near his territory, and could not forbear flirting at him, as — 4 4 Come, Mr. Deputy 1 Sir William Jones. He was made Solicitor-General at the same time that Sir Francis North was made Attorney- General, 12 Nov., 1073. In the Examiner, ]>. 507, a long account of Sir William Jones may be found. 48 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Attorney, what have you to say now ? You are to be of the king's counsel shortly;" and the like; which showed a spirit of ambition and envy, and was an occasion of some inconvenience to his lordship, as will be showed elsewhere. I have heard his lordship say, that once, at the desire of the attorney- general, he had consulted books and gathered together upon a paper the reasons of law upon a case he (the attorney) was to argue ; and that he used that very paper and argued almost word for word out of it. And I have such a paper wrote by his lordship, with some notes of the attorney's hand in the margin. But his lordship said he never mentioned it to any of his family, but to me only, lest they should think him vain and fictitious. 45. Another singular opportunity, by means of the attorney, he had of showing himself ; which was the argu- ing in the House of Lords upon a writ of error for the King against Hollis, &c. The story of the five members in King Charles the First's time is well known, who being prosecuted for the riot committedin the House of Commons, in holding the speaker down in his chair, were convicted. After the restoration, the commons thought that the record of this conviction might be prejudicial to the privilege of that house, and ordered a writ of error to be brought, and Mr. Attorney was to find counsel to argue for the King against the Lord Hollis, 1 who was one of the five and first named in the record. Mr. Attorney being an assistant in the House of Lords, could not argue nor could he prevail upon any of the Serjeants or other eminent practisers to do it ; for they said it was against the commons of England and they dare not undertake it. At last the attorney said his cousin North should do it ; and accordingly at different times, as his other practice would allow him, he prepared his argument which was performed at the bar of the house and (with especial notice taken of his comely youth, and modest but cogent reasoning) his argument was approved, and although the commons carried the cause, he was imme- diately thereupon made of the king's counsel, which gave him the privilege of pre-audience and coming within the 1 He had been 'created Baron Hollis, 22 March, 1660. (Evelyn's Diary.) MADE KING'S COUNSEL. 49 bar. This action and its consequence had the effect of a trumpet to his fame, for the king had no counsel at law- then except Serjeants. But I shall beg leave to enlarge a little upon this matter with some farther circumstances, which I am encouraged to do by a paper I found in which his lordship had noted his several steps of preferment, with intent at leisure to have drawn them into a relation of short history. He had made preparatives such as these concerning public matters ; but he never had time to pur- sue them : all or most of which I shall insert in their proper places throughout this work, and annex what occurs to me that may appertain to them. But as to the case be- fore us, his lordship's note is as follows : — M How king's counsel, — Hollis." 46. This case of Hollis and other the five members, and his lordship's undertaking to argue for the king, was at a time when his hands were full of business and he was very much straitened in his preparations ; and he came up with the greatest reluctance, and nothing but a right reasoned resolution could have conquered his modesty. But that which gave him most assurance was, that he was satisfied he argued on the right side and that, upon the face of the record, the law was for the king. The informa- tion (among other things) was for a violent holding the speaker in the chair, in breach of the peace. Hollis pleaded the privilege of the Commons, that all offences committed in the house by the members were punishable only by the house itself : and the attorney-general demurs and the court of King's Bench gave judgment for the king, and this was the (chief) error. His lordship insisted that, 1. This was an offence against the peace with the aggravations, for it was so admitted by the plea ; and 2. That if the house had punished it and it had been so pleaded, it had been well; but 3. Their not punishing left the offence at large which ought to be punished somewhere : and the authori- ties cited were clear that privilege did not extend to offences against the peace, and that such might be punished out of parliament and future parliaments could take no notice of them. This was the chief point, but there were in the case divers other chicaneries, as would appear in the argument itself if made public. The Duke of York was pleased to £ 50 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. inquire who that young gentleman was who had argued so well ; and Mr. Thomas Gray, who attended as a lord's eldest son, told the duke that he was a younger son of the Lord North, and what hopes he gave of his being a very able lawyer, and what was rare at that time, of loyal principles ; and moved his royal highness to prevail with his majesty to encourage him by making him one of his majesty's counsel. And all this was only as the occasion offered, without any suit or contrivance on his lordship's part, to bring it about. His lordship feared that the Lord Keeper Bridgman, who by his place superintends the preferments in the law, might take it ill that his lordship did not move by him : therefore he waited upon him and gave him an account how it succeeded. And the lord keeper having knowledge of the matter beforehand, acquitted his lordship of all blame towards him, and wishing him much joy gave him all the encouragement that could have been wished for or expected. 47. Upon his lordship's being made of the king's counsel, there happened a dispute in his society of the Middle Temple ; which ended favourably to him and augmented his reputation in Westminster Hall. The rulers of the society, called Benchers, refused to call his lordship after he was king's counsel up to the bench ; alleging that if young men by favour so preferred came up straight to the bench, and by their precedence topped the rest of the ancient benchers, it might in time destroy the government of the society. Hereupon his lordship forbore coming into Westminster Hall for some short time hoping they would be better advised, but they persisting, he waited upon the several chiefs and with modesty enough acquainted them of the matter and that, as to himself, he could submit to anything ; but as he had the honour to be his majesty's servant he thought the slight was upon the king, and he esteemed it his duty to acquaint their lordships with it and to receive their directions how he ought to behave himself, and that he should act as they were pleased to prescribe. They all wished him to go and mind his business and leave this matter to them, or to that effect. The very next day in Westminster Hall, when any of the benchers appeared at the courts, they received reprimands from the judges DISPUTE WITH BENCHERS OF MIDDLE TEMPLE. 51 for their insolence, as if a person whom his majesty had thought fit to make one of his counsel extraordinary was not worthy to come into their company ; and so dismissed them unheard with declaration that until they had done their duty in calling Mr. North to their bench, they must not expect to be heard as counsel in his majesty's courts. This was English, and that evening they conformed and so were reinstated. 1 It is one of the properties of an aris- tocracy to hate that any persons should come amongst them but of their own choosing. I have heard that, since the revolution, whereby (as they termed it) they were manu- mised, they have not called any of the king's counsel ex- traordinary (who are now become numerous) to the bench ; which shows the different walks some matters will take in different times. 48. I have already mentioned his lordship's happy acquaintance with Mr. Edward Palmer, the attorney- general's younger son, which was the rise of all the favour and approbation Mr. Attorney showed him ; and that, the rise of his lordship's succeeding course of preferments. And how helpful and assistant he was to the attorney in his de- clension : and the repute gained thereby, with the emula- tion of Sir William Jones that happened thereupon hath been already set forth in the Examen. I should here have thought it reasonable to have given some account of that worthy person on whom his lordship's fortunes so much depended : but since I have said so much of him in the Examen, I think there is no need of insisting any farther upon his character here ; 1 and therefore shall only relate the following remarkable story. He had married a lady who was a Roman Catholic, upon terms not to meddle with each other's religion but each to enjoy their several church professions without any mention to the contrary ; and both kept parole religiously; and yet, by dint of his egregious piety and integrity without any other arguments or elo- quence, he converted her to the communion of the church of England ; and it fell out thus. One Sunday morning his lady would rise with him which she had used not to do, and 1 The lord keeper was called to the bench of the Middle Temple on the 5th June, 1668. (Books of the Society.) 2 See Examen, p. 510, et seq. 52 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. he told her she need not for her church began later, and asked, " why she would rise so soon ? " She answered, "to go to church with him ;" and so she did and continued so doing all the rest of her life. And to some of her family she declared, that she found his knowledge so great and his course of life so truly pious and virtuous that she concluded that he must needs be in the right, and that she would submit her judgment to his rather than to any other human authority upon earth. This was the good man that embraced his lordship as if he had been his child ; and, loving his company, received him into familiarity of dis- course, conferences, mutual intercourse of affairs, and re- ciprocal acts of good will and friendship, as if even before he was king's counsel he had been a co-attorney- general. And he was not only the great cause of his lordship's proficiency and sudden rising in the law, but his mere acquaintance and favour may be justly accounted one of his lordship's capital preferments. 49. These opportunities may be esteemed, as they really were, most benign to the credit of a young counsel, yet the virtue intrinsically moved from his own capacity, for with- out some transcendency on that side the effect had been reversed and proved loss rather than gain of reputation. There were some more such accidents which augmented his lordship's esteem in the law ; which I shall touch upon, but first mention his going the circuit to which they pro- perly belong. And here I am to show what great appli- cation and industry he used in that branch of his practice, which in a few years raised him to the post (as they call it) of cock of the circuit, which supposeth him (as truly he was) a counsel of one side or other in every cause of value to be tried. His lordship stayed not long after he was called to the bar before he took upon him to go circuits. His choice was that styled of Norfolk where he was best known, and that by employments and performances as well as family and acquaintances. He resolved to go through, although the first counties, as Bucks, Bedfordshire, Hun- tingdonshire, and Cambridgeshire, are very sterile to a, beginner, and no young man at his first entrance into prac- tice can expect much business under the service of an apprenticeship and succession to those who have the posses- SERJEANT EARL. 53 sion, till they fall away. But his resolution was to perse- vere, knowing success in circuit business to be a cardinal ingredient in a lawyer's good fortune. And he ordered the matter so that, whether he had much or little to do, he did not lose his time ; for he was a diligent noter of every pas- sage that was in the court or elsewhere in the law new, or he thought material. And he made himself judge so far, that if a good sentence came from the mouth of an indif- ferent judge or even of the counsel, he noted it, and what- ever the best judge might say if it did not agree with his reason he took no notice of it. So bees gather honey from all sorts of flowers. He was exceeding careful to keep fair with the cocks of the circuit, and particularly Serjeant Earl, 1 who had almost a monopoly. The serjeant was a very covetous man and when none would starve with him in journeys this young gentleman kept him company. Once at Cambridge, the Serjeant's man brought his lordship a cake, telling him, " he would want it, for he knew his master would not draw bit till he came to Norwich." And it proved so. They j<>u r LC«'n, and at Barton Mills his lordship asked the serjeant if he would not take a mouthful there. " No, boy," said he, M we'll light at every ten miles end and get to Norwich as soon as W€ fan." And there was no remedy. Once he asked the serjeant in what method he kept his accounts ; " for you have," said he, *' lands, securities, and great comings-in of all kinds?" " Accounts, boy ? " said he, 44 1 get as much as I can and I spend as little as I can ; and there is all the account I keep." But his lordship was sure to keep the Serjeant's discourse flowing all the way they rode; tor being mostly of law and tricks, and sometimes of purchases, manage- ment, and the like, it was very beneficial to one who had his experience to gather : and all he received from others he made his own. And in the court, if he was concerned as counsel, he stood in great awe of the chief practisers ; for they having the conduct of the cause, take it ill if a young man blurts out any thing though possibly to the purpose 1 Erasmus Earl, made serjeant by Cromwell, 12th October, 1043, and again called to that decree after the Restoration, 22nd June, 1660. There are some notices of him in Hloinerteld's Norfolk. 54 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. because it seems to top them ; and sometimes, if it doth not take with the court, throw up, saying, "the cause was given away," which almost blasts a young man. There- fore, when he thought he had a significant point to offer,, he first acquainted the foreman with it which was commonly well taken : and he in return would say, " Move it yourself," and then he seconded it. These discretions respecting the counsel did him great service; and I have more to re- member anon, that respect the judge. 50. But first, I shall remember some of the advantages which brought his lordship so soon into circuit business. One of which was his being put into the commission pur- suant to the act of parliament for dividing the great level of the fens ; and which conduced much to his lordship's fame. And that was done to the intent his lordship should take the chair, and direct in the execution of it. When this commission first met and he was put in the chair, he observed that they had no copy of the act before them but only that which was printed for common use, and he did not think that sufficient, for it was but a private act of which the judges did not ex officio take notice, and there might be errors of the press : and accordingly he took care to have an authentic copy examined by the record itself. After that he proposed to the commissioners such apt methods for their proceedings in that commission, that the gentlemen were extremely pleased : for they were satisfied that all he proposed would be for the ease of the commis- sioners and of the country, and also conducive to an equal distribution of justice to particular persons, who for their interests appeared before them. And these methods being so fairly and ingenuously displayed at the first, the gentle- men of the commission admired the invention and dexterity of one so young, and accordingly agreed to every thing he proposed. And afterwards through the whole course of that commission, he had the authority of a judge amongst them and was seldom interrupted or opposed in any thing he dictated to them ; for they saw plainly he had both skill and will to do right in every thing. And the country people seeing him rule the roast (as they say) there, took him for the judge in earnest. And if any of them had a, case to come before the commissioners, of which there was MADE JUDGE OF ELY. 55 like to be any doubt or contest, they would if possible come along with a client to him at the assizes (of which practice I reserve to speak afterwards), and there bow and cringe that they might be known again at the commission. Thus every opportunity of transacting put into the hands of a person capable of doing well proves an ingredient of fame, which in professions precarious and competitory as the law is, perpetually and in a geometrical proportion (to use the allusion) enlarges the sphere of his practice ; and with those that are incapable, or do not acquit themselves well, it hath the contrary effect. 51. Another employ fell to his lordship's share which did him credit, and consequently augmented his business in the country : and that was his being made judge of the royal franchise of Ely. He was constituted by Dr. Lane, then bishop. He succeeded Wren, one of whose sons, Mr. William Wren, was high bailiff of the liberty, and took the seat of an high sheriff ; and so the judge, with all the titles of a judge of assize. This was the first bench of justice (if the commission is not accounted one) that his lordship sat on ; and to say truth is a very excellent judge school : for there all sorts of law business come before him, arrests, attachments, demurrers, pleadings, issues, and trials, and all that chicane in Westminster Hall, the difference lying chiefly in greater and less. Divers of the circuit counsel and neighbouring attorneys have business and attend there. The worst of the court is, that the pleadings are de hord in horam ; and the records are kept by papers filed, and not (as I know) ever made up into rolls. It is so in the court of the county palatine of Durham. But those and even the ordinary court of assizes, as to the fairness and regularity of the plea rolls, must yield to that of Lancaster ; and the curiosity there is (or was) such that the prisoners were arraigned upon the roll and not upon the bill found, and the whole proceeding to judgment and execution was also entered up, and not kept in minute books as at the assizes, which is exceeding commendable in the prothonotary and his clerks there. But as to the Isle of Ely, whether, since that time I write of (in which the sessions have been neglected and new discouragements continually growing) the court hath not 56 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. so well answered the attendance of a judge as it did then, I cannot say. 52. His lordship found the ways of the attorneys in their practice very loose ; and scarce any of them could be positive what the rules of the court were ; but, upon any doubt, some said one thing and some another: and the business was done in a huddle almost by word of mouth, there being nothing but a paper upon the file in order for a trial. His lordship endeavoured to regulate all these disorders, making a beginning in the method which he afterwards pursued in all his judicial places ; that is first, by informing himself as well as he could what were the rules, and then by slow steps, one thing after another making alterations for the better. But one thing happened which his lordship, with no ordinary exactness of skill in the law, carried through. A suit was commenced in the court of Common PJeas at Westminster for a cause which arose in the royal franchise of Ely. The bishop expected that his judge should see right done to his franchise, which might be hurt if such precedents were let pass. And his lordship thereupon took care that due authorities regarding this particular case should be signed and executed by the bishop, directed to him, requiring him to repair to the court of Common Pleas, and for him and in his name to demand of the court the cognizance of that cause then depending in the court. And his lordship went to the bar, and as bailiff of the bishop made his demand in due form. And the court, who are hardly enough brought to oust them- selves of any jurisdiction, scrutinated all points of form and, finding nothing amiss in the demand granted the cogni- sance, and the cause was removed from that court to the court of the franchise. I know no footsteps for many years before or at any time since of any such demand made or allowed. But the law was plain, and the forms being out of the common road, not without great care, fore- sight and skill to be pursued, and strict exception and cavil to be expected, the case required such a counsel as his lordship was to prevail in it. I had this matter from his lordship's own mouth ; but finding no papers concern- ing it I cannot point to the time when the transaction was. ATTENDANCE AT THE EYRE. 57 53. There was another opportunity fell in his. way as ]>ropitious as he could have wished, not only for fame but for learning ; and that was a formal iter or justice-seat of the forests that was ordered and proclaimed, and judges were appointed to assist the lord chief justice in eyre, the then Earl of Oxford ; and counsel for the king were also declared ; and they were, Serjeant Maynard, his lord- ship and who else I do not remember. These went all out together and passed from place to place ; and the judges were solemnly received by the countries as in a circuit ; and thus all the greater part of the forests on this side Trent were visited. The counsel for the king, in all causes in which the king's title was not in question, had liberty to advise and plead ; so good money, besides a gratuity and riding charges, was picked up. But it is not readily conceived what advantage here was by gaining an idea of the ancient law in the immediate practice of it. For the court of the forest is in nature of an iter; and the justices proceed as anciently the justices in eyre did, by present- ments, claims, seizures, replevins, «&c, very unlike the ordinary processes of the common law in courts of pleas. It is true that the commissions of oyer and terminer and gaol delivery are eyre also, but restrained to personal crimes. Here it is of rights and those after a peculiar law of forests, as privileges, franchises, grants, customs, pur- prestures, and offices of divers authorities and jurisdic- tions ; whereof the learning would cost a student much time and pains, besides going out of the way of his more beneficial studies to acquire. And here the whole time of the several sessions being taken up with the transaction of causes of this nature, the judges well skilled in the aid crown law and the prerogative and no person more deeply learned than Serjeant Maynard, who though a counsel was also an assistant to the court, one who had the opportunity of attending much more an employment in these courts, as his lordship had, must needs perfect himself in the general knowledge of the forest law and the jurisdiction of the lord chief justice in eyre. This was an opportunity that rarely happens ; many reigns pass before there is another ; for it is a great charge to the crown in salaries, expenses, and rewards; and the profits redounded to the lord chief 58 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. justice in eyre. And it was said at that time, that the king's intent in ordaining a sessions of eyre was purely to gratify the Earl of Oxford who was one that ever wanted royal boons. But, as to his lordship and his advantages, besides the credit of such an employ which was great, this service made him study the forest law a little more than otherwise he had done. But now the forests seem to be neglected or rather granted out by piecemeal, which kept in due order as in elder times and destructive encroach- ments of the countries suppressed, not only the deer (which are a trifle) but timber would have such increase as would supply shipping and save great charges and be a vast accommodation of the royal navy. And it is not to be wondered that this economy of the forests is laid aside, saving only as to oflices for wardships ; for the subject matter is unpopular, and the officers are on the one side corrupt and yield to all abuses and on the other side oppress and extort money of all they can ; and, as if that were the end of their institution, mind little else. 54. His lordship was not without eminent good fortune as well as discretion to help him forward in his circuit practice, which made him arise in it faster than young men have commonly done. As when the Lord Chief Jus- tice Hyde 1 was alive, he usually went the Norfolk circuit. The chief justice was a western man, but would not take the circuit so called because he would not break a law with a non obstante. And this judge was industriously favour- able to his lordship calling him cousin in open court, which was a declaration that he would take it for a respect to himself to bring him causes, and that is the best account that can be given of a favourite ; in which capacity a gentleman pretends to be easily heard, and that his errors and lapses, when they happen, may not offend the judge or hurt a cause, beyond which the profession of favour is censurable both in judge and counsel. But this benefit grew, like that under Sir Jeoffry Palmer, at first out of a 1 Uncle to the famous Earl of Clarendon. He was employed to draw the answer to the impeachment preferred by the Commons against the Duke of Buckingham, and was rewarded for the service with the place of lord chief justice. See § 43, n. HIS DEFERENCE TO THE JUDGES. 59 Temple acquaintance, which consisted of young Mr. Palmer and Mr. Edward Hyde the lord chancellor's son and some others of that family, who introduced his lord- ship to their patrons : which shows that in the erecting of a lawyer inns of court commons and conversation may be of vast use. In circuit practice there is need of an exqui- site knowledge of the judge's humour as well as his learning and ability to try causes ; and his lordship was a wonderful artist at nicking a judge's tendency to make it serve his turn, and yet never failed to pay the greatest regard and deference to his opinion : for so they get credit; because the judge for the most part thinks that person the best lawyer that respects most his opinion. I have heard his lordship say that sometimes he hath been forced to give up a cause to the judge's opinion, when he was plainly in the wrong, and when more contradiction had but made him more positive ; and besides that in so doing he himself had weakened his own credit with the judge, and thereby been less able to set him right when he was inclined to it. For, when he found it went against the grain, he would not teaze, as the way is, to get credit with the countrymen who would be apt to say, " Look what pains he takes but for that time since there was no remedy let the matter go. And all this without blame with respect to his clients, for he could do no more in any respect but might do worse by many. And a good opinion so gained often helps at another time to good purpose and sometimes to ill purpose ; as I heard it credibly reported of Serjeant Maynard, that being the leading counsel in a small-fee'd cause, would give it up to the judge's mistake and not contend to set him right that he might gain credit to mislead him in some other cause in which he was well 55. There were some judges came that circuit, of whose abilities time hath kept no record, unless in the sinister way, as Morton, Archer, 1 - ♦ uw n.A \ Salutis MDCLXXVIII. Obut 15 Nov ri " Anno \ ~, • wvt ( jEtatis sum XXXI. 122. It may be thought that this monumental inscrip- tion hath too much of the panegyric. And I confess the practice is modern : for the ancients affected the greatest brevity and titles only expressed in letters and syllables : and I have heard the great Sir Christopher Wren say, that he did not like epigrams upon stone. And here perhaps the commendatory part had been better left out, because it is in the power of every cobler to use the like. But as to the account of families, which makes the greatest part of this for the sake of pedigree they cannot be too much extended. In former times, offices post mortem and the heralds* office preserved the notice of births, matches, and descents, which (saving the dark parish registers) are not ordinarily discoverable to after- times otherwise than by sepulchral inscriptions. As here his lordship's match with a daughter of Thomas Karl of Down is ivmomhennl, with their five children, Francis, Pope, Anne, Charles, and Frances, whereof Pope and Frances died young and the three others survived their mother. 123. After this funeral was over, his lordship's great concern was how to dispose of his throe surviving children; and he found means to do it amply to his satisfaction. 110 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. For his mother, an excellent lady a compendium of charity and wisdom, took home to her his two sons, Francis, after- wards Lord Guilford, and Charles ; and she placed them at school in the neighbourhood, and was wanting in nothing of maternal care and nurture of them while she lived. And the daughter Anne was accepted by his lord- ship's sister the Lady Wiseman, afterwards Countess of Yarmouth, who resided then at Chelsea ; where also was a good school for young ladies of quality which was an advantage. His lordship did not live to see them grow up to a full age, but so fairly advanced as if he had no reason to doubt their doing well; and so it proved. After the good Lady North's death, he removed his eldest son to Winchester school for his better education, but left his younger in Suffolk where some neighbouring relations had an eye over him ; for he was very valetudinary. His lordship by his will committed the guardianship of these minor children to his three surviving brothers, and settled the remainder of his estate after the deaths of his two sons without issue upon them, which was a singular and great trust and it was no less justly and honourably per- formed. 124. His lordship served as a member of the House of Commons but in one parliament, which was that called the Long Parliament, for when he was solicitor- general, it was thought fit that with the first interest that could be made for him he should be chosen. And it fell out oppor- tunely enough that by the death of Sir Eobert Stuart, as I remember some time recorder of Lynn Eegis in Norfolk and then burgess for the town, that place fell void ; and none could make a fairer pretence to stand for that elec- tion than Mr. Solicitor- General ; for what with his being commissioner for dividing the fens and judge of the Isle of Ely, and what with his constant circuits and eminent practice in town and country, he was not only esteemed but popular in all those parts : and there was yet more to complete his interest there ; for this vacancy happened during the Dutch war, and the town had need of a court interest to procure convoys and guardships for them, which Mr. Solicitor effectually did. The Lord Shaftes- bury was Lord High Chancellor and carried it high in MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT. Ill appearance for the prerogative. The character and history of which noble person, and an account of his sending out undue writs in vacation of parliament, are so fully dis- played in the Examen that it is needless to mention it here. 1 125. His lordship did not approve of this practising novelties with the parliament and was afraid of what hap- pened, but conform he must. When it was made known at Lynn that his lordship intended to stand for burgess, the magistrates intimated that they would serve him with their interest ; and other encouragements he had : and before the writ came down he made the town a visit, and regaled the body with a very handsome treat which cost him above one hundred pounds ; and they complimented him highly with assurances of all their interests, which they doubted not would be successful against any opposi- tion but they believed there would be none. He was made free, and had the thanks of the body for his favour- able assistance in procuring them convoys, ears to be the last which was made to exclude the attorney-general from the House of Commons. I 114 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. lordship to search that matter to the quick, as he did, that he might if put to it not be tempted to say anything with- out book and that he might give his friends that were members just notices of the grounds of the pretence. But the country party never ventured upon the point ; for, in truth, they had not that advantage as they pretended. So now let us pass on to find his lordship in the attorney- general's place, which fell out upon the promotion of Sir Heneage Finch to the great seal. But before this there had been a notable time ; for the king was beset by a double-visaged ministry, half papist and half fanatic, who co-operated in mischief, the former to favour their party and the other to ruin the king. The Lords Clifford and Arlington of the former and Bucks and Shaftesbury of the latter party. And the game lay by soothing up the king and pushing him on in designs of advancing his preroga- tive. And they took, or made, some colours by the Dutch war and other necessities of the crown. Hence proceeded the stop of the Exchequer, commission of martial law, en- joining actions against the bankers, indulgences against law, and huffing the parliament ; as the histories of that time (if true), but particularly the Examen, will demon- strate. But these parties had different aims, the popish really to enhance the king's power in order to have the sway of it on their side ; the other, to loosen the king from the affections of his people and so directly to destroy him. They saw the crown in mighty credit and interest with the parliament, and that it was capable of being destroyed only by high flights of arbitrary power : for a few difficulties, such as great occasions and little supplies, being once brought upon the crown, to be followed (as they supposed) by either his majesty's truckling to the parliament or else using violence for money, would soon bring it under : and upon this scheme they pushed hard. 128. After the stop of the Exchequer, whereby the bankers fell exposed to actions at law, the point was to get the Lord Keeper Bridgman to enjoin those actions. He had been a celebrated lawyer, and sat with high esteem in the place of lord chief justice of the Common Pleas. The removing him from thence to the Chancery did not at all contribute any increase to his fame but rather the contrary, LORD KEEPER BRIDGMAN. 115 for he was timorous to an impotence and that not mended by his great age. He laboured very much to please every body, and that is a temper of ill consequence in a judge. It was observed of him that if a cause admitted of divers doubts, which the lawyers call points, he would never give all on one side but either party should have somewhat to go away with. 1 And in his time, the court of Chancery run out of order into delays and endless motions in causes, so that it was like a fair field overgrown with briars. And, what was worst of all, his family was very ill qualified for that place ; his lady being a most violent intriguess in busi- ness and his sons kept no good decorum whilst they prac- tised under him, and he had not a vigour of mind and strength to coerce the cause of so much disorder in his family. He boggled at divers things required of him, and particularly stopping the lawsuits against the bankers by injunction and the commission of martial law; although at that time there was colour for it by a little army encamped on Blackheath. And there was a meeting of the attorney and solicitor general at his house ; where it was agreed that these were rocks they must all split upon if they could not be avoided. The Lord Shaftesbury took advantage of this difficulty and, as was supposed, by undertaking to do what- ever the Lord Keeper Bridgman refused, got him removed and slipt into his place. But all these fine doings came to 1 A similar character of Sir Orlando Bridgman is given in the Memoirs of James II. "The seal was given to Sir Orlando Bridgman as Lord Keeper, who was, until some time after he had it, looked upon as a very honest and able lawyer, but upon trial proved to be too weak for so weighty an employment. {Life of Jafties If. vol. i. p. 429.) In the Examen North has given an account of these transactions. * f There were some shrewd difficulties to be got over ; one was the Com- mission of Martial Law ; another, an injunction to be granted in Chan- cery to stop suits at law against the bankers, upon the equity of public necessity. The Lord Keeper Bridgman was pressed, but proved restive on both points. He, for the sake of his family, that gathered like a snowball while he had the seal, would not have formalised with any tolerable compliances ; but these impositions were too rank for him to comport with. I remember, about this time, there was at his house a meeting of the attorney and solicitor-general, and some of the king's counsel, to consult upon these points ; and they all agreed they were rocks upon which they must split, if they could not otherwise decline them, for they lay directly in the way, and would not be surmounted.'' (p. 38.) 116 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. nought. The king agreed with the ensuing parliament; and then the Lord Shaftesbury, pretending for saving him- self, to turn into the discontented party, in the consequence of affairs showed himself to be, at bottom, an utter enemy to the king and his family ; and so in truth he continued with remarkable perseverance all the days of his life. But his whole history the reader will find particularly related in the Exam en. 129. After he was turned out and Sir Heneage Finch placed in his room, the king asked his new Lord Keeper whom they should have to succeed him ? He answered, " Who should succeed the captain, but the lieutenant ? " And thereupon his lordship was made the king's attorney- general. Of which passage his lordship has left the follow- ing note : — " Finch, lord keeper, attorney, and Sir William Jones, solicitor." 130. Here his lordship skips over the Earl of Shaftesbury who had the seal not much more than nine months. This change did not affect his lordship, so he passed it by in his catalogue. He was well pleased with his successor ; for he knew the ability of the man and how well, for that reason, he was entitled to the place. And he thought it a credit to the king's affairs, when men most eminent for learning and dispatch of business in the law were taken into his majesty's service. His lordship was so far from retaining any offence at what was past, that he readily went in with the promo- tion of Sir William Jones. And if he had not consorted with a party diametrically opposite to the interest of the crown, his lordship had joined in amity with him, and gone hand in hand in consults and transacting what belonged to their offices ; which (as the modern course is) are nearly co- ordinate. But such different aims as they had could not but make a fissure which would not be closed. 1 And thereof, and the consequences, some account may be given elsewhere ; and is already related in the Examen. 131. His lordship's acquisitions by practice while he attended only the King's Bench, had been very consider- 1 In the Examen, p. 515, North says, " these two lived very fairly, without trouble or offence to each other upon account of different opinions or otherwise, for divers years together." GAIN BY PRACTICE. 117 able ; but after he, as king's cousel, came within the bar he began to have calls into the court of Chancery ; which he liked very well, because the quantity of business as well as the fees, was greater; but his home was the King's Bench where he sat and reported like as other practisers. And when his practice was greatest in Chancery, he hath come as an officer and sat on the bench, under the judges by the prothonotary. His business increased even while he was solicitor to be so much as would have overwhelmed one less dexterous ; but when he was made attorney-general, though his gains by his office were great they were much greater by his practice ; for that flowed in upon him like an orage, enough to overset one that had not an extraor- dinary readiness in business. His skull-caps, which he wore when he had leisure to observe his constitution, as I touched before, were now destined to lie in a drawer to re- ceive the money that came in by fees. One had the gold, another the crowns and half-crowns, and another the smaller money. When these vessels were full they were committed to his friend (the Hon. Roger North), who was constantly near him, to tell out the cash and put it into bags according to the contents ; and so they went to his treasurers Blanchard and Child, goldsmiths at Temple-bar. This same telling the money was a great trust ; and he was satisfied of the integrity of his friend wherein he was confirmed by a very little accident : for while they were walking together that young gentleman, newly come from telling his money, accidentally feeling in his coat pocket startled and said, " Here 's a half crown," (supposed by accident to have slipped in there) but it proved only a piece of glass. His lordship, from the manner of that behaviour, concluded his friend to be (as he was) most strictly just io him. 132. After the death of Sir Jeoffry Palmer, his lordship had the advantage to come into his chambers which were very commodious, having a gallery and at the end a closet with a little garden. This served him to walk in and turn about with a friend continually interchanging discourse, than which no entertainment better pleased him : for that helped him to form his notions and to test them upon those of his friend. But his greatest content was that 118 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. they afforded an accommodation for his brother from Cambridge, 1 when he thought fit to come to London, so near that he could at any time go from his business to him and return to it again when he pleased ; which was a practice he very much delighted in and used. Such inter- course, though with persons raw and little experienced in affairs, he liked better than to be wholly alone ; for he con- sidered that, if he did not learn he taught ; which to him was near as well : for as he, being young, had received great benefit by the advices and instructions of his betters, so he desired to profit others coming up under him with the best connsel and information he could give them. He never lay there but always went home to his family, and was seldom an evening without company agreeable to him. Nothing was difficult but his attendance upon and dealing with the court. His modesty, and diffidence, and infinite cares not to slip or commit any absurdities in that captious nation made him uneasy, sleeping and waking. Those who are so far from knowing what is fit to be done as to profess hatred of all business, which was pretty nearly the state of the court at that time, will yet prescribe to such as have reason to know better and will not allow them the liberty of being explained without being also accounted morose and unfit for the court. So that his lordship lived in a perpetual stretch as to his behaviour there and, with all that, did not come off wonderful well ; or at least he thought he was often not well used: for he was continually tormented with rascally projects and the unreasonable im- portunities of great men (usually) at the heels of them. Besides a sort of falseness and treachery he observed in most of the court made him decline having any attach- ments to any of their interests ; but made it his rule to serve the king and the legal government of England with all the fidelity and skill he had, and to do nothing that was not justifiable by law nor make himself obnoxious to any persons who might, for his principles (which were always loyal) malign him. And, however the profits were great and he was satisfied of the good opinion the king had of his judgment and fidelity (besides that the Lord Keeper 1 Dr. John North, Master of Trinity College. SIR WILLIAM COVENTRY. 119 Finch and the chiefs of the law were mostly his friends and did not know of any slips he had committed) yet, always fearing the worst, he was weary of his post and wished for another in a calmer region though less profitable. And, among all the preferments of the law, his thoughts fixed upon the place of lord chief justice of the Common Pleas ; 1 for he knew his own skill in the law so well as to be assured he was not unfit for it ; and chose it the rather because the business was wholly matter of pure law, and had little to do in criminal causes or court intrigues ; and he could answer for the rigid integrity of his determinations. And in the intervals of business in that station which were constant and copious, he should have more time and latitude to ex- patiate in entertainments that were agreeable to him, and settle himself in a way of living at ease with his family and enjoy his friends with more satisfaction. Upon which account, although he could not expect to receive so much there as in the attorney's place by 2000Z. per annum, yet he would have been glad so to have purchased his ease. 133. As to the affairs transacted in parliament, his lord- ship had no great difficulty ; for little or nothing of the king's business in the House of Commons leaned upon him, because Mr. Secretary Coventry was there who managed for the court ; and no man was ever better qualified for that post : for he was an ancient member and had the nice step of the house, and withal was wonderfully witty and a man of great veracity. He had never said anything in the house which afterwards proved a lie ; and had that credit there, that whatever he affirmed the house believed. 2 After 1 But, according to the Ejcamen (p. 515), " that place is the most desir- able of any for a good lawyer to retire into; for the profits are great, and the court not harassed with causes criminal, touching the Crown and Government, as the King's Bench is, of which the chief justice always desires to be preferred downwards to the other." It appears that the }>rofits incident to the office of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas were ess, at this time, by 2000J. per annum, than those made by the Attorney- General. (Ibid.) 2 Sir William Coventry was the youngest son of Lord Keeper Coventry. In 1662, he was appointed a Commissioner of the Admiralty ; in 1G65, a Privy Counsellor; and in 1667, a Commissioner of the Treasury ; — he died in 1686. Burnet calls him 44 a man of the finest and best temper that belonged to the court." (Own Time, vol. i. p. 449.) He 120 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. he was gone the court lost ground ; for there came forward a sort of people called Undertakers ; 1 for the court was negligent and did not think of the parliament till within a month of their meeting, and then were in a hurry how to order matters. Whereupon, some one or more of the court party in the house who had a good opinion of their own skill usually stepped in, and undertook for the manage- ment of the king's business that sessions ; and his majesty need not be farther concerned at present. And this kind of service in the overture was always acceptable ; especially in a place where all kinds of business was uneasy, that is in his majesty's court. But the house always found out who were their guardians and sponsors to answer for them : and such never failed, through their indiscretions, pre- sumptions, importunities, subterfuges, or tricks, to give advantage against themselves ; and in a few days com- monly were routed horse and foot. And then there was no way but to quit them and agree with the more friendly part of the house. All which must be readily owned by such as remember Sir William (or Sir Francis) Wheeler, to name no others, managers for the king in the House of Com- mons. When there is a set of honest gentlemen, as there was in that Long Parliament, nothing loses them so much as disingenuity and underhand dealings. For the adverse party contrive to expose them with satirical reflections, and make those honest gentlemen almost ashamed of their own party. No other was to be expected but that his lord- ship should be entirely for the interest of the crown ; not so much upon account of his place, for that never carried him into any indirect action, but from his judgment of which I have given an account elsewhere. And he was so far from losing his interest with his friends by his behaviour there that he became more firmly allied to them, for his sense was commonly theirs. He could not attend the house con- is accused of malice by Clarendon, in his life by himself. See more of him in the Memoirs of Pepys, passim. 1 This was not anew term. When Clarendon selected some persons " of great experience and known ability to confer with, for the better preparing and conducting of what was to be done in the House of Com- mons," they "feared to undergo the odious name of Undertakers, which in all parliaments hath been a brand." (Life of Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 354.) The name appears to have had its origin in the reign of James I. REMOVED INTO THE COMMON PLEAS. 121 stantly, but took the liberty of pursuing his practice in Westminster Hall. And, being there, what he did was occasional, and consisted chiefly in resolving the fallacies of the country party j whom to oppose in gaining the point of a money bill and answering to the artillery of grievances, which were always erected and pointed at the money de- signs, was the chief of the court employ in parliament till about the time of Oates's plot, when the country party went off with all at once. But long before that time his lord- ship was removed into the Common Pleas [a.d. 1673] and Mr. Coke of Norfolk succeeded him in the burgess-ship of Lynn, but not so easy and cheap ; for his managers did not keep in due bounds but let loose the tap all over that large town, and made an account of <£7000 or more resting due to the town, besides what had been paid for the ex- penses. Sir Simon Taylor opposed, and thought he had the return, and being resolved to petition was courted by the Earl of Danby at the price of all his charges, which were not trifles, to forbear, as he did, else his lordship's son-in-law, Coke, at that conjuncture had been turned out. 134. Whatever his lordship signified to the court interest during the time he sat in parliament, it is sure enough that he served himself by improving his knowledge of men and their ways in great assemblies. And the arts of driving are no where so eminent as at the committee of elections. And it were well if all gentlemen that come to such public employments would observe these arts ; but with a sort of contempt and scorn and not think them matter of imita- tion ; or, indeed, any arts so to be but what tend to favour truth and justice. It was not without reason that the best orators of the ancients determined that a man could not be a good orator, unless he was an honest man. For art is a good engine to subdue ignorance or malice ; but to support the latter against justice is not an art, but a diabolical subtilty. 135. In the process of this stage of his lordship's life, his condition was like that of a plant set in a proper soil, growing up from small beginnings into expanded employ- ment ; so much that one would think it scarce possible for one man to find time to dispatch the affairs of it. One help be had, which was ^ood servants, when he had most need of them. Mr. Matthew Johnson, one bred in the 122 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. office of clerk of the patents, was in that province, and Mr. Bobert North for his chief clerk, viz. for the confessions and other affairs of trust. And when business of titles of estates came to him, he often recommended his clients to some industrious and able counsel ; as was before observed. His lordship's great labour was to get time to be instructed well in causes of great consequence, as trials at the bar and hearings in Chancery ; and, for that work he took the fresh of the morning. He had a very trusty boy, who never failed winter and summer to come into his chamber at four in the morning. He could, over night, just and but just, admit his clients and their agents ; and, being informed by them in the history of the cause and where the pinch was, he was then prepared next day to peruse his breviate and the papers left with him ; which was impossible to be done for one whilst others waited without. The office of attorney hath little or no vacation ; such continual attendance on the court did that office require. But he was more capable of conforming to it, because, being then married, his habi- tation was in or near the town and he had no country con- cerns to call him from thence. But, till his lady came with him to London, he kept no house in town but ordi- narily dieted in the Temple ; that is, at noons in the hall and at nights in his chamber ; where the ordinary commons with a bottle or two was a regale to him, and two or three constant friends with him. But that was like the Harpies' supper, by snatches, for he could seldom get many minutes to enjoy himself and his friends; such was the importunity of his business. But yet he took great pleasure in those little liberties ; and he was not pleased when he had not at least a third man (for I was always one) to help out his single bottle, and for fail used to send for a choice friend or two. He used to say that a glass of wine, to sedentary persons was equivalent to exercise. He could never sit up late ; for he must be up early. And after dinner a short turn in the other world was not only an exceeding refresh- ment, but almost necessary to him ; for his constitution required more sleep than many others needed. 136. Such was his lordship's course of life during his celibacy ; absolutely void of all manner of vice, excess, and incontinence : of which I am yet a living witness that scarce SIMPLICITY OF HOSPITALITIES. 123 was ever from him but in the very employ of business. I do not remember that he so much as took the air in his coach without me ; and so when he dined or supped abroad, unless with grandees of one sort or other, I was with him. He never was in danger of being overtaken with wine to excess from his own seeking ; but only when confined to company, especially of superiors, and that was very seldom and so far as clipping only ; for he had strength of head to bear a great deal. He was always sensible of this infirmity coming upon him, and could curb his speech but not his merriment as I have observed already. 137. After he was married and his lady come to town, he became a house-keeper ; but used lodgings for a con- siderable time, till he could accommodate himself with a house ; which at length he did to his content in Chancery- lane, as has been related. His course of life was now much altered from what it was ; but all for the better, as well in all kinds of accommodation as the regularities of life which he greatly affected. In this state he kept a plentiful but very plain table and had great resort of his friends to him ; at dinner sufficient but much more at supper : for then he was more loose from business and company was most acceptable to him. And he consequently held to his cus- tom of eating suppers, and counted it the best refreshment he had in the four and twenty hours. And how he diverted himself with his family when alone, will be showed elsewhere. 138. I cannot vary his character much in this stage from that subjoined to the former, only now he had a superiority and his thoughts were ever intent upon methods for recti- fication and improvement, wherever his views extended. And as he had profited extremely by the encouragements in his studies he had received from others, so he did what he could to administer like advantages in study to such as came in his way to instruct : instances of which good will I shall take occasion particularly to relate elsewhere. The state was not very much roiled with faction, till he was taken from practice to the seat of justice and had more lati- tude to divert himself with ingenuities; such as music, philosophy, painting, mechanics, and the like ; which, in the absence of strangers, were the subject of his domestic conversation, as will appear in proper place. 124 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. 139. He had acquired in this busy time of life a general skill in the European languages, as French, Italian, and Spanish. And now he fell, last of all, upon Dutch and was very desirous to make himself master of that. His friend Sir Peter Lely (of whom elsewhere) had inspired him with an inclination to it ; telling him what sump- tuous libraries they had, and magnifying the elegance and significancy of his country dialect ; and, as if there needed no other books to make men exquisite scholars and politi- cians, he recommended to him a voluminous collection in folio called Saken van Staten ; such a sort of book as our Rushworth : And, in order to gather this part of the belles lettres, he got a Dutch Bible and used to carry it to church. To be short, in his greatest flow of business he let slip no opportunity of improving himself, as well in the law as in other valuable accomplishments. He had a very good memory but never trusted it with his independent re- marks ; which made him (as I have said elsewhere) so given to note all useful occurrences ; for of such matters multitude confounds the remembrance. So necessary is it to have, as it were, a basket to put them in. And this he did with no less constancy and application after he was judge, nay, lord keeper of the great seal, than when he was a student or minor practiser. He was also a dexterous index-maker : if he procured any good law-book in manu- script, which he thought worth the reading over, he cer- tainly made an index to it ; but every notable discovery or light in the law, derived upon good authority, he crowded into his solemn common-place book. He would not reflect with himself that he had once got but now had lost any thing. 140. Come we now to the third division of his lordship's life, which commenced from the time he was advanced to the post of Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; 1 and that was soon after the death of the Lord Chief Justice Vaughan. 2 Of this preferment his lordship has left the following note. 1 In Hilary Term 1674 ; see the ceremony of his appointment in Freeman 's Reports, vol. i. p. 187. 2 Sir John Vaughan died in 1674. He was the intimate friend of Selden (who dedicated to him his Viridities Maris Clausi), and, in his CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE COMMON PLEAS. 125 " Lord chief justice without soliciting.'* 141. I have mentioned that his lordship grew weary of the attorney-general's place and why, and how much he desired a quieter post and particularly that of the Common Pleas. Now we have it intimated here that his desires were accomplished ; for, upon the death of Vaughan the chief in that court, his lordship was looked upon on all hands to be the fittest person to succeed him. His lordship had but one scruple which made him a little deliberate about his acceptance ; and that was the difference of profit ; for the attorney's place was (with his practice) near seven thousand pounds per annum ; and the cushion, of the Common Pleas, not above four thousand pounds. And so far the reason wrought upon him, that he would expect that the offer of it should be made him ; and that he would not seek although, for cogent reasons, he much desired it ; but, if such offer came, he was determined to accept it : and if the court should use him so ill as not to give him such proffer he should not be very much mortified. But, accept- ing, he should account himself enfranchised from the court brigues and attendances and other labours of his practice, at the price of the difference. 142. One thing fell out unhappily in this affair ; which was a necessity to cross the desires of a near relation for whom he had no slight respect ; and it was Sir William Mountagu, one of the Boughton family, his lordship's mother's cousin- german. Sir William pressed with ex- treme earnestness that his lordship would give way that he might obtain that place, alleging that some of his ances- tors had been in it. And he teased with a world of such weighty reasons to induce his lordship to refuse it ; and, after that, he said he doubted not of obtaining the place. All that his lordship said to him was, that he would not sue for it ; but if it was offered he must hold him excused if he accepted it. This did not suffice ; and Sir William took it desperately ill of his lordship that he would not, for his sake, decline it. Such compliments are a little too costly to be expected how near soever the relation is ; and, early life, of Lord Clarendon, who has not, however, drawn a very amiable character of him. {Life of Lord Clarendon, vol. i. p. 32.) 126 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. in such cases the ill manners lie in the asking and not in refusing when asked. But this incident bred no ill humour between these two noble relations. Sir William was made lord chief baron of the Exchequer ; 1 and his lordship, while chief justice of the Common Pleas, lived in perfect amity with him ; and he had a due respect for his lordship while they lived together. It is neither unlawful nor un- decent for relations to be competitors ; but to suffer rancour and ill will to grow thereby is a sign of an upstart and degenerous race. But persons of honourable families, as these two were, will as they did be careful in fortifying their friendships so as no unlucky event may corrupt them. 143. His lordship forebore sitting in court for divers days, to the end that such* causes as had been agreed by the court might receive judgment without farther argu- ment. And then his lordship sat constantly, according to the duty of his place. The court (answering the title Common Pleas) was placed next the hall door, that suitors and their train might readily pass in and out. But the air of the great door when the wind is in the north is very cold, and if it might have been done the court had been moved a little into a warmer place. It was once proposed to let it in through the wall (to be carried upon arches) into a back room which they call the Treasury. But the Lord Chief Justice Bridgman would not agree to it, as against magna charta, which says that the Common Pleas shall be held in certo loco, or in a certain place, with which the distance of an inch from that place is inconsistent i and all the pleas would be coram non judice. Although at the same time, others thought that the locus there means the villa only, so that the returns being apud Westmona- sterium, the court might sit on the other side of the abbey and no solecism of jurisdiction happen. But yet that formal reason hindered a useful reform ; which makes me think of Erasmus, who having read somewhat of English law, said that the lawyers were " doctissimum genus indoc- tissimorum hominum" 1 He was removed in Easter Term 1686, (Shower's Reports, vol. ii. p. 471,) in consequence of his refusal to support the dispensing power. OFFICERS OF THE COURT. 127 144. It seems that in old time the business of the court was very great, because the offices are numerous. So it appears at this day in the Chancery, that the clerks are multiplied. First, the six did all the work that originally might be done by a single secretary ; and then their clerks that rose to ten a-piece, mere copiers under them, have got to be officers and thirty more added to them. And still all of them have clerks, who may in time hope to be officers too and beard their masters, as they do the six clerks. The cursitors made out process de cursu. Special writs are magistralia. The masters in Chancery are twelve. The cursitors are by counties ; these are the lord chancel- lor's. The philazers and exigenters are by counties also and are of the Common Pleas. The prothonotaries are three now, as it were co-ordinate, but grew up with the business ; for it seems at first there was but one as in the King's Bench. He was the proper officer of the court who was to enter up the replications, rejoinders, rebutters, - 41. It is observable that the coffee-houses became obnoxious to the court, at an earlier period than to which the text relates. Clarendon gives an account of a conversation which he had with the king in 1666, con- cerning u the licence which was assumed in the coffee-houses ; " upon which occasion the Chancellor pro|K>sed either totally to suppress them, or " to employ some spies, who, being present in the conversation, might be ready to charge and accuse the persons who had talked with most licence in a subject that would bear a complaint." " The king," adds the noble historian, " liked both the expedients." {Life of Lord Clarendon, vol. iii. p. 678.) Tea appears to have been introduced into common use about the same time as coffee. 11 1 did send," says Pepys, "for a cup of tee (a China drink), of which I never had drunk before." Vol. i. p. 76, sub anno 1660. 200 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. ordinary inquisition to be set up and make so much noise and the punishment falling, as was most likely, not on the authors and abettors, but some poor wretches that sought to get a penny by selling them would, as he thought, rather incense than abate the abuse. His notion was that his majesty should order nothing extraordinary to make people imagine he was touched to the quick : but to set up counter writers that, as every libel came out, should take it to task and answer it. And so all the diurnal lies of the town also would be met with : " for," said he, " either we are in the wrong or in the right ; if the former we must do as usurped powers, use force and crush all our enemies right or wrong. But there is no need of that for we are in the right ; for who will pretend not to own his majesty's authority accord- ing to law ? And nothing is done by his majesty and his ministers but what the law will warrant ; and what should we be afraid of ? Let them lie and accuse till they are weary, while we declare at the same time, as may be done with demonstration, that all they say is false and unjust ; and the better sort of the people whom truth sways, when laid before them, will be with us." This counsel was fol- lowed, and some clever writers were employed, such as were called the Observator and Heraclitus for a constancy, and others with them occasionally ; and then they soon wrote the libellers out of the pit and, during that king's life, the trade of libels which before had been in great request fell to nothing. And this was one of the visible good effects of the measures of the court and ministry at that time, which were, in all things, to act conform- ably to the established religion and the laws. I will not meddle here with the plots of Oates and Fitzharris, and all the other both sham and real in that king's reign, because they are fully set forth in the Examen ; only, in order to introduce his lordship's opinion and reasonings upon them, I shall just walk over them in the following manner. 228. After the year 1666, the reign of king Charles II. was happy in being free from plots, I mean such as pub- licly appeared, until about September 1678, when that devilish imposture styled of Oates, came forth, and after- wards there followed the horrid conspiracy called the Eye CHECK ON OATES' PLOT. 201 Plot, and, as fringes to these, other minor plots as will be found in the accounts given of them in the Examen. During this time his lordship sat in holy peace under his old oak the court of Common Pleas, which had nothing to do with criminals; and in the grand commission of oyer &c. at the Old Bailey, where the Oatesian storms were impe- tuous, the lord chief justice of the King's Bench steered the vessel, and the other judges had little or no share in the conduct, whereby his lordship in the main was rather an observer than an actor, in those proceedings to which hung the issues of life and death. He was not a little concerned to see men noised out of their lives, as the twelve priests were, and that nothing could resist the fury of the people that, like a hurricane, pursued them. And that which was most lamentable was that the king's attorney 1 should be possessed, and the chief justice 1 that presided, should be taken in the head, and even the parliament sounding loud and the populace little less than distracted ; and all tending to blood of which no end was discerned ; but it seemed that question and conviction were one and the same crisis. His lordship saw plainly that this popular insanity could not even by the strongest reasoning be moderated, but to do that must be a work of time : and as for open opposition by pamphlets, there was enough pub- lished by some Roman Catholics ; but instead of making any impression, however cogent their reasons and argu- ments were, the attempts were cried out upon, as so many instances of a shameless impudence, pretending to prove false what the community were resolved should be true, and the party name (that is papist) held forth, was a suf- ficient confutation of them all. Nevertheless, his lordship was of opinion that a pamphlet might be contrived and wrote with such historical deductions and temper, that might in some measure, if not wholly, qualify this dis- temper of the public and that, what direct opposition could not, insinuation might effect. 229. Pursuant to this thought his lordship applied him- self to prepare instructions for some expert pamphleteer, who had a popular style and address, to treat upon the 1 Sir William Jones. 2 Sir William Scroggs. 202 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. subject of Oates' s plot ; and after his way of extempore writing, which was familiar, and just as he used to speak, he drew up these instructions 1 which, so far as they go, might have passed for the pamphlet itself, but he stopped at the facts which were left to the writer to deduce as he saw occasion. He had no opinion of his own pen for such purposes as these, and it also required more time and thought than he could spare to work them up to a height sufficient to fall upon and crush a popular prejudice. I do not know that these instructions were ever delivered out to be made use of, but believe they were not, and that he kept them by him so long that, new scenes of affairs emerging, they were become less needful. After the dis- covery of the Rye conspiracy, his lordship's mind was so touched with the dismal effects of faction and sedition in the reign of King Charles II. that he fancied to compose their history which, in the same extemporary way, he deduced from the Restoration down to the conclusion of that discovery and gave his paper to a friend, desiring he would write it over with large margins, that he might adjoin such additions and alterations as he should think fit to make; which was done; and he made some, but very little, alteration, as putting out a name or the like that might give offence. (Part of these papers are in the Examen.) As to his lordship's personal acting and con- cern in the proceedings grounded on the many plots that appeared in his time ; first, as to Oates, he had not the least hint or intimation of any such roguery as his was, before the information or narrative was sworn before Justice Godfrey, and then not early but as the matter be- came bruited abroad. He once heard Oates preach at St. Dunstan's, and much admired his theatrical behaviour in the pulpit : he prayed for his very good lord and patron the Duke of Norfolk, which made his lordship suspect him to be warping towards popery. And when his lordship came to know the particulars of his discovery, although the 1 Sir John Dalrymple has given some extracts from a MS. of the Lord Keeper North, relative to the origin and history of the Popish Plot, which probably form part of the instructions here alluded to. They have also been inserted by Mr. Howell, in his edition of the State Trials. (See vol. vi. p. 1498.) NAT. READING'S TRIAL. 203 king's life, forsooth, was to be saved, he took the whole to be an imposture calculated to disturb the public and bring evils upon his majesty ; and after he had discoursed with the Earl of Danby, who at first appeared a fautor of it, his lordship found such desultory steps taken as could agree with nothing but a cheat and was confirmed in his opinion accordingly. 230. I mentioned his lordship's felicity in having, by his place, little to do with criminals ; he had but one of the many plot trials to manage, and that was of Nat. Reading, 1 who was not charged for treason but for subornation and tampering. He acted as counsel for one of the lords in the Tower, committed upon testimony of Oates and his colleague Bedloe ; and treated with Bedloe for a reward if he would soften his evidence against his client ; and Bedloe, by crafty advice, drew him into a snare so that there was clear evidence of subornation against him. Whatever the plot was, this was as foul a fact as could be, when a couusel at law shall tamper, and by bribes corrupt the king's evidence, in a case of high treason : and upon his trial he was convicted and punished with the pillory. In the rest of the trials, as they are printed, his lordship scarce spoke but chief Justice Scroggs led the van. I find in one of them his lordship took occasion to say, " As for the plot that is as clear as the sun :" which shining irony miijhthave been spared. But the behaviour of all the judges, except the aforesaid chief, was passive ; that is, without interposing their opinions of the evidence and the credi- bility of their story ; which is often done by judges for assistance of the jurymen in common trials ; and many in latter times have thought that the same ought to have been done here. And nothing can qualify the silence but the inconceivable fury and rage of the community, gentle and simple, at that time, and the consequences of an open opposition to the chief, whose part it was to act, as he did, demanding no assistance of any of them ; which opposition might have been fatal in many respects : for the credit of 1 See his trial. (HowelVs State Trials, vol. vii. p. 259.) Reading had been secretary to Masaniello, during the insurrection at Naples. See a further account of Reading's Trial, (Exa?7ien, p. 240). 204 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. the witnesses must have been impeached, which the time would not bear; and it was not in their office to inter- meddle ; for as to the fact the jury is to answer. When it is so done by the co-assessors, it is for discretion and not duty ; the most cogent reason was, that the prejudice was so universal and strong, that if an apostle had spoke against, no impression had taken place, nor had it done the prisoners any service ; but on the other side, not only the rabble but even the parliament itself had flounced at it ; which consideration turned the scales of the discretion, and made those judges rather let a vessel drive which they could not stop, and reserve themselves for fairer opportu- nities when such might happen for them to do some good, without pretending to remove mountains. Thus much I have thought to allege in favour of the judges' passiveness at those trials; whereof the full strength of reason can scarce be made appear so sufficiently as the proper time, in real circumstances, demonstrated. 231. That which, in all the course of these outrages most affected his lordship with admiration as well as commisera- tion, was the deplorable case of the Earl of Stafford, who was pronounced guilty, seemingly upon the grossest error in common justice that ever was known. Very few, if any, of the peers that condemned him would own that they be- lieved the witnesses who swore the treason against him ; and his lordship expostulated with some of them (that he could be free with) to know how it was possible, being so persuaded in their own minds, they could declare him guilty ? Their answer was, that they were not free in the case but were bound to judge according to the proof of facts ; and here the witnesses swore the facts, ergo, &c. His lordship replied that this was contrary to the very institution of trials ; for it is the proper business of peers and juries to try not the grammatical construction of words, which every school-boy can tell, but the credibility of persons and things ; which require a collation of cir- cumstances and a right judgment thereupon; and God forbid that the worst of villains should have it in their power, by positive swearing, to take away any man's life or estate ; and it is so far from that, that it is every day's direction of judges to jurors, viz. if you believe the wit- THE KING'S CLEMENXT. 205 nesses, find, else not. This error is reasonably to be sup- posed to have happened to many in sincerity, though some fancied a spice of the politic in the case, lest it might prove as happened when the not guilty lords were mobbed in Charles I.'s time. But here the case was so far otherwise that, of the two, the guilty side was in more danger of popular insults than the not guilty. 232. I might properly here enumerate and particularize the many false shams which, after the mighty Oatesian engine fallen, troubled the court, and also at large decipher the Rye conspiracy, because his lordship had the most to do in conducting the several examinations of the secre- tary's office and to see that what was done should be in due form, and according to law ; but all those matters are so well described by his lordship, in his papers before touched, that a transcript would be the best account, which here would be superfluous, because it is already to be found in the Exanien. 1 His lordship's greatest content lay in his majesty's presence, who almost constantly at- tended and was himself witness of the sincerity, diligence and prudence of his ministers ; whereas accounts coming to him by the report of others would be defective, and, probably, not without some sinister misrepresentations. And on the other side the ministers, and particularly his lordship as he often declared, had the pleasure of observing his majesty's clemency, justice and inclination to mercy ;. which through the whole proceeding were egregious. He punished no man against whom the evidence did not charge the treason home (though in other respects they were guilty enough) in case they declared all they knew ; nay, divers traitors that made ingenious confessions, were spared, though no geat use was to be made of them ; and the king said " he would not take away any man's life because he knew no more." Of these divers brought before tlif king, came on their knees holding up their hands, begging his mercy for their poor wives and children's sakes ; which gave the king (always facetious) occasion to say, " he wished all his subjects had wives and children for whom they had most regard." And for the honour of his 1 Exameri, chap. v. 206 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. majesty and his ministers, I must observe that no man was kept long in prison without bail or trial, and none brought to trial without a convicting evidence, no rewards, nor tempting encouragements, leading questions, threats, or other undue means held forth to draw from them farther than plainly to declare all they knew. And, after all, that the effects of the chief criminals that suffered were not made a prey to courtiers, but, in divers instances, gra- ciously restored to the wives and children of the sufferers. And if ever, in case of a conspiracy less execrable than this of the Rye, there is an instance of justice so legally pursued and, in the conclusion, so well tempered as here, I desire it may be brought forth and known, as this now is, to the intent it may never be forgot. 233. Among other guilty persons, some Scotchmen were discovered and taken ; and because their scene lay in Scot- land, they could not be indicted and tried here ; therefore it was thought fit to send them into their own country to be tried. But the time being nice, and the court desirous that no measures should be taken, which might be pre- tended not legal ; and it being the mode to cavil at every step, and raise moot points, like finding knots in bulrushes, as was done in this particular case, whether these men might be sent into Scotland or not : the king thereupon ordered his attorney- general to give his opinion in writing ; which was, that his majesty might send his Scotch sub- jects into Scotland, to be punished for offences committed there. 234. Before we part from this grand conspiracy, I must remember that it was thought fit, for the satisfaction of the people's minds, who were in a great amaze, and con- sequently doubt of the reality of this enorme plot, to publish a royal declaration of the very facts of it, and of all the material circumstances, punctually stated, and all out of the depositions of the witnesses ; to the veracity whereof it should not remain in any one's power to object ; and so as to leave no colour for any person to doubt the justice of his majesty's proceedings thereupon. This was prepared and composed mostly, if not wholly, by his lord- ship, which I will with more assurance profess, because I have heard his lordship often, in discourse, express most THE DECLARATION. 207 of these singular notions and turns that are in it ; and the like may be found in his writings s as for instance — " that, after all endeavours by way of sedition failed, the rebels resorted to arms and assassination ; " with other as sig- nificant passages. The declaration itself is penned with that exquisiteness and caution, and all upon the steps of truth, made good by testimony, as may well be ascribed to one of his lordship's accomplished knowledge of the law, experience of affairs, and happy turns of thought and expression in business. And I might have inserted this in the very words, as part of his lordship's pen work ; but have declined so to do, because, at the time, it must needs have been laid before, and considered by the rest of the ministry, and by them, in some respects, altered or cor- rected, as they might think proper. After this declaration was published, and (as was commanded) read in churches, the people returned their joyful sense of the king's safety, after the great danger he had been in, by numerous addresses from all parts of the kingdom, which gave such a stun to the rebellious party, and their friends abroad, that little sign of any resurrection to action appeared in them, while that good king lived ; though it is presumed their trance was not so profound, but they lay watching for fresh opportunities, from alterations in the methods of the government, and the ministry, to l)e moving again, and at length they were gratified sufficiently, and due use thereof was made, by the changes that followed. 235. But his lordship did not think this declaration enough ; for, by many years' practice of lies and miscon- structions of the public administration, the people's minds had been too much corrupted towards a prejudice against their government, and they were become inclined to believe all the evil that was lyingly affirmed of it : and this disease could not be cured on the sudden, but by time and appli- cation of due remedies to set them right. Therefore his lordship advised that not only all the depositions, as they were sworn, should !>*' published in print, bu1 also, con- sidering such matters would not be pleasant or inviting to be read by the common people, t hat a well-penned relation of the whole conspiracy should introduce them; which should be made as inviting to read, as the others apt to 208 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. convince, which must happen, being all along referred to them. The advice was approved, and Doctor Sprat, then Bishop of Rochester, a most polite English writer, was employed to do it ; and, having all the depositions truly copied before him, he performed the task most completely, as the book itself sufficiently demonstrates. This had been a stately monument of honour to that reverend pre- late, if he had not kicked down all the merit of it, by a pusillanimous behaviour ; for, after the Revolution, when he feared being called to an account for acting in King James the Second's high commission court, he published in print two degenerous epistles of recantation to the Earl of Dorset : the latter most sneakingly apologizeth for his- writing this book, in which I have not observed one sen- tence, which, even in that time, could justly be made criminal: he says it was unwillingly drawn from him ; and he hopes he is not to answer for what he did not, as well as for what he did write ; and that it was showed to the Lord Keeper North, who added some things, that had escaped him ; whence we are to suppose, that all, which did not then please, must be attributed to the Lord Keeper, and not to him. A stately apologetic ! But grant half of it had been added, or corrected by the Lord Keeper ; who could better adjust such a relation, than he who was at the helm of all the examinations, and had both skill and will to do it according to truth ? His episcopal lordship had done well to have shown, in his letter, what was so added, and then the saddle would have fallen on the right horse, or at least to have expressed wherein he was to have been a sufferer, if he had been called to answer for the whole as it was ; but some men's timidity offhis- cates their understandings, though otherwise never so bright. 236. It would be an ungrateful thing to pass over in silence the greatest vindication of all these proceedings against the Rye plotters (in the direction of which his lordship had the greatest share) that ever happened to a government, and its ministry, since the world began. And that is (I say not of the plotters themselves, but leave that to sober reflection, but) of the adverse party, in full rage and power, and breathing all that revenge which formerly COMMITTEE OF ENQUIRY. 209 they had menaced, and confirmed with numberless oaths, and execrations. If this be the case, it will not be thought I have here dealt in hyperbole. After the Revolution, when the assemblies of Lords and Commons met at Westminster, the matters, by way of inquisition retro- spected, are reducible to two heads. One was concerning the proceedings in the city of London, in the choice of sheriffs, and the consequences ; and the other was the trials and convictions of the culpables in the Rye con- spiracy. The former was undertaken by the Commons, and the other by the Lords. 1 The Commons summoned Sir John Moor, that had been lord mayor, and Sir Dudley North, with Sir P. Rich, his partner, sheriffs, and all persons who had to do in the city, about the common hall. And these were examined touching their right, and the manner of their behaviour, and they answered plainly and candidly; and though tempted to accuse persons who were dead, as the Lord Keeper North, and Sir Leoline Jenkins, of somewhat they could have called crime, answered negatively, and, to their own charge, fully and went no farther ; and finally, there being no fault found in them, they were all dis- charged and nothing more said to them. The other inquest concerning the Rye criminals, went deeper, and every one that was examined was sworn; for the Lords may administer an oath, but the Commons may not. The executions of the criminals (for brevity) were prejudged to have been illegally inflicted and so not inquired into, but the suffering persons were presupposed to have been murdered and the committee of Lords was appointed to inquire by what and whose means those persons came to be murdered, or to that effect, as the journals will show : and for this reason that committee was called the committee of murder ; which must needs terrify those that were summoned to appear before it. In short, they sum- moned all the officers, witnesses, some counsel, and every particular person who had, as they were informed, said or done any thing relating to any of those trials ; and, as I 1 Sec the Report made to the House of Lords (from the Lord* Journals) Howell's State Trials, vol. ix. p. 951 . See also the entertaining account of this inquiry in the Life oj Sir Dudley North, and in the Examcn, pp. 620, 621. P 210 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. said, examined all upon oath, in order to find out some irregularity or corruption in what had been done about these matters. And after all the teasing, screwing, good words, and bad words, as some thought fit to use towards particular persons examined, there was not any one pec- cadillo discovered, nor any action or speech of any persons, in or out of authority, made known, which could be laid hold on as an abuse or misdemeanour that might be cen- sured ; and so the committee fell and no more news of murder. And this is that vindication of vindications I mentioned before ; which, for the honour of his lordship, as well as the rest of the loyal party, I have extended more fully than otherwise needed to have been. And, for the close, I must needs observe that it was wonderful that in the ardour of those heated times (which may be imagined but hardly expressed) the ministers and agents should not only be so intelligent, but withal careful of the forms and substance of justice and their duty, that, on such a dire inquest as was not forethought ever to come over them, not one fault should be found, neither wilful nor out of human infirmity or oscitancy. O the virtue couched in Horace ! Integer vitce scelerisque jpurus. 237. But, to return ; in the greatest difficulty that ever fell upon King Charles the Second from the parliament, and indeed the whole nation, which was corrupted with the air of (Dates' s plot, the king made a dangerous experi- ment ; which was a reform of his privy council, dissolving the old one, and constituting one anew ; which took in the Lord Shaftesbury as president, and the heads of the mal- content party of both houses; as may be seen in the Examen. 1 This struck the loyal party to an astonish- ment; but the king made use of his best friends, and, among others, took in the Lord Chief Justice North ; which made him wonder to find himself in such company : but all turned right at last. Not long after this, his lordship 1 "In 1679 he ventured upon a most dangerous experiment, which was the dissolving his privy council, and appointing a new one. And in that he took in the Earl of Shaftesbury in the place of lord president, and divers others of the prime leaders of faction. And because there were certain pairs amongst them, as two commoners, & c, folks said they went into the council as beasts went into the ark." (Examen, p. 75.) THE EARL OF DANBY. 211 was taken into the cabinet ; where, as to all matters that related to the law and ordinary policy, upon the foot of the king's true interest, he had almost a judicial regard. 238. The Earl of Danby thought he could serve himself of this plot of Oates, and accordingly endeavoured at it ; but it is plain that he had no command of the engine ; and, instead of his sharing the popularity of nursing it, he found himself so intrigued that it was like a wolf by the ears ; he could neither hold it nor let it go ; and, for certain, it bit him at last : just as when a barbarous mastiff attacks a man, he cries poor cur ! and is pulled down at last. So the earl's favour did but give strength to the creature to worry him. Herein he failed, 1. In joining to aid a design of which he did not know the bottom. 2. In thinking a lord treasurer that had enriched himself and his family, could ever be popular. And the plot went so far against him that he was within an ace of being accused of Godfrey's murder. But this was late. In the mean time, upon the producing of some letters of his to Mr. Montagu the ambassador in France, in the House of Commons, im- porting a treaty between the king of England and the king of France, for money to be paid upon the peace, he was impeached ; 1 articles of high treason were brought up, and he was committed, and afterwards pardoned, the pardon pleaded, and the validity of it disputed by the Commons. It was first considered, if the earl should venture to plead the pardon or no, lest (in case the pardon were disallowed and his plea over-ruled) it would be peremptory, and he not be admitted to plead over, as noti cul, or what other special matter he had to defend by, 239. But notwithstanding this hazard, that if the Lords had judged against the king's power to pardon after an impeachment lodged in the House of Peers he might not be allowed to have pleaded over, taking the pardon pleaded, as is usually held, to be a confession of the fact : yet he did plead his pardon to the impeachment and relied 1 See the proceedings in CobbetCs Parliatnentary History f vol. iv. p. 1060. Much light is thrown upon these complicated intrigues, by the Letters of Barillon, the French ambassador, published by Sir John Dulrymple, in the Appendix to his Me?noirs. 212 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. upon it. And so it stood, at the dissolution of the West- minster parliament, ready to be argued and debated in the Oxford parliament. And, if the expedite dissolution had not prevented, it might have made much ado between the Lords and Commons ; for it was not probable that the Lords, by enervating the king's pardon, would have left themselves liable to be impeached and out of the power of the king's mercy. But the faction, in all discourse and writing, asserted the non-validity of the pardon with all the earnestness that could be ; and, at the same time, the men of law stared at such a pretence as an unheard-of innovation, accounting the offence in the impeachment to be the same as in other courts that have cognizance of it ; that is, treason against the king ; which, as all felonies and misdemeanours are, is punishable at the king's suit and may be released by him ; the impeachment being but as an indictment in the high court of parliament, which is the king's suit. 1 240. There is a certain heathen English philosopher that says, "when reason is against men, men will be against reason ; " which notable worldly saying never shined brighter in any instance than in this ; for it is hard to pick out of the whole law a maxim more sure than " that the king can pardon all high treasons " universally. And yet, when passion was at work and resolution taken to urge the Lord Danby to the death (for what reasons ; whether to press some secrets out of him, or otherwise, touching the desperate dependencies of the time, I attempt not to say here), it is no wonder that arguments, such as they were, grew up like mushrooms. His lordship used to observe the method, when points were previously re- solved upon which could not be maintained directly ; as here, " that the king cannot pardon." First, say they to themselves, is there any case of offences by law that the king cannot pardon ? yes ; private rights, as appeals, and common nuisances. Say you so ? then this impeachment 1 This question was finally settled by the statute 12 & 13 Will. III. c. 2, by which it is enacted, that a pardon shall not be pleadable in bar to an impeachment ; but this act does not prevent the king from par- doning after the impeachment is determined. THE EARL OF DAN BY. 213 is for a right of the people and is their private suit by their representatives the Commons ; and, rather than fail, call the offence a nuisance. And, turning the tables, see how with positive naming and asserting, if people impor- tunely give way to it and quit the plain text of the law, any thing may be stood upon. It may be proved that the king can pardon bonds and mortgages. For ask, first, what can the king pardon ? answer, outlawries, and trespasses vi et armis. Then, because a man may be outlawed in debt, call the bond an outlawry ; and, because a man may enter by virtue of his mortgage, call it a trespass with force. It will be said that these points are too impudently urged : I grant it. And what is to be said of the other ; for, in kind, they are the same ? his lordship was always of opinion that all false reasonings, in matters of life and property, were of dangerous consequence ; and that men are not aware of the mischiefs to the public, when, from high places, times serve themselves of them. For which reason his ordinary sentence on such occasions was, nova, non vetus, orbita fall it. 241. I do not meddle here with the history of the case of the Earl of Danby at large. It may be found in the Examen, and, for fail, in his own memoirs. But I cannot omit one passage, touching only his lordship's concern respecting the parliament: and that is the point of his being bailed ; wherein his lordship differed from some of his brethren. The question turned upon the authority of parliament. He stood committed by the Lords, upon his impeachment when the Westminster parliament was dis- solved ; and, at the same time, the untried lords, com- mitted for Oates's plot, lay there on the like account. And now both the earl and the Popish lords thought that, by joint influence they might get to be bailed. Accordingly, upon the return of an Habeas Corpus, his lordship the Earl of Danby was brought up and appeared in the King's Bench court. 1 The case made a great noise, and raised a great expectation what would be the issue. His lordship, being consulted (though not of that court) answered that he was of opinion that the Court of King's Bench, being 1 See the report of the proceedings, in Showers Rep. vol. ii. p. 335. 214 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. inferior in jurisdiction to the House of Lords, could not bail their prisoner after he had been charged by special articles : for they had no means to bring down the record whereby to determine any thing of the cause of his com- mitment ; and, for aught that they could judicially know, he might be attainted of the treason. It is certain that the Lord Jeffries, then chief justice, in court refused it ; and yet he was a great stirrer up of the point, in order to gain the other judges to countenance his (then declared) opinion for the bailing ; which was taken ill, as may be touched elsewhere. So the lords were not bailed at that time. But, in the reign of King James II. they were set free ; and (with the peace of all forms) I think very justly ; for it is a prodigious injustice to hold men in prison perdue without any trial or recourse for liberty: and, if the giving it was irregular, it was erring for justice ; and one would think that such consideration might purge the irregularity. But nothing hath ever been said against it in public yet ; and, so far all is well. His lordship had a revelation in his mind, that this bailing of Danby was a thorn pushed towards him ; though nothing came of it. 242. While the case of the Earl of Danby depended in parliament, there was a factious pamphlet published which aimed to prove the judicature of the Lords almost sove- reign ; and that all courts, ecclesiastical as well as tem- poral, were subject to it and appealable ; that the house was the magnum concilium, or great council, in the sense of ancient records; that, in trials for treason, the Peers were judges of the court; and that there was no other court but the house itself; and that there was no need, nay, it was an usurpation, to have a lord steward. For the Commons demanded of the House of Lords that they should pass sentence upon the earl's plea of his pardon ; and the Lords addressed the king to appoint a high steward, in order to the trial of these impeachments ; and so it was wrangled off and on till the session ended. But his lord- ship, provoked by this pamphlet, but more to see people mistake the laws and strike so hard at foundations, com- posed an answer to that pamphlet, 1 showing that a lord 1 An imperfect copy of a MS. tract is preserved amongst the Har- THE EXCLUSION. 215 steward and his court, as well in parliament as out of it, are necessary to the trial of a peer; and that the lords take the place of parity, pursuant to Magna Charta. But the law aud the sentence are of the court and not of the peers ; and farther, that the magnum concilium in parlia- ment, or the great council in parliament, was, anciently, not the peerage but all the officers of state, and such as the king should call to serve in that capacity, and that the placita in parliament, or pleas in parliament, came before the great council juridically and not before the peers. But, of late years, that jurisdiction, which is the king's, is executed by the peerage ; and the council remains only in the capacity of assistants : and so it is like to continue. 243. It may be expected here that an account should be given how and in what manner, as well as to what pur- pose, his lordship was concerned in that great affair, pro- moted and known by the term Exclusion. It was a bill promoted by the Commons in the little and latter West- minster parliaments, to exclude the Duke of York by name from succeeding to the crown of England. The steps and conduct of it, and what disappointments it had, history must show. I know only so much, viz. that his lordship looked upon it not to attack the succession more than the present monarch. For, if such a foundation were once laid, whatever importunity prevailed to gain it, there would be the same, with very large increase, to obtain all the power of the government out of the king's hands, upon pre- tence to fortify the exclusion ; — for it would be said, it is true, there is a law ; but what is that without power ? mere paper. And, then, the militia and all the civil com- missions must fall, as a sacrifice to the exclusion, into the hands of the king's enemies. 244. About this time, in the House of Commons, it was made a question whether they had a right to impeach commoners in the House of Peers, capitally, or not ? Against that power it was alleged that, if commoners are condemned by the Lords, they lose their challenges ; and grave MSS. (Catalogue No. 299) which is supposed by Mr. Hargrave, to be the answer here alluded to. (See the Preface to Lord Hales 1 Juris- diction of the Lonls, p. 177.) 216 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. their humble estate is not so sensible to those great men, as it would be to their equals. Therefore it was provided by Magna Charta — Quod super nullum ibimus nisi per judicium parium, aut per legem terrce. Which sentence couched two sorts of trials ; one of the fact the other of the law. The latter cannot be per pares, but by the court who judge upon the fact per legem terrce ; and the fact, which to try is the work of the Peers, may be confessed expressly, or by a pardon pleaded or a demurrer. Therefore the lex terrce was put in to answer those cases, whereof the fact was stated by trial and confession ; and the judgment of the fact, guilty or not, and of the law, whether judgment of death or not, are two things answered, 1. By pares, and, 2. Legem terrce. Sir William Jones, who took the conduct of this whole affair in the house upon himself, and was the chief dictator of the terrible votes against the Lords, upon that Monday on which the parliament was dissolved, entered upon his solemn argument, to show that the Com- mons had a right to bring a commoner to trial for his life by an impeachment in the House of Peers, and insisted that it was consistent with Magna Charta ; for although the peers' sentence is not per pares yet it is per legem terrce. And, as that word was out of his mouth, the black rod knocked. This matter came not to the judges to give any opinion ; and, if it had, they had a declinatory of course, viz. " that matters of parliament were too high for them." But, nevertheless, his lordship considered all points, and parti- cularly what were moved in this case. 245. In the time when the public was intrigued, and indeed tired with the blundering proceedings of Oates and his plot, his lordship had the great consolation of the arrival of his brother, Mr. Dudley North, who, having resided at Smyrna and Constantinople, above twenty years, as factor and merchant in the way of the Tukey trade, and had got a fair estate, returned to England to enjoy it. I shall not characterize this gentleman, nor enlarge much concerning his great dealings abroad and at home, having referred all those matters to the account of his life. But the most remarkable observation of this mercantile spark was, that he came with such an idolatrous respect for Oates and his plot, as if he had been truly, what Oates blasphemously MR. DUDLEY NORTH. 217 arrogated to himself, the saviour of the nation. This was instilled into him by the merchants of the Turkey Company in England ; who, being generally factious, in the flame of the plot, had sent accounts abroad which created such enorm imaginations in the factors. But when, by a long converse with his lordship, (for a little time would not do) the mystery of iniquity was unveiled, and the merchant saw that his idol was such a heap of nastiness, he won- dered sufficiently at the stupidity, or knavery of his cor- respondents here. There was little or no intercourse, by letters, between his lorship and him in Turkey, for divers years before he arrived. Both had so much business, of other kinds, that they had left off writing long letters to each other, as formerly they had done. However, it had not been safe to have committed to a written despatch, such freedoms about the plot, as was needful to do right to it ; nor was it thought material, at that distance, to transmit such nice and amusing intelligences. But the factious party made it religion to propagate the faith of the plot, all the world over, as far as they could carry it by their correspondences. All which was agreeable to pro- ceedings here ; for the impudence, as well as shame, of so great a falsity, was screened by public authority and vio- lence ; under the cover of which, the belief of it was obtruded, and all open contradiction suppressed. And, from this instance, let it be observed that, "where force and violence usurps the office of sound testimony, and deprives men of the liberty of judging, falsity and wickedness lies at the bottom.' 1 246. These brothers lived in this manner with extreme satisfaction in each other's society; for both had the skill and knowledge of the world, as to all affairs relating to their several professions, in perfection ; and each was an Indies to the other, producing always the richest novelties, of which the best understandings are greedy. And it must be thought, trade and traffic in the world at large, as well as in particular countries, and more especially relating to England, was often the subject. And Mr. Dudley North, besides what must be gathered from the practice of his life, had a speculative, extended idea ; and withal, a faculty of expressing himself, however without 218 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. show of art, or formality of words, so clear and convincingly, and all in a style of ordinary conversation, witty and free, that his lordship became almost intoxicated with his dis- courses. And these new notions did so possess his thoughts, and continually assume shapes and forms in his mind, that he could not be easy till he had laid them aside, as it were, upon paper, to which he might recur, when occasion was, to reconsider, or apply them. And if, at the council-table, trials of issues, or, by probable relation, any thing touching the public, occurred (which he would not lose, and yet not have the burthen of it lie a charge upon his memory) if not upon the spot, yet, when he came to his closet, he disposed it. 247. But here, having mentioned some new lights struck about trade, more than were common, it may be thought a jejune discourse, if I should pass on without giving some specimens of them : therefore I add a note, or two, that I could not but observe. 1 One is, that trade is not distri- buted, as government, by nations and kingdoms ; but is one throughout the whole world, as the main sea, which cannot be emptied, or replenished, in one part, but the whole, more or less, will be affected. So when a nation thinks, by rescinding the trade of any other country, which was the case of our prohibiting all commerce with France, they do not lop off that country, but so much of their trade of the whole world as what that which was prohibited bore in proportion with all the rest ; and so it recoiled a dead loss of so much general trade upon them. And as to the pretending a loss by any commerce, the merchant chooses in some respects to lose if by that he acquires an accom- modation of a profitable trade in other respects. As when they send silk home from Turkey, by which they gain a great deal, because they have no other commodity where- with to make returns. So, without trade into France, whereby the English may have effects in that kingdom, they could not so well drive the Italian, Spanish, and Hol- land trades, for want of remittances and returns that way. 248. Another curiosity was concerning money ; that no nation could want money ; and they would not abound in 1 See some further account of Sir Dudley North's opinions in his Life, post. MONEY AND BANKING. 219 it : which is meant of specie for the use of ordinary com- merce and commutation by bargains. For if a people want money they will give a price for it ; and then mer- chants, for gain, bring it and lay it down before them. And it is so where money is not coined ; as in Turkey, where the government coins only pence or halfpence, which they call parraws, for the use of the poor in their markets: And yet vast sums are paid and received in trade, and dispensed by the government; but all in foreign money, as dollars, chequeens, pieces of eight and the like, which foreigners being to them for profit. And, on the other side, money will not superabound ; for who is it that hath great sums and doth not thrust it from them into trade, usury, purchases or cashiers, where the melting-pot carries it off, if no use to better profit can be made of it. People may indeed be poor and want money, because they have not wherewithal to pay for it ; which is not want of money, but want of wealth or money's worth ; for where the one is the other will be supplied to content. Mr. Dudley North was surprised with the Lombard Street cash trade, and would not come into it a great while and then not much. He was at great defiance with the clipped money, and made war upon it in all his public and private dis- courses ; and laid the foundation of the reform that was afterwards made : though his project was spoiled by those that (without thanks to his memory) took it up and put it in execution. As will be related more at large in the said gentleman's life. 249. Not long after Sir Dudley North's arrival he was called upon to serve the king in the office of sheriff of London and Middlesex, in order to rescue that city out of the wretched state it was brought into by a certain monster, that raged in the years 1680-81-82, styled Ignoramus. Of which I shall give no farther account here, nor of the dis- putes about choosing sheriffs of London, because the whole proceeding is fully accounted for in the Examen. 1 I shall therefore insist more particularly upon some few passages only, which may tend to display his lordship's zeal and 1 Examen, p. 113, et seq. By the " Monster Ignoramus," North alludes to the return of Ignoramus to bills for high treason presented against Lord Shaftesbury. 220 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. sincerity in serving his country and his master and are not expressly mentioned in the Examen. 250. When it was intimated at court that Mr. Dudley North was every way qualified for the office of a sheriff if he might, by means of his lordship, be prevailed upon to hold ; the king very much approved of the person but was very dubious whether his lordship, with his much caution and wisdom, would advise his brother to stand in a litigious post. His majesty knew, that, unless his lordship cordially undertook it, he might appear to him heartily to consent and yet, like a tricking courtier, under-hand insinuate to the merchant not to stand and openly charge it on his brother's refusal ; which would have colour enough. But yet he resolved to try : and, one day, he spoke to his chief justice, with a world of tenderness and desired to know " if it would be too much to ask of his brother, Mr. Dudley North, to hold sheriff upon my lord mayor's drinking.' ' 1 His lordship answered that he was assured his brother was disposed to serve his majesty to the utmost of his capacity. But, as to this matter, he begged his majesty's leave to acquaint him with his pleasure and then he would return to his majesty his brother's answer. So far this went well enough ; and the king conceived great hopes that he had found his man. 251. Now came on the main pinch of the business ; which was to make Sir Dudley North sensible of his interest in complying with the king. His lordship was clear of opinion that his brother should hold ; for he knew well that nothing at all against law or extraordinary would be required of the sheriffs ; and as for matters of the law, they would be re-committed to the secondaries and under-sheriff; and then, nothing rested on the sheriff but to hold his white staff and make feasts. And for matter of title, he thought there was more squeak than wool; for whatever people thought was at the bottom, if a citizen be called upon an office by the government of the city, and obeys, where is the crime of that ? but he knew also that my lord mayor was in the right, and that his proceeding would be justified. 1 See the interesting passage on all this business in Memoirs of Thomas Papillon, of London, Merchant (1623-1702), p. 207. (Reading, 1887. 8vo.) SIR DUDLEY NORTH SHERIFF. 221 But then such a terrible fear was artificially raised up in the city as if this service was the greatest hazard in the world ; at least that a powerful band of faction was col- leagued, right or wrong, to resent it, which would bring certainly trouble and, probably, loss ; and justice has seldom so much credit in England as to be relied on. All which, besides the fastidious forms and expense of the year, had caused so many knowing and able citizens to decline the office and made it not to be expected that his brother should be free from all those qualms ; especially being so much a stranger as he was, to English affairs which tended to increase his diffidence of himself and distrust of the matter. But his lordship knew withal that his understand- ing was such that, having full information of the state and circumstances of the business and of all posible conse- quences, he would certainly determine according to the true reason of the case, whether to hold or not. And, with this confidence, his lordship, with all the freedom of a bosom friend, entered into conversation with him. He put on no authority and required no trust implicit to be reposed in him ; nor did he advance the least show that he expected his compliance herein as any act of friendship towards him or as if he made his own court at his brother's risk j but laid before him an opportunity that proffered itself, whereby he might make a fortune if he wanted it and much enlarge what he had, besides great reputation to be gained, which would make him all the days of his life very considerable. He left the objecting part to himself and took his rise accordingly to dissolve all the fallacious reasonings, that commonly passed in discourse, of the dependence. 252. He laid open the case of the lord mayor's right very clear and plain, against which, in common sense, there was no reply ; for the noise made by faction against it was brutal and raised up to serve the present turn only, and would vanish when that was past : besides there was all the valuable part of the city for it. But the merchant did not much heed that, because he was satisfied that a private citizen was no judge ; and what had he to do but according to his oath of freedom to obey? And, as for fining off, it was in reality as much a fault as serving. So 222 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. that, if the magistrates called and enjoined him, he did not see how with honour he could come off one way or other ; and, if it was a matter of great moment, he was as ready to hold as to fine off. But the point was what it would signify him to bear a tedious formality and spend two or three thousand pounds to purchase it. As to that, his lordship showed him that, if he served, the obligation was so transcendent in this conjuncture, even in his majesty's own sentiment'of it, that there could be no employment, by commission from the crown, which would not fall to his share ; for the court was a little like the city in that. They thought the service much greater than really it was. So terrible an apprehension had they of the fierceness of this faction and the advantage they had over the court at that time. Every man that intends for employments must serve in some sort or other to show himself capable ; and what opportunity could he expect should drop from heaven more propitious to his advancement than this ? He could never expect another ; nay, the refusing of this when so fairly offered was a positive demerit which would disable any other pretension as might fall in his way. This office would fall to his share early or late ; and if it be with so fair a prospect, why not at any time? now as well as here- after ? and, as for the charges, his lordship said, " Here, brother, take J21000 to help make good your account; and if you never have opportunity, by pensions or employments, to reimburse you and me, I will lose my share: else I shall be content to receive this thousand pounds out of one half of your pensions when they come in ; and, otherwise, not at all." A day or two's conversation of this kind, wherein more was considered than I can represent, entirely recon- ciled the merchant to his office ; and having taken a reso- lution upon clear reason, he set his mind at rest and thought no more of the adventure or consequence than he did in shipping a bale of cloth. And, afterwards, like a great vessel against the waves, he stemmed the rage of the town-talk that flew in his face wherever he came ; as is already related in the Examen, 1 and will be more particu- larly expressed in the course of that gentleman's life. 1 Examen, p. 601, et seq. THE LORD MAYOR'S ATTITUDE. 223 253. His lordship was one of those persons whom the king appointed to be in the city not far from G-uildhall, when the sheriffs were to be chosen ; and he stayed during the election at Sir George Jeffries' house ; and Sir George himself, through his interest in the city, had no small share in the conduct of this affair. This was to the end that, if any incident required immediate advice or if the spirits of the lord mayor should droop, which in outward appearance were but faint, there might be a ready re- course. So the factious side had the Lord Grey of Werke, and the whole Green-ribbon Council 1 (elsewhere characterized) and other sages of the party all equally concerned in what was doing. 254. When parties of men are concerned against each other in civil broils, it is strange how fertile all things will be of moot points. After the old sheriffs had taken upon them to declare Papillon and Dubois duly chosen, many of the reasonable citizens thought my lord mayor's point in a worse state than before ; for here was a new case started. " Here," said they, " are two sheriffs de- clared : so they are officers de facto ; and how can you super-elect and set up anti-sheriffs to oust them before their title is tried ? " Upon this difficult matter, the court adjourned again ; and, in the interim, the lord mayor and aldermen were sent for, or went, to attend the king in council ; and there they were told that the proceedings of the sheriffs at the common hall, after the adjournment, were not only utterly void and null, but the persons were guilty of an audacious riot and contempt of lawful au- thority ; for which, by due course of law, they would be severely punished. But in the mean time it was his lord- ship's (the lord mayor s) duty, and his majesty's pleasure, that they should go back to the city, and summon the common hall, and make election of sheriffs, for the year ensuing, according to the ancient usages of the city ; and this (by his majesty's order in council) they should have with them. The lord mayor had found a different senti- ment of his case upon this alteration ; and some had 1 For an account of the Green-ribbon Club, see the Examen, p. 572. On Forde, Lord Grey of Werke, created by William III. Earl of Tanker- ville, see Maoaulay's History, especially vol. viii. p. 237. 224 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. insinuated that these courtiers would thrust him forward, and be under no engagement themselves. So he was very full of doubts ; and, while the Lord Chief Justice North was speaking to the matter, as he did with great clearness, and plain reasons given, was very attentive ; for he had a great value and esteem of his lordship's knowledge and integrity. When his lordship had done, he crept down towards the end of the table where his lordship sat, and, with a summiss voice and aspect, " My lord," said he, " will your lordship be pleased to give me this under your hand ? " Now the king, and all the board, eyed the man, to see what he went about, and, hearing what he said, they all thought he had put the dor, as they say, upon the chief justice, and expected some turn of his wit to fetch himself off ; and divers thought to have some sport in seeing how woodenly he would excuse himself. But his lordship, showing an uncommon firmness of mind, cheated them all ; for he answered, without any hesitation, " Yes, and he should have it presently : " so his lordship took the pen and paper, that lay before him, and wrote to this effect, viz. " I am of opinion that it is in the lord mayor's power to call, adjourn, and dissolve the common hall at his plea- sure ; and that all acts done there, as of the common hall, during such adjournment, are mere nullities, and have no legal effect : " and to that set his name, and gave it him, all of his own hand- writing ; and, after he had it, he came up to his place again. This passage pleased the king ; for he was not used to such generous dealing in touchy matters among his counsellors. 255. I have here touched upon some passages only which might tend to demonstrate his lordship's sincerity and resolution in a clear cause, and wherein he was satisfied that the law was with him, because the whole proceeding is fully related in the Examen. It was of the last conse- quence to the crown at that time ; for the question was r whether treason and sedition, in London and Middlesex, were criminal, or not. And this in a time when it was believed, though not so soon evidentially discovered, that a rebellion was ready to break out, and the game was actually begun in Scotland but happily quelled at Bothwell Bridge [22nd June, 1679]. Was it not a strange circum- THE LORD KEEPER'S INSTRUCTIONS. 225 stance in such a conjuncture, that the traitors themselves should be the ministers of justice, to judge and condemn their fellows ; against whom discoveries were already had ; though the whole scheme was not yet brought forth as afterwards happened by the means of one Keiling ? 1 Neither do I give here the chicaneries of law upon this point, because they may be found, as far as was thought necessary, in the Examen. And indeed they may not be thought worth remembering; and, as for them- selves, I grant it ; but, as they are the history of some men's impudence, they are not inconsiderable ; for they show that men, in parties, will affirm any thing (however nonsensical it is) against each other ; and, what is worse, when things are thus confidently affirmed by numbers, the people, and of them such as should know better, will think there is some reason in it. But of all sorts, none so brassed in this kind as demure pretenders who complain of popery and arbitrary power, and of all men are the most irreligious and unjust themselves. And such this faction was. His lordship was a sort of pilot in the conduct of this affair ; and most of the acts turned upon his judgment and authority. There were others who blustered and made a great noise ; but none penetrated to the bottom of the matters in question, but himself. His lordship was so much concerned that a matter of this nature and consequence should be tossed upon men's tongues as it was, and scarcely any one either mentioned or indeed knew the true distinction upon which it was turned, that, for setting people's thinking right, he drew up instructions for some of the employed writers, whereby to dress out a pamphlet which he supposed would be done, author-like, by casting the materials into some plausible form, and setting them off with quaint sentences as might invite people to read, who care not for a lawyer's notes of argu- ment, as in a law case. But whosoever it was that under- took it, he published the notes verbatim ; adding only a sort of prologue and an epilogue ; which made his lord- ship very angry : and, from that time he resolved to give out no more instructions, and not to undertake any thing he could not finish himself. 1 The man who discovered the Rye House Plot. Q 226 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. 256. It is related in the Examen, 1 how busy the last Westminster parliament was about the Exclusion ; and also how money matters stuck though an actual war with France was loudly called for ; and treaties abroad touching peace, between the French and the confederates, viz. Spain, Germany, and the Dutch (whereof the king was mediator) were depending ; so that the king had reason to make a long recess of that parliament, to the end that matters might digest and come to some maturity, as was hoped and intended to be laid before the House of Commons in order to put them, if possible, into a better humour. But the faction at that time thought that future elections would prove, as at the present, propitious to their hopes ; and therefore, partly to make bad blood, and partly to force the king to let the parliament meet and sit, which by divers prorogations had been put off and might be so again, they instituted a method of petitioning the king that the parliament might meet and sit. And it is scarce credible with what saucy impudence divers came to the king with petitions signed with numberless hands and frightful hieroglyphics ; but with ten persons only in company, so as not to offend against the statute about tumultuous petitions : all which was fully stopped by a proclamation which his lordship penned. This also, with the turns it had in the House of Commons, is inserted there ; so shall pass it over, and insist only upon some few incidents with regard to his lordship, which have not been so particularly set down there. 257. While the persecution of abhorrers, and questioning the proclamation in the next sessions of parliament, were talked of by the factious party in town and terrible doings were expected, his lordship was passive and appeared not to have any concern upon his spirits ; but consulted his best friends, and showing them the proclamation, asked if they could find any caption to be made upon it ; and every one, even old parliament men, used to the trade, could find none. But his lordship nevertheless held himself under the guard of his caution, lest, when the enemy had none, he might administer weapons against himself ; for he did expect 1 Examen , p. 541 , et seq. THE PROCLAMATION. 227 as it proved that he should be surrounded with trepans. One was a grand one and of a secretary of state, the Lord Sunderland. He and the rest of his party at court, pre- tending to be fierce against the petitioners, thought to push on such as they would ruin to act intemperately in that cause, and so to become exposed to the parliament: and pursuant to this pious design, when he signified his ma- jesty's pleasure to his lordship and Judge Jones, to suspend the execution of the laws against Protestant dissenters, he added that they should by all means discourage the peti- tioners, and encourage the anti-petitioners. But his lord- ship was aware of his trap, and in the country took thereof no manner of notice. Afterwards when the proclamation was voted a ground for an impeachment and made a great noise (but the committee, to draw articles, could make no work of it) his lordship's brother-in-law Mr Soams, 1 in ex- treme haste found out his lordship and told him he came from the Earl of S. (I believe, Sunderland ;) for he (Mr. Soams) having often urged that lord to find some means to abate this rigour of the Commons against his lordship, that morning the earl wished him immediately to find his lord- shLp out and to let him know " that a way was discovered for him to come off." And it was that he should go imme- diately (time would not stay) and, speaking to the Commons, " give up the proclamation as unlawful." That was a point they would certainly carry; it being against the right of petitioning and privilege of parliament : and they had no enmity to his lordship but regarded the matter ; which set right they would drop persons ; but, if resisted, they would pursue through all with the rigour of impeachments : and this must be quick, quick ; for, if they farther engaged themselves it would be too late. His lordship could hold out no longer but laughed in his friend's face. The gentle- man thought him mad. " Why, brother," said his lordship, " do you not see through this tinsel device? " and then he uufolded to him the snare ; which was, in short, that, if he went and sneaked in that manner he should lose every friend he had in the house ; and all would unanimously 1 William Soame {sic), of Little Hurlow, co. Suffolk. He was created a Baronet in 1685. He married the Lady Beata Tope, elder sister of the Lord Keeper's wife — see § 114. 228 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. join to crush him : and that he should do so was the design of this message. Somewhat like this happened in the House of Lords, where the Lord Lovelace, after much said of his relation, honour and respect, asked his lordship why he did not go and speak to the Commons? "for," said he, "they are very angry with you." " Are they indeed so angry as your lordship says ? " " Ay, by Gr — d are they, very angry ! " His lordship answered that " he did not care to come near angry people." 1 So ended that dialogue. But these lords, not used to much contradiction, thought all men fools but themselves : for if they had had any judgment they must have known his lordship better, and not have ventured such flams at him, who could smell powder farther than they could see. But where is the sense of truth, to say nothing of honour, in the acts of such false friendship ? 258. His lordship said often that this question, raised upon him in the House of Commons, was much easier in the defence than the former about solicitation ; for then he had a majority of the house fully assembled, his friends, at least, not averse or in party against him ; so that the war was carried on by tricks and surprises and needed watching and informing. And this puts me in mind of a merry con- ceit of his lordship's aunt, the Lady Dacres. 2 She was acquainted with Mrs. Baker, the old Lord Anglesey's sister, who was a zealous Presbyterian and pretended to have a vast interest in that party. She told the Lady Dacres that she could fetch off her nephew (then upon the tenters) when she pleased, by making all the Presbyterians in the house for him. Upon this the Lady Dacres sent for her nephew to come to her, as he did, and told him what Mrs. Baker could do for him. His lordship answered that he should be thankful for any acts of friendship in that kind. " But i' faith, nephew," said she, " there must be money." To which his lordship replied "that he would not give one 1 In the Examen, p. 548, North has described in a lively manner the anger of the petitioners. " I remember well in Trinity term, as the weather was hot, the party men flamed. We could observe, as they passed to and fro, fury in their countenances ; and we could not avoid hearing the stately sounds of, 6 God d — n all these abhorrers! Plague take all these abhorrers/ 1 and the like." * See Preface, § 3. SIR C RES WELL LEVINZ. 229 brass farthing to buy all the Presbyterians in England and so ended that scheme. But to return to the case of the proclamation. Elections had been so varied that he could not pretend to have half the members indifferent to him. The rest were all in the confederacy against him ; and it was to no purpose, or, rather to ill purpose, to apply to any of them. Those who were his friends (by that I mean the court party) were sure to be for him, and the rest as sure against him in every question that should be put to injure him. And some of the old stagers of his party told him plainly he might take his ease and sit still ; for his friends out of the house, by soliciting, could do him no service. The matter was very well understood ; and they within that stood together would be vigilant as to surprises, and act for his indemnity as occasion would serve. 259. I cannot omit here the doing right to his lordship's memory, in showing a piece of humanity that few persons but his lordship, in his circumstances, would have done. And that respected Sir Creswell Levinz, the attorney- general, who named his lordship in the House of Commons. 1 For although his lordship knew that the party intended to work through him, yet he never conferred with or so much as spoke to him concerning his behaviour, when he should be called to answer in the House of Commons: for nothing could be advised in his case but to act the brave, and to own and justify his proclamation to contain nothing against law, or to have refused to name his assistants when the act was his own ; either of which might have sent him to the Tower; which had interested the king in his case, who would have protected him ; and, perhaps they might not have ventured to send such a capital officer to the Tower, but impeached him in manner as they proceeded against his assistant; which would have gained his Majesty's ultimate favour, and been, on that account, his wisest course. But his lordship 1 As the author of the Proclamation against tumultuous petitions, (see the Exa?7ien y p. 551, 554, and Cobbetfs Pari. Hist. vol. iv. p. 1229.) " His genius, says North, when speaking of Levinz, " was not above a pleader, and in self-concerns wonderfully cautelous." He was one of the counsel for the seven bishops, one of whom, Baptist Levinz, Bishop of Sodor and Man, was his brother. On the Revolution, he was appointed by the Convention, with others, to direct that assembly in matters of law. Oh. January 29, 1700. (Noble's Granger, vol. i. p. 167J 230 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. knew him to be a mere lawyer and a timidous man, and accordingly left him to himself. And his lordship did not in the least resent the naming him (so degenerously) as he did, but ever after held fair with him as before and gave him common assistances and countenance as if no such proceeding had been. Which, as I said, was a species of humanity seldom practised in the world. 260. But still although the matter of the proclamation came to nothing, the sky was black and good men were not at ease while this parliament sat. They flew so fiercely at the abhorrers and at the succession, and under that, as some thought, at the crown itself, that none could foresee what might happen. The king offered divers expedients and qualifications of power in the successor, which were (most wonderfully) refused; which some thought was only because they did not affect the possession. But what the king might, by importunity and inconvenience, be drawn to yield to for the mischief of the nation no person knew, or, by any fore- sight, was secure of. The Lord Shaftesbury headed the faction and made an incentive speech in the House of Lords, of which numerous copies were sent the same night, by the post, to Edinburgh. And thereupon the rebellion [a.d. 1679] broke out; of which a full account is to be found in the Examen. The same faction started a ques- tion about the lawfulness of sending forces into Scotland to quell that rebellion, and whether it was not against the articles of the union in the reign of King James I. as is more largely showed in the said Examen. 1 His lordship was of opinion there was no ground for the scruple at all ; and afterwards set it down among some other positions which he titled " Impudent Assertions of the Faction." But however, that did not satisfy some counsellors (for the late regulation, or reform, as it was called, was then in being), and that queer e had got abroad among the officers. Thereupon the king, to proceed formally, ordered Sir William Jones his attorney-general to consider the treaty and the present circumstances, and give his judgment whether forces might be sent or not ? and he returned that they might ; for forces, sent in aid and at the desire of the Examen, p. 80. THE DUKE OF LAUDERDALE. 231 government in Scotland, conld not be construed a hostile invasion in the sense of that article. And thereupon the council came to a conclusion and the commissions were ordered. For the court of England was now so steadily determined to act in all things according to law, that the faction could find no way to annoy them but by corrupting the law itself ; and what they, forsooth, would have to be law, must be so and nothing else : although, at the same time, when thus they strained at gnats they swallowed whole camels and consequently fully demonstrated the same. It is pity honest men should be so mealy-mouthed and scrupulous as they are apt to be, when, upon the stability of the government, their all is at stake. So in the time of the rebellion of forty-one, when, in the Midland counties, the rebels raged in arms and acted downright hostilities against the crown, the honest gentlemen in other parts of the kingdom, viz. towards the West, were sneak- ingly disputing whether the king's array were lawful or not. 261. His lordship had, at this time, few friends in court ; but next to the king, who was always sure to him, the Duke of Lauderdale was in his perfect amity. The duchess, when she was Countess of Dysart, lived at Faken- ham in Suffolk, near to Tostock where his father lived ; and the lady resided there for the sake of bringing up her children at Bury School ; and, as in such cases is usual, his lordship's brothers and her sons, at breakings-up, were playfellows. 1 This acquaintance made no great advance ; but the lady, being a politician professed, and afterwards married to the Duke of Lauderdale, after his lordship became considerable at court called upon his acquaintance and brought her husband to be a familiar friend, who, before had but valued him for his abilities and service to the crown. And his Lordship's brother, Mr. John North, for general learning eminent, was also taken into the duke's confidence and friendship; and the duke himself, being also learned, having a choice library, took great pleasure in 1 Elizabeth Countess of Dysart, in her own right, married, first, Sir Lionel Tollemache, of Helmingham. He died in 1669. The countess re-married, in February, 1672, to John Duke of Lauderdale. Lauder- dale died in 1682 ; the duchess in June, 1698. 232 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Mr. North's company and in hearing him talk of languages and criticism. And these brothers were not seldom enter- tained at the great house at Ham, 1 and had the freedom of the gardens and library. This great man was a solemn consolation to his lordship, because he could open his mind freely to him and rely upon his sincerity. I must never forget one passage, which happened at dinner at Ham. I have mentioned how his lordship was touched in the last Westminster parliament, but the duke much more fiercely ; for he kept the Scotch gates fast, so that rebellion could not enter on that side ; which distressed the factious party in the highest degree and drew upon the duke more than one or two addresses to part him from the king ; but the king would on no account part with him. So that both these counsellors were as blown deer, and would be glad to have the parliament dissolved; of which, to say truth, the whole nation was weary. And, at this time, the frost was very sharp, and the company at dinner com- plained of cold, the duke turned, and, looking back towards the window, said, " There will be a thaw soon." None at the table, but his lordship, guessed at his meaning. And so he intended it ; for he knew that the parliament would in a few days be dissolved ; but his lordship did not, till he guessed so from that sentence of the duke's ; and it proved accordingly. And so the duke discovered, and at the same time kept the grand secret, which was the true turn of a politician. 262. About this time, a fatal stroke happened to his lordship, viz. the loss of Dr. North, [a.d. 1683] master of Trinity College in Cambridge, his dear brother and familiar friend. I call it loss ; but it was much worse, for he was maimed by an apoplexy, and disabled both in body and mind, which, more or less, is always the effect of that disease : but when it is in a high degree, as his was, the case is most deplorable. It proved that which they call an 1 Evelyn tells us, that it was " inferior to few of the best villas in Italy itself; the house furnished like a great prince's ; the parterres, flower gardens, orangeries, groves, avenues, courts, statues, perspec- tives, fountains, aviaries, and all this at the banks of the sweetest river in the world." {Memoirs, vol. i. p. 470.) The Cabal held their meetings at this house. DEATH OF DR. JOHN NORTH. 233 hemiplegia, which rescinded the chief use of one leg and one arm, and distorted his countenance, corrupted his speech, and, what was more than ordinary, cast him into convulsion fits, which returned, for the most part, monthly, and not only tormented, hut dispirited him, and made the little life he had left, a grievance to him. His friends would willingly have followed him to his grave, unless they might have seen him restored to a tolerable health, and to become that bright and witty, as well as learned and accomplished divine, as he was before. But they were forced, present or absent, to sympathise in his sor- rows ; for, between four and five years that he lived in this mortified state, he came to a full understanding of his con- dition ; which made it worse, as appeared by divers pathetic letters he wrote from his college in Cambridge. I do not enlarge here upon the circumstances of this good divine's life and death, because I have a small volume express on that subject. Therefore shall only add here that his lordship was made the doctor's sole executor, whereby he came into an excellent library especially of Greek books which the good doctor left, and also a per- sonal estate of about ,£4000, one fourth of which, by direc- tion of the doctor's last will, was given to poor people. 263. I have already taken notice of his lordship's being made a privy councillor, and of the company that came in with him, who were the stiff est opposers of the court in parliament. [§ 237.] For the Earl of Shaftesbury was made lord president, the Lord Sunderland secretary of state; the Earl of Essex, Lord Russell, Henry Powell, 1 and some others of the malcontent party, were taken in. But this being one of the chief incidents in his lordship's life may require a fair account to be given of it. u 1 Sometimes spelt Powle, a distinguished member of the Whig party, lie is said by Burnet to have been " very learned in precedents and parliament journals, and when he had time to prepare himself, a clear and strong speaker." (Own Time, vol. ii. p. 668.) Like some others of his party, he maintained a correspondence with Barillon, the French ambassador, who calls him "a man fit to fill one of the first posts in England — very eloquent and very able.'* {Dalrymple's Appendix, p. 261.) 2 On this change in the administration. Sir William Jones had the new-modelling of the bench. *• No part of the change," says Burnet, 234 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. 264. The long parliament, as to all use to the crown y was grown effete or rather unsafe ; for the court party were become a minority and the faction in hopes of a better, did all they could to get it dissolved which gave rise to all that noise and stir as was made about pensions. Nothing that the king desired could prevail : but on the other side, plots, and exclusion of the successor were exaggerated to his great disquiet: and, after this parliament was dis- solved, another was chosen called the Little Westminster Parliament, which, proceeding upon the battered topics of plots, exclusion, popery and the French, were averse enough to the king's affairs but yet not so bad as some would have had it; for No Popery, no Presbytery, was heard sounding in the House of Commons which those of the anti-court party did not like, because it showed a dis- position upon fair opportunity to piece with the crown. Those persons therefore who had influence at court and favoured the faction, never left till they got this little parliament dissolved, as is more particularly showed in the Examen, 1 for it was presumed that, as the public was seasoned every election would be more and more averse : and so it proved : for the next parliament flew against the court with more rancour and fierceness than any other had done. The king, hoping to gain a better humour, had done some considerable things, as sending away the Duke of York, offering expedients and, with others, reforming the privy council : for, having dissolved the old one, he made a new appointment and (as I said) took in the chief leaders of the faction in both houses that it might not be said he wanted good counsellors. But, that he might not be left alone with them, he joined some that were, as he knew well, assuredly his friends, among whom his lord- ship had the honour to be one. In the course of these troublesome times the loyalists were never secure in their own minds that the king would stand the siege which had environed him, but, at length, he must be brought (as the faction thought and verily expected) to surrender at dis- " was more acceptable than that of the judges." (Own Time, vol. ii. p. 790.) The new ministry was formed under the auspices of Sir William Temple. 1 Examen, p. 503. MEMBER OF THE CABINET. 235 cretiou ; and then they should lie at the mercy of the king's, and their own, implacable enemies. And this pass of reforming the council in that manner seemed an over- ture of it, as may be found particularized in the Examen. But his lordship, in a short time, could by his majesty's behaviour amongst them discern his firm purpose not to quit the reins nor to let go the magistracy into the hands of his enemies, as was designed he should : and then his majesty's friends were at ease and took heart a grace to act vigorously against the seditious practices of the faction ; and the nation in general were satisfied that the king had done enough. And from that time the state of his autho- rity was redintegrated ; as the relations of those times, if any good ones appear, will at large demonstrate. As for his lordship's being taken into the cabinet, 1 it was but a token of a more entire confidence in his fidelity and judgment ; and that he might be assistant, not only in the formal proceedings of the privy council, but also in the most retired consultations of his majesty's government. 265. After the king was returned from the Oxford par- liament, the court was at leisure to look about them. For though the faction had a great shake yet it was not fallen; for Ignoramus was still on foot, and the sound of mischief hatching was heard by certain buzzings about plots. His lordship therefore thought fit to advise, or at least to concur in advice to, his majesty to publish his royal declaration to his people of the causes that moved him to dissolve the two last parliaments, of Westminster and Oxford ; which was done, and published. And though it was tart enough upon those parliaments which one would not think whatever the cause was should be very popular, yet, on the contrary, it took so with the sense of the people that the fancy of addressing went on (as was hinted) in a surprising manner. The declaration was penned or ad- justed, with all the prudent cautions imaginable ; and by his lordship himself, as I verily believe, and do think that by the style it is demonstrable. 2 His lordship was then, 1 On the distinction between the Cabinet and the Privy Council at this time, see Hallam, Const. Hist., vol. iii., 185. 1 To this declaration a spirited answer was written by Somers, and 236 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. and had been some time before, of the cabinet council, and was the chief director in those importune pretences to plots and discoveries that grew very troublesome till that of the Rye. But he had the satisfaction of having the king, for the most part, present at the examinations and also oppor- tunity to insinuate matters of law and cautions to his majesty, that knaves, by coming into his presence alone, might not have a possibility to forge colours to betray or to defame him. For that design was still driven that he might be thought a false suborner and confounder of Protestants. 266. His lordship, in this work, had an especial assistant of the secretary, Sir Leoline Jenkins, a person of great worth, learning (in the civil law) and fidelity. His lord- ship had no small occasion for the help of such an extra- ordinary person when he had so much upon his hands, in the examinations of the sham plots of Dangerfield and the rest of those impostors, that wrought between the plot of Oates and the discovery of Keiling, and held his lordship in continual stretch of penetration and caution that the king might be apprised of his danger in letting such cattle, as the pretended discoverers were, come into his presence which they always pressed for ; and the king, who loved to judge for himself, was too much inclined to give way to, and even, sometimes, alone, which might have been of the last consequence to him. But the referring these fourbes to the secretary's office to be examined always frustrated their designs ; and not only his lordship, but the king himself, ordinarily attended at the examinations; which let him into the secret of plot knavery to his no little edification. And however his majesty's enemies abroad defamed him, a true account of these matters, which is to be found in the Examen, will show that he inquisited with justice and decorum and determined with as much lenity towards his enemies as ever prince did. And to prick in here one memorial of that good king's understanding as well as equity, I heard his lordship say that in matters heard at the council-table, he never knew corrected by Sir William Jones. Sidney is said to have made the first sketch of it. (See Burnefs Own Time, p. 868. Examen, p. 508.) PRUDENT ADMINISTRATION. 237 him determine otherwise than was right. But, to shake off all these illusive discoveries, the only stain they left was a loathing of all manner of plots ; and it nauseated the ministers to hear of any new discovery: whereby any that proffered came on against all the prejudice and sus- picion that might be. 267. In the interval between the arrest of the lord mayor 1 and June 1683, all was in appearance hush ; and the ordi- nary proceedings of state went on orderly and well : and his lordship was in very good company at court. For the Earls of Halifax and Rochester, and Secretary Jenkins and his lordship consorted together to fit business for his majesty's cognizance and determination ; and very often met over night at the secretary's for like purposes, that they might not be surprised and hazard the not under- standing each other the next day : and all meaning truly the king's service they were in most things unanimous ; and, to hold that firm, his lordship perpetually inculcated the adhering entirely to the law and to do nothing which might give handles to ill people to pretend the contrary. They had power enough that way to make examples of those that were caught offending ; and if some escaped it were better than to strain points to crush them. And they had often discourses of recommending men to places of trust ; and therein his lordship and the Earl of Rochester, as to a standing rule, differed. The latter was for pre- ferring loyalists, which were such as ran about drinking and huzzaing, as deserving men, and to encourage the king's friends. His lordship was for bringing men forward in offices that had dealt long and were forwardest in them, as most likely to understand the business rather than the most willing friends that understood nothing. But, in this method of administration the king's affairs went on to the satisfaction of all (honest) people ; and the chief virtue of it was owing to his lordship who would not forsake the law upon any account. But these ministers of state little thought of a pestiferous cloud that hung 1 The Lord Mayor — Sir William Pritchard— was arrested at the suit of Mr. l'apillon on tbe 24tb April, 1683. {Memoirs of Thomas PapilluH, p. 229.) 238 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. over their heads and was to have broke full upon them the March following ; when an infernal combination of men were to have attacked the king's coach, as he returned from Newmarket. 268. Keiling, one of the assistants at the arrest of the lord mayor, a secretary and deluded by a faction, other- wise a good liver and honest at the bottom, 1 made the first discovery of this horrid design. Whether pure conscience or detestation of the mischiefs he knew were to be perpe- trated, moved him, I know not ; but it is certain that no combination, temptation, or prospect of reward drew him forth. He first made means by the Lord Dartmouth, then belonging to the Tower, to be brought to the secre- tary's, and there in a plain manner declared the whole. His lordship was at the examination ; and, when he came home at night he told us that a discovery had been made of a most horrid plot against the king and duke ; but he could not tell what to say to it yet: for the court had been so fatigued with searching into false plots that they came to an examination of a true one as bears to the stake ; and, as to crediting, were very nice and scrupulous. They scarce believed Keiling who was but a single witness. But he, either out of zeal to prevent so much mischief as he saw coming on, or lest, if he were seen at the secretary's office by any of the conspirators, it might cost him his life, went away, and next day came again and brought his brother with him who confirmed what Keiling had discovered and fully convinced the lords that he spoke true. Then war- rants issued and proceedings were had : and when his lordship came home that very night he told us that he believed the discovery was true. But, as persons were taken up and confessed, the evidence was yet more full and incontestable; as is particularized in the Examen. 2 And the part his lordship acted in the discovery, is already related. 269. Now as concerning the state of his lordship's interest, 1 He is described by Burnet (Own Time, vol. ii. p. 940), as " an Ana- baptist in London, who was sinking in his business, and began to think that of a witness would be the better trade." 2 Page 378,il seq. For a full history of the Rye House Plot, see Howell's State Trials, vol. ix. p. 357 ; Life of James IL, vol. i. p. 738. ins lordship's abilities. 239 it was most notorious that by eminent services performed through all the troubles of the court, and now finally in contributing so largely, as he did, towards clearing up all these brigues and embroils of the city, and all clear and hearty, and as done cordially and ex animo and not after the adulatory manner of a court, he was now so confirmed in the king's good opinion, not only for his knowledge in the law and all abilities but also for his sincere good will to do him service, that no art or industry of any person or party or interest in England (although great endeavours and of strong parties were used), could make the least impression on the king's mind to his prejudice. Once, at a couchee, a courtier was pleased to say that his lordship was no lawyer. The king over-hearing looked sourly over his shoulder, and said that, " whoever said so did not know the Lord Chief Justice North." And although, at court, there are always a sort of underminers who would, if they durst, have been nibbling at him, they never could in that king's reign gain the least glimpse of encouragement that way. I might have mentioned in a more proper place, a passage which must not be forgot which happened during the sitting of the Westminster parliament ; when his lord- ship was, at that time, said to be impeached for the proclama- tion against the petitioners. Whilst he was sitting upon the woolsack (as the king thought) pensive, his majesty came and clapped himself down close by him, and, " My lord," said he, " be of good comfort ; I will never forsake my friends, as my father did ; " and rose up and went away without saying a word more. And this encouragement was welcome and gratefully accepted. At length Sir 'George Jeffries was made chief justice of the King's Bench and took upon him the conduct of that great work ; I mean of working counter to his lordship ; as will appear in the next statue of his life. 270. Before I lift his lordship up into his next and last stage, I shall remember an incident or two that fell out in the Common Pleas before he left the cushion there. One was a trial at the bar, which, ill West minster Hall, was •called " the trial of the Lord Chief Justice North ; " which drew abundance of auditors more than used to be at such trials. The fancy was that one of the parties was the 240 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. father of Mr. Eobert Foley, his lordship's brother-in-law ; and many concluded that he would discover a partiality in it. The bench always carried themselves fair and without any affected opposition to his lordship ; except Judge Atkins, who took all opportunities to cross him, and thought to have done it sufficiently in this trial. The cause was of a bill of =£800 whether satisfied in accounts or not ; if not, it was with Foley ; otherwise, with one Sands the defendant. The matter was very intricate ; and his lordship conducted the trial with exact order and full latitude to the counsel. He sifted all the evidences with his usual sagacity and judgment ; and no one could per- ceive any tendency of opinion one way or other, till he came to sum up the evidence and direct the jury. And then he recapitulated the evidence and gave to every article and circumstance its full force ; and, showing how the balance fell, concluded that the weight was on the plain- tiff's side, for whom he thought they had reason to find. The two next judges the same. But Atkins thought to direct as clearly on the other side and began most furiously that way ; but, in the middle of his talk, found himself in a wilderness and that he could not carry it through ; and thereupon, in a most surprising manner, shifted his sails and fell into the same strain as the other judges had dis- coursed, and concluded for the plaintiff ; and so, the court being unanimous, the verdict went accordingly. And this was such a turn in speaking as I never observed, before or since, to be made by a judge on the bench. 271. This Judge Atkins made an open opposition to his lordship about the disposal of a prothonotary's place, which is known to belong to the chief justice. But he thought fit to stir up his brethren to put in for a share ; and there were some words and altercation passed in court about it. His lordship told his brother Atkins, " that he should know here was no republic ; " and the other answered, " No, nor monarchy." 1 But the new officer was at last sworn. His 1 Sir Robert Atkjns was a justice of the Commons Pleas in 1672 r and displaced in 1679, on account, as it is supposed, of his connexion with Lord Russell and the Whigs, to which the chief justice alludes in the text. After the Revolution he was made chief baron of the Ex- OPPOSED BY JUDGE ATKINS. 241 lordship hath left a note of these bickerings from his own pen ; which I think for full intelligence of the matter to subjoin in his lordship's own words. 272. " 1680. In the last vacation, Mr. Townshend, the second prothonotary of this court, surrendered into the hands of the custos brevium ; and the custos brevium presented to me Thomas Winford (who had formerly been philazer of Surrey, . was made so." It was a cruel thing in Jeffries to press so very hard as he did to come over the head of Mr. Justice Jones, against whom there was no sort of objection ; but on the contrary a merit in doing the king justice, in so great and consequential a cause as that against the city was. And, in the end, Saunders the chief justice being disabled by his apoplexy, Jones pronounced that judgment and expressed the reasons so short and sound, and delivered with that gravity and authority as became the court, and greatness of the occa- sion. And one that had a grain of consideration of any thing but himself and being of the same interest and senti- ment, would not have pushed, with a flaming violence at court, to the injury of so venerable a person as that judge was ; whose character I should have particularly set forth here if it had not been done already in the Examen. 2 Jeffries did not gain his point of him ; but matters rested awhile, and the place of chief justice of the Commons Pleas being void by his lordship's promotion to the seal, Jones was placed there which was his advantage, and Jeffries took the cushion in the King's Bench. This was not the only instance of the unreasonable ambition of Jeffries, to the prejudice of deserving men. For he laid his eye on the place of Chief Justice of Chester which was full of Sir Job Charleton, than whom there was not a person better quali- fied for his majesty's favour ; an old cavalier, loyal, learned, grave, and wise. He had a considerable estate towards Wales and desired to die in that employment. But Jeffries, 1 " He was" says Evelyn, "a learned man in his profession, of which we have now few, never fewer." (Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 73.) Treby was one of the counsel for the City in the great case of the quo warranto , and was subsequently deprived of the office of Recorder in 1685, but was re- stored by William III. in 1688. He was appointed Attorney-General May 7, 1689, and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas 13th April, 1692. Ob. 1701. 2 Examen, p. 563 JUDGE JEFFRIES. 277 with his interest on the side of the Duke of York, pressed the king so hard that he could not stand it ; but Sir Job Charleton must be a judge of the Common Pleas, and Jeffries 1 at Chester in his place, being more Welshman than himself. Sir Job laid this heavily upon his heart and desired only that he might speak to the king and receive his pleasure from his own mouth ; but was diverted as a thing determined. But once he went to Whitehall and placed himself where the king, returning from his walk in St. James's park, must pass ; and there he set him down like hermit poor. When the king came in and saw him at a distance, sitting where he was to pass, concluded he in- tended to speak with him, which he could not by any means bear: he therefore turned short off and went another way. Sir Job seeing that, pitied his poor master, and never thought of troubling him more but buckled to his business in the Common Pleas. 1 And may Westminster-hall never know a worse judge than he was. 320. "Then received a ring 3 from the king before the circuit to blow his fame as favourite, and quo warrantors 1 Mr. Booth, afterwards Earl of Warrington, has thus described the conduct of JefTrieSj while he filled the place of Chief Justice of Chester. " But I cannot be silent as to our Chief Judge, and I will name him, be- cause what I have to say will appear more probable. His name is Sir G. Jeffries, who, I must say, behaved himself more like a Jack-pudding, than with that gravity that beseems a judge. He was mighty witty upon the prisoners at the bar. He was very full of his jokes upon people that came to give evidence, not suffering them to declare what they had to say in their own way and method, but would interrupt them because they behaved with more gravity than he. But I du not insist uj>on this nor upon the late hours ne kept in our city. It is said he was every night drinking until two o'clock or beyond that time, and that he went to nis chamber drunk ; but this I have only by common fame for I was not in his company : I bless God I am not a man of his principles or behaviour ; but in the mornings he appeared with the symptoms of a man that over-night had taken a large cup." (Chandler's Debate*, vol. ii. p. 163.) a Sir Job had the virtue to resist the court in the great question of the dispensing power, and was displaced on that occasion. (HeywoocFs Vindication, Appendix, p. xx.) 3 " The king was persuaded to present him with a ring, publicly taken from his own finger, in token of his majesty's acceptance of his most eminent services, and this by way of precursor, which being blazoned in the Gazette, his lordship went down into the country, as from the king legatus a latere.'" {Examen, p. 626.) Burnet tells us, 278 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. sent to terrify, and the charters falling to him was lustily cried up as a service, which was all laid beforehand." What concerns this artificial fame and the use that was made of it in favour of recusants as also the conse- quence of merit for procuring surrenders of charters, is expressed among the emergencies during his lordship's ministry, in this fourth stage of his life. And as for the matter of charters, a business of great remark in those times and not like to be well understood in the future, I have endeavoured to state what I know of those proceedings by quo warranto and procuring surrenders, in the Examen. 1 I think it will appear there that the original and chief instances of them were not only just, 2 that is according to law and prudent, but also necessary to the continuance of the public peace ; and also that this method of law so reasonably begun and justly pursued, after a few years corrupted into a course of violence and oppression ; that is when men interposed either to court or fright harmless and orderly corporations to surrender and, upon refusal, plunged them into the chargeable and defenceless condi- tion of going to law against the crown, whereby that which would not come by fair means was extorted by violence. This was one of the troubles of mind which his lordship laboured under in the latter end of King Charles's reign, as of a devil raised, which could not readily be laid. Nor could he resist the pretenders to merit ; since all was reckoned good service at court that gave the king any addi- tion of power, without considering the defalcations on the that this ring, which was presented to Jeffries immediately after the execution of Sir T. Armstrong, was called his blood-stone. 1 P. 624, et seq. ; and see the proceedings in the quo warranto against the city of London, in HowelVs State Trials, vol. viii. p. 1039. 2 See one of these instances in Sir John Beresby's Memoirs (p. 170). "The king had now conceived a displeasure against the city of York, and coming from the Duchess of Portsmouth's, he asked me, leaning upon my arm, ' If I knew sufficient matter for bringing a quo warranto against their charter ? ' I told his majesty £ I did not, but would endea- vour to inform myself ; but I feared I could not so well do it at such a distance, as if I was upon the spot.' To which his majesty replied, c I only recommend it to you.' The Lord Mayor, it seems, had refused to let a mountebank erect his stage in that city, though he was furnished with the king's recommendation, which the man complaining of, his majesty thought himself thereby slighted or injured." THE CHARTERS. 279 other side from the fierce and irregular means of obtaining it. And his lordship was not wanting to discountenance all such practices, which made him be listed among the trim- mers as touched elsewhere. However there were hopes in that reign of bringing all to rights again. But, after the death of that good king, the flood-gates were opened and a deluge of abuse upon that topic entered, but came not up so high as to overwhelm all till his lordship died, who as long as he lived was some obstacle to the course of those many inconveniences that followed. But then, among many others, this trade of charters ran to excess and turned to an avowed practice of garbling corporations in order to carry elections to the parliament ; and a com- mittee of council was appointed to manage the regulations, as they were called ; and there was an itinerant crew of the worst of men, that wrought in the towns to be regulated under direction of the committee. 1 These were termed regulators ; and according to their characters and designa- tions, mayors, aldermen, recorders, common councils and freemen, were modified and established. The Lord Chief Justice Jeffries was capitally concerned in the first of these exorbitances, and pushed matters through all the degrees into those excesses I mentioned. At first it was his way of making court but at last it was his shield and defence. For he and his clan, one Sir N. Butler and (I should have first said) the Lord Sunderland were, by these practices, become so obnoxious in the reign of King James II. that, knowing they could not stand the fury of any parliament, they laboured by manifest provocations 1 See Evelyn's account of these elections [Memoirs, vol. i. p. 561): u There were many of the new members, whose elections and returns were universally censured ; many of them being persons of no condition or interest in the nation, or places for which they served, especially in Devon, Cornwall, Norfolk, &c, said to have been recommended by the court, and from the effect of the new charters changing the electors. It was reported, that Lord Bath carried down with him into Cornwall no fewer than fifteen charters, so that some called him the Prince Elector." The Earl of Bath put the names of various officers of the guards into almost all the charters of Cornwall. (Burnet's Own Time, vol. iii. p. 1072.) See Sir J. Reresbys Memoirs (p. 269-275), as to the corporation of York. Roger Coke has accused the lord keeper of corruptly receiving bribes in the matter of these charters, but the charge seems to be made without sufficient grounds. (Coke's Detection, vol. ii. p. 386.) 280 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. of the people, carried on affectedly by them, at length to come to that height as to be able to show the king that all parliaments were impracticable, and to prevail upon him to live without any at all. And by that means they might continue great, and be secure ; otherwise, that is, if ever there was a parliament they must certainly fall a sacrifice to the fury of the commons. But these extremes aspersed the whole subject-matter, as well what was just as unjust, reasonable as unreasonable, all alike suffered under the obloquy; and none ever concerned themselves to distin- guish more than if there had been no difference at all from the first to the last. And the very law itself, that is, the known legal and (sometimes) necessary process of quo warranto came well nigh to be entirely abolished. For so men run from one extreme to another and, as the English mode is, reform, not by restoring or mending, but by kicking down all at once whatever is abused, though in itself never so good. This is what I have thought fit to say here touching the subject of charters ; which doth but very little if at all interfere with so much as is said of it in the Examen. 321. " The companies and city business make him great, being put into his hands ; and then he is cried up as having the city at his devotion. "Qu. Quid proinde?" (Qu. What then?) This consequence is elsewhere observed of him. Only it is to be noted that he prevailed to have all the affairs con- cerning the city of London put into his hands ; which made many citizens obliged to court him that were not very much really his humble servants : but no remedy ; and he was their grandee. 322. " Sir William Smith and Baily justices. Inde ardor cum intemperie" (Thence he took occasion to scold violently.) This is mentioned elsewhere so far as I can remember of it ; as also the speaking in the council drunk, and inveigh- ing against trimmers. 323. "Post, accusatio com. serjeant, sine fundamento." (He afterwards accused the common serjeant upon no grounds.) One Mr. Crisp was in those times the common serjeant JUDGE JEFFRIES. 281 in London, an office of considerable account especially in the orphanage. He was an honest, reasonable gentleman, and very loyal; but it seems was not one that would go into all measures ; therefore causeless blame was laid upon him. I do not call to mind what it was ; but it did not succeed to his prejudice. 324. " Post Rosewell, mo 9 in arrest, et gavisus de errore." (Urged the prosecution of Rosewell, and laughed at the mistake.) This Rosewell was attaint, by verdict, of high treason in London, and having made his peace with the lord chief justice moved by his counsel to arrest the judgment for an error of form in the record. The lord chief justice could not contain himself or be concealed, but openly rejoiced at the accident and was tickled with mirth and laughing at the king's counsel. But the serious observation was, that after he had urged the prosecution of Rosewell and a fault slipped, he should so merrily discharge him. 1 325. " Acquittal of Hays." This was a citizen that he caused to be prosecuted for high treason ; and then, at the trial, apparently helped him off with the jury : which, it may be, was not without reason ; for evidences at such trials ought to be above all exception. But since nothing new sprang at the trial which was not seen before it was preasant to see a man hunted into the toils, and then let go. So suddenly may enemies become friends. Upon what terms who knows ? 2 326. " Motion for delivering the papists out of jail." This is at large declared afterwards. 327. "Prosecution of Will. Williams." 3 This his lordship thought ill advised ; for he was speaker of the House of Commons and had signed divers 1 See report of Kosewell's Trial, Howell's State Trials, vol. x. p. 147 ; and Burnet's account of the transaction, Own Time, vol. ii. p. 1028. Burnet says, that 11 the court was so ashamed of the witnesses, that the attorney -general had orders to yield to the arrest of judgment." 2 See the report of Hays's trial, HowelVs State Trials, vol. x. p. 307. 3 Sir William Williams, the ancestor of the present Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, was returned as member for Chester in 1678 and appointed speaker of the House of Commons, an honour which was again conferred upon him in 1681. Having voted for the bill of exclu- sion, and rendered himself in other respects obnoxious, he was prose- 282 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. matters, as commitments, addresses, votes, and such acts as the house thought fit should be done ; but if they were, as was supposed, criminal in their nature, as libels, false imprisonments, &c. no privilege, in strict rigour of law, excuseth them. But to prosecute a speaker in vacation of parliament for what he had done by the order of the House of Commons in the last sessions of parliament, was by no means gracious or like to be well taken in any suc- ceeding parliament, but tended rather to irritate than reconcile ; which was more for the king's service. But Williams had been sharp upon Jeffries when he was upon his knees at the bar of the house for abhorring ; and they were both Welshmen : therefore Williams must be prose- cuted. 328. It may conduce somewhat to the understanding this to relate what I clearly remember. It was the case of Samuel Verdon, a famous Norfolk attorney. He was ordered by the House of Commons to be taken into cus- tody and the warrant signed William Williams. The Serjeant's men went down and took him ; but he out of an acquired obstinacy would conform with the messengers in nothing. But in bringing him up, he would not be pre- vailed with either to mount or dismount his horse ; but forced the messengers at every turn, to lift him on and off ; and, at the same time, had his clerks taking notes in order to testify these assaults of his person ; for every one of which he intended to bring an action of battery. It so fell out that, as he was upon the road, about midway be- tween Norwich and London, the parliament was prorogued, by which the warrant ceased, and after that the custody was a false imprisonment ; and Verdon brought his action for it against the messengers, which action was tried at the Exchequer bar. 1 The speaker (William Williams) him- cuted, at the instigation of the Duke of York, and fined £10,000. Finding his country politics thus inconvenient, he abandoned them, and adopted those of the court, and was appointed solicitor general, by James II. To him was confided the management of the great trial of the seven bishops, Ob, July 10, 1700. Burnet calls him " a corrupt and vicious man, who had no principles, but followed his own interests." 1 The action appears from Shower's Reports (vol. ii. p. 300) to have been brought in the King's Bench. JUDGE JEFFRIES. 283 self was the front counsel for the defendants, and Jeffries for Verdon. Williams said much to excuse the men, upon account of their invincible ignorance of the prorogation. Upon that, Verdon steps forth, and, " My lord," said he, " if Sir William Williams will here own his hand to the warrant, I will straight discharge these men." Jeffries was so highly pleased with this gasconade of his client that he loved him ever after ; of which Verdon felt the good effects when his learned counsel came that circuit as chief justice; for although many complaints were intended against him, and such as were thought well enough grounded, yet he came off scot free. 329. " East India Company.' ' This was the great cause that depended, at that time, against Sands for interloping: but concerned the merchants in London who complained against the East India Com- pany for being a monopoly, and began almost to form an interloping company. But the judgment of law being for the company, put a stop to it. Jeffries espoused the matter with great fury ; and though not much given to argue law matters, he, in giving his judgment, made a prolix argu- ment as the reports of the case wherever they appear will show. 1 There was somewhat extraordinary at the bottom. But I have no ground to say what. 330. " Henry Pollexfen introduced." There is no account to be given of this action of Jeffries but that he was making friends with the anti-court party. For this Pollexfen was deep in all the desperate designs against the crown. He was the adviser and advocate of all those who were afterwards found traitors. In a word, a thorough stitch enemy to the crown and monarchy in his time. A fanatic and (in the country) frequenter of con- venticles ; and one more notorious of this character was not to be found. And yet when Jeffries went down into the West, with his commission of war as well as oyer and terminer, he takes this Pollexfen into the service to be the king's counsel in those furious prosecutions. And it may be he knew him prophetically to be fit for the purpose ; 1 In the State Trials the arguments of Jeffries and the other judges are given at great length (vol. x. p. 371). 284 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. for upon the revolution he was made a judge, and, from a whiner for favour to criminals, he proved the veriest butcher of a judge that hath been known. But to pass to the chief justice. It seems here that this service was to be a step upon which Jeffries intended to lift him into the king's service, as his majesty's counsel or serjeant if not judge. Nothing could be more counter to the hectoring humour of the chief justice, that used to batter whigs and even trimmers without mercy, than this employment of Pollexfen. 331. There is one branch of that chief's expedition in the West, which is his visitation of the city of Bristol, that hath some singularities of a nature so strange that I think them worth my time to relate. There had been an usage among the aldermen and justices of the city (where all persons, even common shop-keepers, more or less trade to the American plantations) to carry over criminals who were pardoned with condition of transportation, and to sell them for money. This was found to be a good trade ; but, not being content to take such felons as were convict at their assizes and sessions, which produced but a few, they found out a shorter way which yielded a greater plenty of the commodity. And that was this. The mayor and justices, or some of them, usually met at their tolsey (a court-house by their exchequer) about noon, which was the meeting of the merchants as at the Exchange at London ; and there they sat and did justice-business that was brought be- fore them. When small rogues and pilferers were taken and brought there, and, upon examination, put under the terror of being hanged, in order to which mittimus's were making, some of the diligent officers attending instructed them to pray transportation, as the only way to save them ; and for the most part, they did so. Then no more was done ; but the next alderman in course took one and another, as their turns came, sometimes quarrelling whose the last was, and sent them over and sold them. 1 This trade had been 1 The merchants appear not to have confined themselves to kidnap- ping rogues and vagabonds. — Narcissus Luttrell tells us that an order in council was made " against merchants spiriting or kidnapping away young children ; and directing them how to proceed in future in taking JEFFRIES AT BRISTOL. 285 driven for many years and no notice taken of it. Some of the wealthier aldermen although they sat in the court and connived, as Sir Robert Cann 1 for instance, never had a man ; but yet they were all involved in the guilt when the charge came over them. It appears not how this out- rageous practice came to the knowledge of the lord chief justice; but, when he had hold of the end he made thorough stitch work with them ; for he delighted in such fair opportunities to rant. He came to the city and told some that he had brought a broom to sweep them. The city of Bristol is a proud body and their head, the mayor, in the assize commission is put before the judge of assize ; though perhaps it was not so in this extraordinary com- mission of oyer and terminer. But for certain, when his lordship came upon the bench and examined this matter, he found all the aldermen and justices concerned in this, kidnapping trade, more or less, and the mayor himself as bad as any. He thereupon turns to the mayor, accoutred with his scarlet and furs, and gave him all the ill names that scolding eloquence could supply ; and so with rating and staring, as his way was, never left till he made him quit the bench and go down to the criminal's post at the bar ; and there he pleaded for himself, as a common rogue or thief must have done : and when the mayor hesitated a little or slackened his pace, he bawled at him and stamping called for his guards ; for he was general by commission. Thus the citizens saw their scarlet chief magistrate at the bar, to their infinite terror and amazement. He then took security of them to answer informations, and so left them to ponder their cases amongst themselves. At London Sir Robert Cann applied by friends to appease him, and to get from under the prosecution, and at last he granted it, saying, " Go thy way ; sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee." The prosecutions depended till the any persons they send beyond seas." (State Trials, vol. x. p. 33.) Wilmore, the foreman of the jury which ignored the bill for treason against Lord Shaftesbury, was, according to Koger North, accused of being a kidnapper, and of having sent one or two young men to the Plantations, and was compelled to fly. (Examen, p. 591.) 1 See more concerning Sir Robert Cann, in the Life of Sir Dudley North, who married his daughter. 286 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. revolution which made an amnesty ; and the fright only, which was no small one, was all the punishment these juridical kidnappers underwent ; and the gains ac- quired by so wicked a trade rested peacefully in their pockets. 332. " Sir John Trevor." He was a countryman of the lord chief justice Jeffries 1 and his favourite. It may not be amiss to show a little of him, that it may appear what sort of men that chief brought forward. He was bred a sort of clerk in old Arthur Trevor's chamber, an eminent and worthy pro- fessor of the law in the Inner Temple. A gentleman that visited Mr. Arthur Trevor at his going out, observed a strange-looking boy in his clerk's seat (for no person ever had a worse sort of squint than he had), and asked who that youth was ? "A kinsman of mine," said Arthur Trevor, "that I have allowed to sit here to learn the knavish part of the law." This John Trevor grew up and took in with the gamesters, among whom he was a great proficient : and being well grounded in the law proved a critic in resolving gaming cases and doubts, and had the authority of a judge amongst them ; and his sentence for the most part carried the cause. From this exercise he was recommended by Jeffries to be of the king's counsel, and then master of the rolls, and, like a true gamester, he fell to the good work of supplanting his patron and friend : and had certainly done it if King James's affairs had stood right up much longer ; for he was advanced so far with him as to vilify and scold with him publicly in Whitehall. He was chosen speaker in King James's parliament and served in the same post after the revolution. Once, upon a scrutiny of bribery in the House of Commons, in favour of one Cook, a creature of Sir Josiah Child's who ruled the East India Company, it was plainly discovered that the speaker Trevor had =£1,000, upon which the debate ran hard upon him, and he sat above six hours as pro- locutor in an assembly that passed that time with calling him all to nought to his face ; and at length he was forced or yielded, to put the question upon himself, as in the 1 He was a cousin of Jeffries. JUDGE JEFFRIES. 287 form, " As many as are of opinion that Sir John Trevor is guilty of corrupt bribery by receiving," &c. and, in de- claring the sense of the house, declared himself guilty. The house rose and he went his way and came there no more. But whether the members thought that the being so baited in the chair was punishment enough, or for his taking such gross correction so patiently and conformably ; or else a matter once out of the way was thought of no more ; it is certain that he never was molested farther about that matter ; 1 but continued in his post of master of the rolls, equitable judge of the subjects, interests, and estates, to the great encouragement of prudent bribery for ever after. 333. " About bailing of the lords. His deliberating, resolution, and deceitfulness in that affair." This hath been touched elsewhere. The lords were the five in the Tower for the plot ; and it seems that his deter- mining upon the question to bail them helped to lift him into his place of chief of the King's Bench ; but, at the touch, he failed. 334. " Offer to come upon the Scotch affairs." This was a presumption no English counsellor, but the premier minister, pretended to ; and shows a violent for- wardness as if it aimed at no less. 335. u Trimming pro Sacheverel, redarg. attorn.' 1 (Trimmed for the side of Sacheverel, and reproved the attorney general.) Mr. Sacheverel was a fierce hero against the court in the House of Commons ; and being prosecuted by the attorney general for some misdemeanor, the lord chief justice sided with him and reproved the attorney general. It is only an instance of his taking in with the heads of the anti- court party. 336. " Introductio JBoe." (Introduced Roe.) This was another like instance ; for Roe was a close 1 He was subsequently expelled by a vote of the house. (Kennett, vol. iii. p. 672.) On the revolution he was mude first commissioner of the great seal, and, having been a violent Tory, was employed t<> manure that party in parliament. " By him." says Burnet, " began the practice of buying oft' men, in whieh hitherto the king had kept to stricter rules." (Own Time, vol. iv. 80, 276.) 288 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. servant of Monmouth's: which conies vile near siding against his master and benefactor the Duke of York. 337. " Noisy in nature. Turbulent at first setting out. Deserter in difficulties. Full of tricks. Helped by similar friendships. Honesty, law, policy, alike." This, to conclude, is the summary character of the Lord Chief Justice Jeffries and needs no interpreter. And since nothing historical is amiss in a design like this, I will sub- join what I have personally noted of that man ; and some things of indubitable report concerning him. His friend- ship and conversation lay much among the good fellows and humourists ; and his delights were accordingly, drink- ing, laughing, singing, kissing, and all the extravagances of the bottle. He had a set of banterers for the most part, near him ; as in old time great men kept fools to make them merry. And these fellows abusing one another and their betters, were a regale to him. And no friendship or dearness could be so great in private which he would not use ill, and to an extravagant degree, in publick. No one that had any expectations from him was safe from his public contempt and derision which some of his minions at the bar bitterly felt. Those above or that could hurt or benefit him, and none else, might depend on fair quarter at his hands. When he was in temper and matters indif- ferent came before him, he became his seat of justice better than any other I ever saw in his place. He took a pleasure in mortifying fraudulent attorneys and would deal forth his severities with a sort of majesty. He had extraordinary natural abilities but little acquired beyond what practice in affairs had supplied. He talked fluently and with spirit ; and his weakness was that he could not reprehend without scolding ; and in such Billingsgate language as should not come out of the mouth of any man. He called it " giving a lick with the rough side of his tongue." It was ordinary to hear him say, "Go, you are a filthy, lousy, knitty rascal;" with much more of like elegance. Scarce a day passed that he did not chide some one or other of the bar when he sat in the Chancery : and it was commonly a lecture of a quarter of an hour long. And they used to say, " This is yours ; my turn will be to-morrow." He seemed to lay nothing of his business to heart nor care what he did or JUDGE JEFFRIES. 289 left undone ; and spent in the Chancery court what time he thought fit to spare. Many times on days of causes at his house, the company have waited five hours in a morning, and after eleven, he hath come out inflamed and staring like one distracted. And that visage he put on when he anim- adverted on such as he took offence at, which made him a terror to real offenders ; whom also he terrified, with his face and voice, as if the thunder of the day of judgement broke over their heads : and nothing ever made men tremble like his vocal inflictions. He loved to insult and was bold without check ; but that only when his place was upper- most. To give an instance. A city attorney was petitioned against for some abuse ; and affidavit was made that when he was told of my lord chancellor, " My lord chancellor," said he, " I made him ;" meaning his baing a means to bring him early into city business. When this affidavit was read, " Well," said the lord chancellor, " then I will lay my maker by the heels." And with that conceit one of his best old friends went to jail. One of these intempe- rances was fatal to him. There was a scrivener of Wapping brought to hearing for relief against a bummery bond ; the contingency of losing all being showed, the bill was going to be dismissed. But one of the plaintiffs counsel said that he was a strange fellow, and sometimes went to church sometimes to conventicles ; and none could tell what to make of him ; and " it was thought he was a trimmer." At that the chancellor fired ; and "A trimmer ! " said he; "I have heard much of that monster but never saw one. Come forth, Mr. Trimmer, turn you round and let us see your shape : " and at that rate talked so long that the poor fellow was ready to drop under him ; but at last, the bill was dismissed with costs, and he went his way. In the hall, one of his friends asked him how he came off ? " Came off," said he, "I am escaped from the terrors of that man's face which I would scarce undergo again to save my life ; and I shall certainly have the frightful impression of it as long as I live." Afterwards, when the Prince of Orange came, and all was in confusion, this lord chancellor, being very obnoxious, disguised himself in order to go beyond sea. He was in a seaman's garb and drinking a pot in a cellar. This scrivener came into the cellar after some of u 290 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. his clients ; and his eye caught that face which made him start ; and the chancellor, seeing himself eyed, feigned a cough and turned to the wall with his pot in his hand. But Mr. Trimmer went out and gave notice that he was there ; whereupon the mob flowed in and he was in extreme hazard of his life ; but the lord mayor saved him and lost himself. For the chancellor being hurried with such crowd and noise before him, and appearing so dismally not only disguised but disordered ; and there having been an amity betwixt them, as also a veneration on the lord mayor's part, he had not spirits to sustain the shock but fell down in a swoon ; and, in not many hours after, died. But this Lord Jeffries came to the seal without any concern at the weight of duty incumbent upon him ; for at the first being merry over a bottle with some of his old friends, one of them told him that he would find the business heavy. ' 6 No," said he, " I'll make it light." But, to conclude with a strange in- consistency, he would drink and be merry, kiss and slaver, with these bon companions over night, as the way of such is, and the next day fall upon them ranting and scolding with a virulence insufferable. 338. Some time before his lordship was preferred to the great seal, the Lord Chief Justice Pemberton was removed and was succeeded by Sir Edmund Saunders. Both of whom, being eminent in the profession of the law and con- temporaries of his lordship, I shall take this opportunity of saying something of their characters : but before I proceed so far, it will be proper to solve a question much tossed about in those days. And that was whether the court was not to blame for appointing men to places of judgment, when great matters of law and of mighty consequence depended to be heard and determined, whose opinions were known beforehand ; of which it is easy to say (as the anti- court party did) that judges were made to serve turns. This question turns upon the supposed integrity of the government. They are, as all governments must be, in- trusted with power ; which power may be used to good or ill purpose. If it be to ill it is no objection to the reason- ableness of the power, because power must be. Here a government is beset with enemies ever watching for oppor- tunities to destroy it ; and, having a power to choose whom CHIEF JUSTICE PEMBERTON. 291 to trust, the taking up men whose principles are not known is more than an even chance that enemies are taken into their bosom. Here the government first consulted of the justice by law against the city's charter, and found, by clear advice, that it was forfeited and ought to be accord- ingly condemned ; and upon the event vast importances hung ; even the peace of the nation. Would any govern- ment in the world trust that justice to the arbitrament of enemies or run the hazard of having such ? Or, were it a doubt of opinion only, would they not be sure of men to judge, whose understandings and principles were fore- known ? What is the use of power but to secure justice ? It may, it is true, protect the contrary ; and so men may kill one another ; as they say that every single man hath the power of life and death. But that is not an exception against the just use of a power or that men may not carry knives in their pockets. But it is to be observed that these kind of objections are commonly wheedles ; and if governors hearken to them they are probably lost ; and those who are the objectors laugh in their sleeves and, in their turn, outdo, many bars, all that themselves found fault with. The true distinction is, when governments use powers that do not beloDg to them (as high courts of justice) ; and when they use only such powers as are properly lawful, as the ordi- nary courts of the common law. It is a maxim of law "that fraud is not to be assigned in lawful acts." If govern- ments secure their peace by doing only what is lawful to be done all is right. If they suffer encroachments and, at length, dissolution, for want of using such powers, what will it be called but stupidity and folly ? But to proceed to what I intended. 339. The Lord Chief Justice Pemberton was a better practiser than a judge ; for, being made chief justice of the King's Bench, he had a towering opinion of his own sense and wisdom and rather made than declared law. I have heard his lordship say that, " in making law he had out- done King, Lords, and Commons. " This may seem strange to such as see not the behaviour of judges and do not con- sider the propensity of almost all to appear wiser than those that went before them. Therefore it is the most im- partial character of a judge to defer to eldership or anti- 292 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. quity. But to proceed : this man's morals were very in- different ; for his beginnings were debauched and his study and first practice in the gaol. For having been one of the fiercest town rakes and spent more than he had of his own, his case forced him upon that expedient for a lodging : and there he made so good use of his leisure and busied himself with the cases of his fellow collegiates, whom he informed and advised so skilfully, that he was reputed the most notable fellow within those walls ; and, at length he came out a sharper at the law. After that, he proceeded to study and practice till he was eminent and made a serjeant. After he was chief justice of the King's Bench he proved, as I said, a great ruler and nothing must stand in the way of his authority. I find a few things noted of him by his lordship. 340. " Case of Lady Ivye, where advised that there was subornation, for which Johnson was ruined, and heart broke." x - The lady prosecuted Johnson for this subornation by information in the King's Bench, and the cause was tried before Pemberton. It appeared that Johnson had no concern or words but by way of advice to his client ; but he was borne down and convict ; at which the fellow took despair and died. It was thought his measure was very hard and cruel ; and that some mighty point of interest in her ladyship's law- suits depended upon this man's suffering. 341. " Doyly's settlement a cheat, for want of words usual. Q. by whose contrivance. But he advised." This fraudulent conveyance was managed between Sir Robert Baldock and Pemberton. It is certain it was passed by Pemberton who was the counsel chiefly relied on ; but not so certain it was his contrivance; for Baldock had wit and will enough to do it. The device was to make two jointures, as of the manors of A and B, complete, and without words of reference of the one to the other, as in part, &c. or together with in full, whereby the one called upon the other. The use made of this trick was mortgaging both these estates as free, but, in truth, incumbered with the * See 10 Slate Trials, 627. CHIEF JUSTICE PEMBERTON. 293 jointure and settlement. For upon the proffer of A to be mortgaged, and the counsel demanding a sight of the marriage settlement, that of B was showed. Then, upon the proffer of B, the settlement of A was showed; and so the cheat passed of both. 342. This chief justice sat in the King's Bench till near the time that the great cause of the quo warranto against the city of London was to be brought to judgment in that court ; and then his majesty thought fit to remove him. And the truth is it was not thought any way reasonable to trust that cause, on which the peace of the government so much depended, in a court where the chief never showed so much regard to the law as to his will and notorious as he was for little honesty, boldness, cunning, and incon- trollable opinion of himself. After this removal he re- turned to his practice and by that (as it seems the rule is) he lost his style of lordship, and became bare Mr. Serjeant again. His business lay chiefly in the Common Pleas where his lordship presided : and however some of his brethren were apt to insult him, his lordship was always careful to repress such indecencies ; and not only protected but used him with much humanity. For nothing is so sure a sign of a bad breed as insulting over the depressed. 1 343. The Lord Chief Justice Saunders succeeded in the room of Pemberton. His character and his beginning were equally strange. He was at first no better than a poor beggar boy, if not a parish foundling, without known parents or relations. He had found a way to live by obsequiousness (in Clement's Inn, as I remember) and 1 Burnet has given the following character of Pemberton. " His rise was so particular, that it is worth the being remembered. In his youth he mixed with such lewd company, that he quickly spent all he had, and ran so deep in debt that he was cast into a jail, where he lay many years: but he followed his studies so close in the jail that he became one of the ablest men in his profession. He was not wholly for the court ; he had been a judge before, and was turned out by Scroggs' means, and now was raised again, and was afterwards made chief justice of the other bench, but not being compliant enough, he was turned out a second time, when the court would be served by none but by men of a thorough-pacea obsequiousness." (Bumefs Hist., vol. ii. p. 870. See also 9 State Trials, 580.) According to Evelyn, Pember- ton "was held to be the most learned of the judges, and an honest man." (Memoirs, vol. i. p. 527.) 294 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. courting the attorneys' clerks for scraps. The extraordi- nary observance and diligence of the boy made the society willing to do him good. He appeared very ambitious to learn to write ; and one of the attorneys got a board knocked up at a window on the top of a staircase ; and that was his desk where he sat and wrote after copies of court and other hands the clerks gave him. He made himself so expert a writer that he took in business and earned some pence by hackney-writing. And thus by degrees he pushed his faculties and fell to forms, and, by books that were lent him, became an exquisite entering clerk ; and by the same course of improvement of himself, an able counsel first in special pleading then at large. And after he was called to the bar, had practice in the King's Bench court equal with any there. As to his person, he was very corpulent and beastly ; a mere lump of morbid flesh. He used to say, " by his troggs," (such a humorous way of talking he affected) " none could say he wanted issue of his body for he had nine in his back." He was a fetid mass that offended his neighbours at the bar in the sharpest degree. Those whose ill fortune it was to stand near him were confessors, and, in summer- time, almost martyrs. This hateful decay of his carcase came upon him by continual sottishness ; for, to say nothing of brandy, he was seldom without a pot of ale at his nose or near him. That exercise was all he used ; the rest of his life was sitting at his desk or piping at home ; and that home was a tailor's house in Butcher-Bow called his lodging, and the man's wife was his nurse or worse ; but, by virtue of his money, of which he made little account though he got a great deal, he soon became master of the family ; and being no changeling, he never removed, but was true to his friends and they to him, to the last hour of his life. 344. So much for his person and education. As for his parts, none had them more lively than he. Wit and repartee in an affected rusticity were natural to him. He was ever ready and never at a loss ; and none came so near as he to be a match for Serjeant Maynard. His great dexterity was in the art of special pleading, and he would lay snares that often caught his superiors who were CHIEF JUSTICE SAUNDERS. 295 not aware of his traps. And he was so fond of success for his clients, that, rather than fail, he would set the court hard with a trick; for which he met sometimes with a reprimand which he would wittily ward off, so that no one was much offended with him. But Hales could not bear his irregularity of life ; and for that, and suspicion of his tricks, used to bear hard upon him in the court. But no ill usage from the bench was too hard for his hold of business being such as scarce any could do but himself. With all this, he had a goodness of nature and disposition in so great a degree that he may be deservedly styled a philanthrope. He was a very Silenus to the, boys, as in this place I may term the students of the law, to make them merry whenever they had a mind to it. He had nothing of rigid or austere in him. If any near him at the bar, grumbled at his stench, he ever converted the complaint into content and laughing with the abundance of his wit. As to his ordinary dealing, he was as honest as the driven 6now was white ; and why not, having no regard for money or desire to be rich r And, for good nature and condescension there was not his fellow. I have seen him for hours and half -hours together, before the court sat, stand at the bar with an audience of students over against him putting of cases, and debating so as suited their capacities and encouraged their industry. And so in the Temple, he seldom moved without a parcel of youths hanging about him, and he merry and jesting with them. 345. It will be readily conceived that this man was never cut out to be a presbyter or any thing that is severe and crabbed. In no time did he lean to faction but did his business without offence to any. He put off officious talk of government or politics with jests, and so made his wit a catholicon or shield to cover all his weak places and infirmities. When the court fell into a steady course of using the law against all kinds of offenders, this man was taken into the king's business ; and had the part of draw- ing and perusal of almost all indictments and informations that were then to be prosecuted with the pleadings thereon if any were special ; and he had the settling of the large pleadings in the quo warranto against London. His lord- 296 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. ship had no sort of conversation with him but in the way of business and at the bar ; but once, after he was in the king's business, he dined with his lordship and no more. And there he showed another qualification he had acquired, and that was to play jigs upon an harpsichord ; having taught himself with the opportunity of an old virginal of his landlady's ; but in such a manner, not for defect but figure, as to see him were a jest. The king, observing him to be of a free disposition, loyal, friendly, and without greediness or guile, thought of him to be the chief justice of the King's Bench at that nice time. And the ministry could not but approve of it. So great a weight was then at stake as could not be trusted to men of doubtful prin- ciples, or such as any thing might tempt to desert them. While he sat in the court of King's Bench he gave the rule to the general satisfaction of the lawyers. But his course of life was so different from what it had been, his busi- ness incessant and, withal, crabbed ; and his diet and exercise changed, that the constitution of his body, or head rather, could not sustain it and he fell into an apoplexy and palsy which numbed his jbarts ; and he never recovered the strength of them. He out-lived the judg- ment in the quo warranto ; but was not present otherwise than by sending his opinion, by one of the judges, to be for the king, who at the pronouncing of the judgment declared it to the court accordingly, which is frequently done in like cases. 346. But, to return to his lordship. I may state another case 1 in which it appeared his lordship's consideration of justice surmounted his will, which was always inclined to be good to those of his profession especially if he had a real value and esteem for them. The Duke of Bucks was disposed to sell an estate in Leicestershire. It was while my Lord Nottingham had the great seal. His son Heneage, a celebrated orator in chancery practice, had formerly bought of the duke an estate at Aldborough in Sussex : and not a few suits depended in court between his grace > and his creditors and trustees in which the contention ran high. Mr. Ambrose Philips, an eminent practiser in the 1 Reported in 1 Eq. Ca. Ab. 18, c. 10. 1 Vera. 227. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 297 court, sought to buy the Leicestershire estate of the Duke of Bucks and contrived to use the name of Mr. Heneage Finch in the treaty. On the other side, it was told the duke that if he let Mr. Finch have the purchase at an easy rate it would be taken as a respect, and turn to account in his causes. So the matter went on and the purchase by pay- ment and sealing finished. Then the duke found out that he had been imposed on, and that Philips and not Finch was the real purchaser ; which if he had known before he would not have taken under .£2,000 more than the price he had received. He was so unsatisfied that he brought a bill against Philips to be relieved as to this .£2,000, and by circumstances in the cause it was plain to his lordship that the duke's price took in that .£2,000, but that, for Mr. Finch's sake (or rather his father's) he had bated it ; and also that it was so pretended to him only to make him bate that sum ; so that his lordship decreed Philips to pay that sum over and above his purchase money ; which <£2,000 he had got off by a wily false pretence of Mr. Finch's being the purchaser. 347. I shall not select any more of his causes here. These were such as none ever traduced ; and they may be collated with some others that have been so used, to be found in fit place ; where it will appear that interest and faction will attack the best as well as worst actions of a magistrate : for slander is an accuser and not a defender, and makes the worst construction even of the worthiest pro- ceedings ; and when strictly just allows none at all to be — as they ought to be — esteemed good. But I must not forget to mention one serious deliberation his lordship had with himself touching the places of masters in chancery ; whether he should sell them for a price or give them freely. And once he was inclined and almost resolved to give them, being of opinion that the court had not so much power to coerce exorbitances or to control their profits when they bought their places, as if they were conferred gratis : for, upon the least rumour of, a reform, they cry out purchase, valuable consideration, lang as his maajesty is saarved?'" It appears that Oates thought proper to adopt the same affected pronunciation. At the bar of the House of Commons he accused the Queen of high treason in these words : " Aye, Taitus Oates, accause Catherine, Quean of England, of haigh traison." — Examen, p. 186. 304 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. that time bear with him long, but turned him out ; and so the council was purged ; for the rest of the party were dis- banded or left out or deserted about the same time. All this was less strange than his coming in again. We thought that the Duke of York had not interest enough to have done it without the adjunct of the French ladies, whose favour with money and courtship he failed not to purchase. It is certain that he was a most fastidious aversion to the Lord Keeper North. They say that animals, out of a contrariety of their natures, have a mutual antipathy and can scarce bear the sight of each other. I know well that his lordship scarce ever saw or spoke of him, without a chagrin ; and, after he was restored to the secretary's office and place in the cabinet, his lordship declared he had no hopes of any good at court. Nor was this noble lord behind-hand with his lordship in his kind thoughts towards him; which, sprouting out in speeches and actions, were as venomous as the deadly nightshade ; but, for want of apt concurrents, as to all harm to his lordship or his reputation, vain and enervous. He laid a plot to fasten a whore upon his lord- ship, that he might lose the reputation he had of moral virtue untainted. That he rode upon a rhinoceros, that he might be despised ; and other stratagems as silly, of which a particular account will be given elsewhere : and all this without the least offence, by word or action, on his lord- ship's part to disgust him. But the canker was his lordship's unmoved constancy and fidelity to the church and monarchy settled by law, both which his lordship (the earl) wrought to overturn: and he could not bear such an obstacle in his way without attempting to remove it. However such enmities at court have the effect of friendships elsewhere : for a man is known by his avoiding as well as by his herd- ing with particular people. I must not forget to add here, that his lordship, by his external behaviour with respect to this state secretary, made no resentments for his clandestine injury, but kept that even temper with him as the king's affairs required he should do. His lordship had a brother- in-law 1 who, being a courtier and of a lofty genius, habi- 1 William, second Earl of Yarmouth, married Elizabeth, sister of the Lord Keeper. James II. made him Treasurer of the Household in February, 1686-7. RETIREMENT OF SECRETARY JENKINS. 305 tuated in the gaming society of that lord, and was so far imposed on as to mediate a nearer conversation with him ; and it went so far, that his lordship yielded to a project of an invitation by dining with the secretary ; and I had the honour to be there : but I must say, that I never saw so silent a feast as that was. There was little to be amended, for little was said on either side. We came away ; and his lordship chose to be so far rude as not to cross invite, rather than bear the like consequences of such another intercourse of his own designing. 352. The next note runs thus, " Spring 1684. Secretary Jenkins quits to Sidney Godolphin." The loss of this secretary was a great mortification to his lordship. I have often heard him say, upon that occasion, that he was absolutely alone in the court ; and that no one person was left in it with whom he could safely confer in the affairs of the public. While the secretary stood and the Lord Halifax and the Lord Hyde, who had spirits and were hearty, they often met at the secretary's in evenings to consider of such dependances as were to come before the king the next day. The benefit of which was very con- siderable to the king's affairs as well as to themselves ; for so the matters were better understood than if no pre- vious deliberation had been taken ; and they were not un- prepared to speak to them in terms proper for his majesty to entertain without mistakes, or clashing one with another; as happens sometimes about mere words, when the thing is agreed. But, after this change, they all began to look gravely upon one another and to talk only of indifferent things. This secretary was not turned out but quitted for consideration, as the note implies. He was a person that, together with incomparable veracity, fidelity, industry and courage, had some personal failings ; for being used to form 8 he was a little pedantic and of a tender visage ; for being inclined to laugh immoderately at a jest, especially if it were smutty, the king found him out and failed not, after the tendency of his own fancy, to ply his secretary with conceits of that complexion ; and so had the diversion of laughing at the impotence of the other's gravity. It is not amiss to subjoin here an hi$toriette,to show the value of this minister. In the Westminster parliament the House x 306 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. of Commons was very averse to the court and, from a party very prevalent there, the loyalists fell under great discou- ragements. Among the rest, this good secretary was found fault with for something relevant he had uttered on the court side. Divers members, from the humility of his manner in speaking, supposed him to be a mild yielding man and, to expose him, consulted about censuring his words and ordering him to the bar and to ask pardon upon his knees. And if this experiment had been pushed and he had squeaked, as they called it, that is recanted and whined for an excuse, then he had been lost in every re- spect ; for a sneaking man is despised and rejected on all sides. But for fear this, in the execution, might have an unlucky return upon them, they resolved first to sound him ; for a secretary of state is no slight person to send to the Tower, as must have been done of course if he had stood firm. Thereupon, some half -faced friends told him that he would be accused, and must kneel. He answered them, in his formal way, " that he was a poor creature, not worth the resentment of the House : he should be always submissive to such great men as they were in every thing that concerned himself. But, as he had the honour to be his majesty's secretary of state, the case was not his but his master's, and, by the grace of the living G-od, he would kneel to and ask pardon of no mortal upon earth but the king he served, and to him only would he give an account of any thing done with intent to serve him." This showed that the business was like to be too hot for that time and the design of it like to fail ; and so it was let drop. But the secretary was met with at Ox- ford, when he was ordered to carry up the impeachment against Fitzharris ; and, after all his huffing and striving, he found it best to do it. 1 But to return, it was notorious that, after this secretary retired, the king's affairs went backwards ; wheels within wheels took place ; the ministers turned formalisers and the court mysterious. And no wonder when the two then secretaries, professed gamesters and court-artists, supplied the more retired cabals and, being habituated in artifice, esteemed the honest plain 1 See Examen, p. 284. DUKE OF YORK IN THE CABINET. 307 dealers under whose ministry the king's affairs were so well recovered, to be no better than beasts of burthen. And the next note shows the result of this mercurial courtship. 353. u Upon discovery of the conspiracy, D. Y." The subject of these notes being the cabinet, it is here plain that a handle was taken from that discovery to let in the Duke of York. The common obloquy upon the court had all along been, that the duke, and consequently the papists, had influence upon the public counsels : and not long before this time, such a step as this was would have been loudly ventilated abroad as a plain declaration that popery was to govern, with design to have ruined the king's interest and credit with the gentlemen of England. But now faction was low, though not dead ; and the new cour- tiers thought any thing might be done. And in truth, though little appeared to them, yet, to such as conversed more promiscuously, it was plain that faction warmed upon it. But this was to be said for it. The Rye conspiracy was aimed as well at the person of the duke as of the king ; for one dose of pills served for both : and it was very reasonable that the duke should be present at the shaving his own beard. This did a little screen the truth of the matter which was, that the Papists through the duke, intended, under the umbrage of this conspiracy, to make some advances at court ; but the sequel will show more. 354. " After, northern circuit 1685, Lord Chief Justice Jeffries appointed for it." This note concludes his lordship's state of the cabinet, and the several postures it had in the reign of King Charles II. after his lordship had the seals. And now from this broad hint, I take the rise of a notable piece of history. After the Lord Chief Justice Jeffries (of whom I have said somewhat before) was assumed into the king's privy council, which was some time before he came into the cabinet, there went forth a mighty fame of his great- ness at court ; which was mostly artificial although such incidents commonly blow up reports far beyond truth. When this chief justice had chosen the northern circuit for his expedition, it was so contrived that, on a Sunday morning when the court was full, the king should take 308 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. notice of his good services and, in token of his majesty's gracious acceptance of them, give him a ring from his royal finger. This was certainly so done, by way of engine to rear up a mighty machine of authority ; and the printed news informed the whole nation of it. Whereupon the same lord chief justice was commonly reputed a favourite and next door to premier minister ; sure enough to eclipse any thing of the law that stood near him. It is to he re- membered that, at this time, the trade of procuring charters to be surrendered was grown into a great abuse ; and nothing was accounted at court so meritorious as the procuring of charters, as the language then was. Therefore, as it was intended that the chief justice should be ingratiated into his majesty's good opinion and favour as much as was possible; this care was taken that, through the fame of his great honour, he should have appeared so to the country , and in consequence of that, wherever he went, all charters must needs fall down before him ; and for that reason the towns were to be prepared by quo warrantos sent down. This affords an usef ul speculation how mean persons de- rive to themselves merit from the power of great ones, who shall ascribe to their inferiors those very events which flow really from their own power. Here the chief justice is made to seem powerful by the king with whose authority he is graced ; and that makes the affrighted towns, at his instigation, surrender. This must be argued to demon- strate to the king that the chief justice had a mighty influence upon the country, having done greater things in his majesty's service than any judge had ever done before; when, in truth, it was not his own proper influence but the king's power through him, that had such virtue in the country. It was so also with respect to the city of London ; over which the chief justice exercised a sort of violent authority. That he had a great influence there, was true; but it was because the citizens thought him a great man at court ; and he obtained favour at court because he was thought to have a great influence in the city. Thus the court conferred their own influences and took them back by rebound, as so much merit reflected from the person that managed them. Then it is also to be remembered that the north of England is the seat of the Eoman JEFFRIES AND THE RECUSANTS. 309 Catholic interest ; and some things were to be managed by this chief justice with respect to them, which no other of the twelve judges would have done, and I am about to relate. 355. In the course of this northern voyage, which was carried with more loftiness and authority than had been known at any assizes before, the charters (as was to be expected) tumbled down, and the chief justice ordered all the under-sheriffs and bailiffs to give him perfect lists of all persons who, upon account of recusancy, lay under commitment. When he returned to London and his great services, which argued no less abilities to serve the king, were displayed, the next step was his being appointed to attend his majesty at the cabinet. The lord keeper, who was but an observer of these motions, did imagine that somewhat extraordinary was to come forth at the next meeting; the rather because, on Sunday morning (the meetings were usually on Sunday evenings) the Duke of York spoke to his lordship " to be assistant to a business which, that evening, would be moved to his majesty;" and that morning, his lordship observed a more than ordinary shyness in the countenances of the great men whose re- markable gravity satisfied him that they were upon their guard. But what the matter was, his lordship did not discover till he came to the cabinet ; where, after the king was come, and they were sat, my Lord Chief Justice Jeffries stood up, and, with the rolls of recusants before him, " Sir," said he, " I have a business to lay before your majesty, which I took notice of in the north and which will deserve your majesty's royal commiseration. It is the case of numberless numbers o£ your good subjects that are imprisoned for recusancy. I have the list of them here to justify what I say. They are so many that the great gaols cannot hold them without their lying one upon another." And then he let fly his tropes and figures about rotting and stinking in prisons, concluding with a motion to his majesty that he would, by his royal pardon, discharge all the convictions for recusancy, and thereby restore liberty and air to these poor men. This motion at that time was indeed a swinger ; for in consequence, the execution of it, by such a pardon of all convictions, had lost the king 310 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. irrecoverably, spoiled all future parliaments, set up the fanatic interest, his majesty's declared enemies, and dis- abled his friends from appearing with any countenance for him. The language had been, " Now it is plain — you would not believe us. What is popery if this be not? What signify the laws ? Will you not expect some better security ? " And the like. 356. His lordship was not to learn such consequences as these. But there was yet more, and what directly con- cerned himself in the duty of his office. He could turn his thoughts no way clear of precipices, which to him were fatal though others made account to leap over them. It must needs occur that such a pardon must pass the great seal, of which he was the keeper, whose office it was to affix it: and although in strictness he could not disobey the king's express command in that, or any thing else that might be called an act of grace, nor be rendered criminal for so doing ; yet all the loyal party of England, who were his sure friends, would have expected from him such strong and plain advice to the king as might have averted him from such a pernicious step whatever the consequence was to himself, who ought, as many would have said, to have quitted the seals rather thai] held them on such terms ; and for certain, the next parliament had resented it in all extremity. Now let us see with what temper, prudence, and courage, his lordship comported under this sudden and desperate trial. After the Lord Chief Justice Jeffries had done, and composed his rolls and papers upon the table (which none there cared to inspect) , his lordship, the lord keeper, sat a while silent as the rest, expecting some of the lords eminently in the protestant interest, as Halifax, Rochester, Ac. should begin to speak ; but finding no probability of their saying any thing, but rather a dis- position on their parts at that time to let the thing pass, he applied himself to the king, and " Sir," said he, " I humbly entreat your majesty that my lord chief justice may declare whether all the persons named in these rolls were actually in prison or not." The lord chief justice hastily interposed, saying he did not sure imagine any one could suspect his meaning to be that all these were actual prisoners ; for all the gaols in England would not hold THE LORD KEEPER'S REPLY. 311 them. But if they were riot in prison their case was little better ; for they lay under sentence of commitment, and were obnoxious to be taken up by every peevish sheriff, or magistrate, and were made to redeem the liberty they had with gross fees, which was a cruel oppression to them and their families. Then the lord keeper turned to the king and " Sir," said he, " I beg your majesty will consider what little reason there is to grant such a general pardon, as this is, at this time. For they are not all Roman Catholics that he under sentence of recusancy, but sec- taries of all kinds and denominations ; perhaps as many or more who are all professed enemies to your majesty and your government in church and state. They are a turbulent people and always stirring up sedition ; and if they do so much when they lie obnoxious to the laws, which your majesty may inflict upon them at your plea- sure, what will they not do if your majesty gives them all a discharge at once ? That would be to quit the greatest advantage you have oi securing the peace of tin 4 nation. Is it not better that your enemies should live under some disadvantages and be obnoxious to your majesty's plea- sure, who may, if they are turbulent and troublesome, inflict the penalties of the law upon them ? And as to the Roman Catholics, if there be any persons to whom your majesty would extend the favour of a pardon, let it be par- ticular and express and not universally, to set your ene- mies, as well as friends, at ease. And, after all, the dis- advantage they lie under is but the payment of some fees to officers, which is compensated by the exemption they have from serving in chargeable offices which other con- formable persons sustain. But, in a general view of the ill uses that would be made of such a step in the nation at large, to the prejudice of your majesty's interest and affairs both in and out of parliament, as they were obvious, so the extent of them is beyond my view, and, as I think, have no end ; " or to this effect. The king gave great attention and the other lords wondered ; but no farther word was made of the matter ; and they proceeded to other business. That night his lordship came home full of melancholy ; and it was some time before any person, near him, knew the occasion of it. But he would sometimes break out in 312 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. exclamations, as " What can be the meaning ! Are they all stark mad ! " and the like. That very night he took his pocket- almanack, and, against the day, wrote 357. "Motion, cui solus obstiti." Motion, which I alone opposed. For he accounted this action of his the most memorable that he had ever done. He was not without a jealousy that one great end of that pestilent, absurd motion was to put a thorn in his foot, and, by way of dilemma, heave him out of his place. For, if the king had commanded and he refused to put the seals to such a pardon, then he deserved to be removed by a just displeasure. If he had complied, then the parliament had effectually done it. And the shift the Lord Nottingham used in sealing the Earl of Danby's pardon, that is by surrendering the seal to make it the king's act (which he called a stamp of creation) might not have served his lordship's turn so well, whom both papist and fanatic strove, with all their might, to remove out of their way : and small pretensions had served their turn, as appeared in divers attempts of that sort which are largely displayed elsewhere and particularly in the Examen. But thus much I am led, by his lordship's notes, to say of the cabinet council. 358. His lordship was not altogether a stranger to this disposition touching imprisonments ; for the king had been troubled about them before or, at least, thought to men- tion the hard cases to his new lord keeper, urging him to get due information of them and to find some expedient for their relief. There was no doubt but this proceeded from solicitation in favour of the recusants on the side of the papists ; though, at first, it bore the visage of a sec- tarian party. For, about that time, many Quakers and conventiclers of all sorts had been prosecuted for not coming to church, and lay under sentence of the law, partly as recusants and partly on other accounts, whereof some were in prison and others not ; and very few popish recusants, purely for recusancy. His lordship applied himself to the means of gaining a regular and strict infor- mation of this whole affair, in order to lay the same before the king and so advise what was fit to be done thereupon. And accordingly, in February 1682, which was not long ENQUIRIES ABOUT RECUSANTS. 313 before the vernal circuit that year, his lordship wrote to Mr. Justice Jones, and probably to the rest of the judges then preparing for their circuits, the following letter : 359. " Mr. Justice Jones, " His majesty, having received complaint that many persons of mean condition lie in prison upon criminal pro- secutions, in several gaols of this kingdom, where they endure great hardships and miseries because of the strait- ness of the prisons, in respect of the number of prisoners and for want of necessaries, is desirous, for their relief, to ex- tend his royal compassion to such of them as shall be capable thereof upon their particular cases. In order whereunto, his majesty would be informed by his judges of assize, in their several circuits, or by some justice of the peace in the several counties and places where the prisons are, who may receive an account thereof from the sheriffs, gaolers, or other persons of credit. 1. " Whether the number of prisoners is so great that the prisons cannot conveniently contain them ; and if it be, then farther to certify the names of such persons as are in prison upon such prosecutions ; and if any l>e under the age of twenty -one years, and what the offences are, and how long they have lain there t 2. " Whether they are poor and unable to maintain themselves, and whether they are Papists, Quakers, or other sects, if it can be known ? 44 These are to desire you, in your circuit, to receive an account of the particulars above-mentioned and to bring it with you at your return ; or else to give it in charge to two or three of the most discreet justices of such counties, that may send it to me to be laid before his majesty ; when he shall think fit to declare his pleasure farther thereupon." C. S. 360. This letter, as to the prudent and cautious part, admits a sensible comment, respecting this latter pursuit through other hands ; of which the account is already given. These points are touched, 1. Actually in prison or not. 2. The prisons capable to hold them or not. 3. The names of the persons. 4. If under twenty-one years. 5. How long in prison. 6. Whether poor or not. 7. Whether Papists or Sectaries. All which matters were the subject 314 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. of the Lord Jeffries' s extreme representation. And to what end ? Not, as he moved, a general pardon of all recusants, but capacity of favour according to particular cases ; which is what his lordship moved in answer to Jeffries. So that, upon the whole, this very project of getting the general gaol delivery of recusants, viz. their absolute discharge by a general pardon, was jogged upon his lordship, to have had it been moved by him. And, probably, it might have been mentioned to him before, by the king, as a proper remedy ; but that his lordship put it off. But not altogether to resist his majesty's disposition to clemency where it might be properly placed, and not be turned upon him in evil constructions, he then put the business into this formal way of writing to the judges. But that did not answer the end of the Roman Catholics, whose work it was (though I believe his lordship thought there was a strong spice of the Fanatic in it), there- fore these former returns were not called for; but the business was now put into a better hand, from which it would come roundly off to the purpose intended, viz. a general pardon of all convictions for recusancy ; which his lordship again stopped, as I related before. But yet his lordship by several means which, by reason of his autho- rity, he might effect, had full accounts brought him of those items or the greatest part of them. When his lord- ship first thought fit to discourse with his intimates con- cerning this flagrant attempt of Jeffries, he expressed the greatest resentment at his being deserted by the other lords, of whom not one either led or followed or gave any countenance or support in a cause that so much concerned the king's service. And from thence he saw what he must trust to amongst them, that is only his own integrity and open dealing without any support from them ; and he never after expected an ally or friend in his business at court. The rising sun hath a charming effect, but not upon courtiers as upon larks ; for it makes these sing and the others silent. These thiogs I have thought fit to join to his lordship's notes of the posture and changes in the cabinet council when he sat there as lord keeper; and now I proceed to other matters. 361. I have showed the company his lordship had in the POLITICAL AIMS. 315 public service during his ministry at court, and their cha- racters and, in some respects, their behaviour. It may not be amiss now, to show what were his lordship's sentiments, and the measures that influenced his actions and were often the subject of his discourses to others. I can with great assurance affirm that, about these times, and for divers years while he sat in the Common Pleas, his thoughts were bent upon serving his country. And indeed, from the very first of his acting judicially, he studied amend- ments of every thing as might best be by him done for the benefit of the suitors. And after he was taken into public counsels, he not only courted but laid to heart the nation's good ; and, as he saw that decline, he grieved ; and, as he thought it gained a little, he rejoiced. This was easily to be discerned by all his friends with whom he freely con- versed. And that kind of pastime when he had liberty to enjoy himself was the most agreeable of any ; I mean the walking to and fro and discoursing freely with his friends; as will be showed more express afterwards. But after that manner he used to propose his doubts and fears as well as hopes of the public, and take their sentiments. This was his way of refining his notions, viz. upon the test of the opinion of his friends ; to which he gave great regard and never discouraged their freedom. And, when he waited at court, this sort of conversation served to instruct as well as to divert him. And even in the pre- sence of King Charles the Second, who was a free talker himself and encouraged it in those about him, matters of very great consequence would fall in the discourse ; and his lordship had art enough to speak his thoughts truly and agreeably. As once, when the discourse was upon the subject of using lenity or severity in cases of tumult or sedition, some thought that rigours, others that pardon was more proper; and many were for crushing enemies with open force. His lordship said to the king, that 44 his majesty's defensive weapons were his guards and his offen- sive weapons the laws ; and that enemies were to be resisted by opposing force to force but to be punished only by law." I remember this saying of his was taken notice of as an admirable temper in stating the matter of force to the king; and his lordship had a general applause LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. for it. Great men and governors are very propense to err in the notion of power, and, out of impatience of opposi- tion and desire of revenge, resort to force which, early or late, turns the evil upon themselves ; and with these men, any one that argues against such methods is looked upon as a faint friend, or enemy disguised. But to give the due office to power and proper efficacy to the law, this rule to the king admitted of no ill construction: neither one way, by undermining the guards and the militia (which was the drift of the faction), nor the other way, by setting up the militia against property (which then was calum- niated) ; and, being so fairly insinuated, was at that time no mean service to the crown and nation. 362. His lordship was perfectly at ease in the conscience of his behaviour, and scorned the vulgar and fanatic calumnies that he was a prerogative man and laboured to set up arbitrary power : but notwithstanding all that, he laboured as much as he could to set up the just preroga- tives of the crown which were well known in the law and to the lawyers ; although it had been much the fashion, as well in Westminster-Hall as at St. Stephen's, to batter the prerogative. He has said " that a man could not be a good lawyer and honest but he must be a prerogative man: " so plain were the law-books in these cases. He was sincerely of opinion that the crown wanted power by law ; so far was it from exceeding. It was absolutely necessary that the government should have a due power to keep the peace without trespassing upon the rights of any one ; and if it had not such power rightfully, either it would assume and exercise powers that were wrongful (and then what bounds?) or else sedition would prevail and, pulling down one, set up another government entirely wrongful ; to which all law and truth being opposite, consequently such a government would be opposite to them and meditate no security but actual force. And what can the people, that are always designing to diminish the just powers of the crown, expect but that the crown should always design to repair itself by a provision of force ? Nothing is so sure as that govern- ment will be supported by means either rightful or wrong- ful ; if subjects will not have the one they shall have the other. These considerations made his lordship ever set THE WEAKENING OF THE MONARCHY. 317 himself against the Republicans and resist their intended incroachments upon the crown. He thought the taking away of the tenures, 1 a desperate wound to the liberties of the people of England, and must by easy consequence procure the establishment of an army. For when the legal dependance of the monarchy and the country upon each other is dissolved, what must succeed but force ? He used often to inveigh against those who perpetually projected to weaken the monarchy, as a sort of men either corrupt and false-hearted or else short-sighted and ignorant. The yet living history of the late times concurred ; for what did the people get by robbing the crown of the power to dissolve the parliament and of the militia? There can- not be a more false illusion than it is to suppose that what power the crown lost was so much liberty gained to the people. And yet in these times, a broad- spread party went about with such syren songs to engage the community to join in their project of divesting the king of his commis- sions of the peace and lieutenancy, erty of the kingdom than even Magna Charta itself." (Com., vol. ii. p. 77.) 318 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. own certain knowledge, his lordship's great study and labour was to convince and to dispose his company so as they might heartily co-operate with him in the glorious work of bringing the king into the soundest measures of the English government, which were to rule wholly by law and to do nothing which by any reasonable construction might argue the contrary. In this design he was in one respect singular ; for he had no self-interest, no boons to ask, no party to head, nor means to sustain an interest at court ; depended on nothing but merely the character he bore and his own personal qualifications. Some had the protection of the Duke of York and of the French ladies ; others were of the Lord Halifax's party ; and some of the Lord Rochester's. But he was in the midst of all the court solus mm solo, alone by himself ; at least after Jenkins withdrew. But yet he urged continually the same doctrine, that, holding to the law (wherein I always include the established church of England) his majesty was not only safe but growing in power and credit ; which, if he forsook the law, would all fall retrograde and scarce ever be recovered. His majesty had good hold and ought to make his station firm. And as this was his lordship's endeavour, so it was his pleasure to see the crown reco- vered from all troubles and hazards brought over it by faction, that had no advantage at all against the king but what flowed from their affected surmises to the people, that his majesty leaned to popery, affected arbitrary power, and, for aiding these designs, allied with the French. The false steps of the court by improvident war and its certain train, necessity, and then undue means for money, courting Papists and Fanatics by indulgences against the law and the like, gave handles which the Fanatics (though acces- sary in procuring the indulgences) improved to the king's prejudice in his affairs ; and that even till they thought his credit and authority almost sunk. But in the rage of those times, when plots like serpents from corruption bred out of iniquity , the king saw his danger and with the help of a faithful ministry in which his lordship had no mean part, and a resolution to let the laws have their course, recovered his state and, about the time when his lordship received the great seal, had suppressed all the forces of his FEARS FOR THE FUTURE. 319 factious enemies and reduced them to utter silence in corners where they were very glad to be covered in safety. 364. As this was his lordship's greatest pleasure so the sequel brought over him a bitter portion of melancholy reflections. For he saw immense troubles a great way off, and, nearer hand, not a little of cloudy prognostic at court : for not only the Papists, but vain projectors of change and flatterers of power, esteeming the king's authority then safe and inexpugnable, began a new game by endeavouring to bring the king off from the sound measures of his faithful ministry. His lordship was the last that stuck firm to him and kept himself from being tainted, with courtship of the succession, by any compliances in matters of religion and undue attempts against law. But on the other side, much endeavour was used to get such a rock of offence, as he was, out of the way ; and that was a fruit expected to fall from the reform of the cabinet, as I men- tioned before, and by pushing extravagant things towards his lordship, one way or other to break him. But his credit (as I said) was such with the king that no court tricks would fasten to his prejudice ; but his majesty sup- ported him, not only in authority but in honour, all his life and would not bear any indecent reflections against either. And his lordship had also the comfort to perceive what few people, even of the court projectors themselves, discerned ; which was that the king grew weary of his Sunderlands, Jeffries's, and other (more latent) operators of the new model ; and that if his majesty had lived six months longer, probably he had removed them ; for he found his affairs move untowardly, and faction, in fresh hopes of a new game, began to be busy and to cast sheep's eyes (as they say) towards elections, in order to corrupt the next parliament, and, if that had happened, it had been scarce possible for the king to have held fast the then geueral good opinion which the people had of his royal intentions and government ; which being well taken care of and preserved had certainly procured him a good par- liament : and then, and not otherwise, all had been well. And accordingly, as there was a necessity of calling a par- liament soon, his lordship often put his majesty in mind of that and to have a care that no unpopular steps might 320 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. corrupt the next elections. As to Jeffries, he began to smell a rat and warped towards mutiny that he was not rewarded enough ; as if he thought of turning into the malcontent party. These are the main lines of his lord- ship's ministry as to politics ; which will be verified by the just history of King Charles II. and (if no better appear) in the Examen, together with some particular matters I shall mention in the course of this relation. 365. His lordship's method of living with respect to his great employment, was very commendable: for all his time was devoted to the business incumbent upon him. He put but very little of it to his own use ; and what passed in easy conversation, which was the chief of his plea- sures, had still a regard to his employ, by enquiring, can- vassing, and debating with those of his society, such points as concerned the republic. He had no kind of vice or immorality within his walls : and of what sort his remis- sions were (for some are necessary to life) I shall give a fuller account afterwards. But it is decent here to name the chief ; which was a solitary, or rather speculative, use of music ; of which he commonly took a relish at his going to bed ; for which end he had an harpsichord at his bed- chamber-door which a friend touched to his voice. But he cared not for a set of masters to consort it with him. And unless it were once under Purcell's 1 conduct, I never knew him use such ; for there was somewhat stiff in that way that was not easy. The mornings were for the most part devoted to the justice -seat of the Chancery, either in the court at Westminster or in the cause-room at home, during the usual periods ; and not seldom in attendances upon petitions and dispatching the perpetual emergencies of the seal. His house was kept in state and plenty though not so polite as the court mode was. The nobility and chief gentry coming to London were frequent at his table ; and, after a solemn service of tea in a withdrawing- room, the company usually left him ; and then the cause- room claimed him and held him in pain with causes and exceptions often till late. He had little time to him- ' Henry Purcell, the celebrated musician and author of Orpheus Britannicus, ob. 1695. MANNER OF LIFE WHILE KEEPER. 321 self ; for he had this infirmity that he could not bear to make any one wait ; but if his servant told him of any person, great or small, that waited without, he could not apply to think of or do any thing till he had dispatched him. The interval between the business of the day and going to bed was his chief refreshment ; for then his most familiar friends came to him and the time passed merrily enough. And there it was that the court spies found access to plumb his most free sentiments ; but with small profit, for he had the same face and profession in public as he had in private. They could discover only that he was an honest man : but more of this elsewhere. His atten- dances at Whitehall were chiefly at solemn times ; as on Sunday morning, to wait on the king to chapel. That was usually a grand assembly of the court ; and the great men had opportunity to speak in discourse to the king as he gave them occasion, of which his majesty was no niggard ; and very excellent things said there on the one side and on the other were a high regale to such as had the advantage to stand within hearing. On the week days, those called council days, always, and sometimes committees of council, required his lordship's attendance; and Thursday was always public : others for private business upon summons. His lordship managed at the council table ; though there was a lord president who regularly should take up that part. But it doth not always happen that great men, posted there, have the art of examining into and deve- loping intricate matters as are commonly brought to hearing. When the king was at Windsor, the public council was commonly held at Hampton-Court; which was for the ease of attendance. His lordship had a lodging both at Whitehall and Hampton-Court to retire to upon these occasions. The cabinet council usually sat on Sunday evening ; and when the court was at Windsor, that was always a travelling day and a lodging was pro- vided for his lordship in the dean's house. His lordship was necessitated to be a courtier, although he had no step of a court nor delighted at all in such an assemblage of eyes and ears always open to caption. He never flattered any man ; unless giving no offence which he extended even to his enemies may be accounted flattery. He liked Y 322 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. never the beginning nor end of a fray while it was such. And this made the great judges of the circle agree he might be a good lawyer but they were sure he was no cour- tier. He listed in no party or interest but the king's ; and neither had nor cared for friends who were enemies to his majesty and his government. And on that side only he lay open ; for it was possible, and many did come near to a confidence with him by pretending great services in an orthodox way to his majesty ; though at the same time enemies to both. I could name some, but for respect to their ashes (which are much more worthy than ever their persons were) I forbear them. If there was any incident upon which his lordship thought fit to take the king's pleasure from his own mouth, or if he had any thing to acquaint his majesty with that required privacy, his lord- ship's way was to go to court express and choose the fittest times when he thought the king would be least engaged, that he might have more ample discourse. And, com- monly he went directly to the bed-chamber, and there sat him down. There was always, in that part of the court, attendants who straight found where the king was and told him my lord keeper was there, and the king, knowing he had somewhat to say to him, never failed to come to him and that without any delay. Which I have heard his lordship speak of as a very gracious respect towards him ; enough to have obliged him, if possible, more to his ser- vice. King Charles was one that passed much of his time in discoursing, and used to do it freely with his lordship when alone together; by which his lordship picked up some fragments of history many of which are inserted in the Examen ; and somewhat of King James's too but not so much. This is the short account of his lordship's course of life with respect to his great office and ministry, that I am capable to give. And I think I have not can- toned much from the places intended express for particu- larities of this nature. So I proceed to such affairs as more especially concerned his lordship. 366. It was touched before that the Lord Chief Justice Jeffries was brought forwards and buoyed up by the adverse party of the court, on purpose to ruffle my lord keeper and, by such ways and means as they might lay SIR HENRY BEDINGFELD. 323 hold of or invent, to have him out : in order to which, affronts, disappointments, false stories, and calumnies were, for such attacks, a choice artillery. And that point being once gained, it was presumed that the Lord Chief Justice Jeffries, one ready to do all that was required of him, should succeed. Among other opportunities of this kind, some related to the law in the appointments of judges into vacancies; and in those affairs of common course, the lord keeper is consulted and hath the nomina- tion to the king, of fit persons to be trusted as judges. There was one Serjeant Bedingfeld, a grave but rather heavy lawyer, but a good churchman and loyal by prin- ciple. 1 His lordship had cast his eye upon him and in- tended to nominate him to the king for supplying a place in one of the benches then vacant, but thought fit first to speak with him. Being sent for he came and was told what was designed for him. He was exceeding grateful in ac- knowledgments of so great a favour and honour done him by his lordship, in thinking of him without his seeking ; and said he should ever own his preferment, as long as he lived, to his lordship and to no other person whatever. All which was well. This serjeant had a brother, a woollen- draper in London, who was a creature and companion of the Lord Jeffries. That chief, understanding some way that his friend's brother was to be a judge by the lord keeper's means, sent for the draper and told him plainly, that, if his brother would not take the judge's place as of his provision and interest and not my lord keeper's ; or if he so much as went to the lord keeper on such an account, he would oppose him and he should not be a judge at all. After this, the poor serjeant, against his desire was forced to conform ; his spirits were not formed for the heroics, and, accordingly to sacrifice the interest of himself and his brother to gratitude. His lordship finding how the wind 1 This was Henry Bedingfeld, fourth son of John Bedingfeld of Halesworth, co. Suffolk, and nephew of Sir Thomas Bedingfeld of Dunham Hall, who refused to act as a Judge of the Common Pleas (to which post he had been appointed by a vote of both houses in 1648) after the decapitation of Charles L The Hmri/ Bedingfeld of the text was not appointed a Judge till 13th February, 1086, and died suddenly in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, 6th February, 1687. 324 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. sat, dispensed with the man's infirmity although he never came at him ; and so by common consent he was made a judge. In this instance we may discern the extremes of impertinent arrogance and true worth. 367. Another instance of the like impertinence was acted in the making Sir Kobert Wright a judge. He was of a good family settled near Thetford in Suffolk and, when he was young, he married one of the daughters of Dr. Wren, Bishop of Ely. He came up in his practice together with his lordship ; and they went the Norfolk circuit together. Wright had more business for many circuits than his lord- ship had. He was a comely person, airy and flourishing, both in his habits and way of living; and his relation Wren (being a powerful man in those parts) set him in credit in the country : but withal, he was so poor a lawyer that he could not give an opinion on a written case, but used to bring such cases as came to him to his friend Mr. North, and he wrote the opinion on a paper, and the lawyer copied it and signed under the case as if it had been his own. It ran so low with him that, when Mr. North was at London, he sent up his cases to him and had opinions returned by the post ; and, in the mean time, he put off his clients upon pretence of taking more serious consideration. One cannot conceive that this man could get much by the law, nor did he ; but by favour he was made treasurer to the chest at Chatham and by his volup- tuous unthinking course of life he ran id debt, and used frequently to ease himself upon his friend North, by bor- rowing money at times. The debt at length grew so con- siderable, that his lordship thought fit to pay off his other debts and take in the mortgage of his estate, which he held charged with <£1,500. Afterwards, and not many years before he put in for a judge's place, he borrowed of Sir Walter Plummer =£500 upon an original mortgage of the same estate and made an affidavit that it was clear from all incumbrances. Which affidavit Sir Walter Plum- mer afterwards brought to his lordship, even while the mortgage was in his hands ; which amazed him ; but he took his money and assigned to Sir Walter Plummer. One would think that this was a competent knowledge of that man's character. But he, being upon the brink of utter SIR ROBERT WRIGHT. 325 ruin, applied to Jeffries to rescue him by getting him made a judge. When the time came and his lordship was with the king consulting about a fit person, the king said, "My lord, what think you of Serjeant Wright? Why may not he be the man ? " His lordship answered that " he knew him but too well and was satisfied he was the most unfit person in England to be made a judge." " Then," said the king, " it must not be ;" and so it went off at that time. But Wright still, by his friend Jeffries, pushed his point ; and in the interim, worked all he could by most importunate applications and bitter tears, (but for no other reason than that, " if he failed now he was utterly ruined") to gain his lordship to yield that he might be a judge : but to no purpose ; his lordship was inflexible : and though he wished the poor man well upon account of old acquain- tance, he would not gratify him at the cost of his own breach of duty, or rather, in that respect, perjury. The king took his time more than once to speak to his lord keeper, saying, as before, " Why may not Wright be a judge?" And at last, "Is it impossible, my lord?" his lordship seeing the king's pangs, (for it was plain that this man, by the secret court clan, was determined to be preferred ; for he was a creature of Jeffries' s, and a tool that would do any thing ; and they wanted only the for- mality of my lord keeper's concurrence to whom the king positively would have a due respect paid) took the freedom to say that the making a judge was his majesty's pleasure and not his choice ; that he was bound to put the seal as he commanded whatever the person was ; for of that, his ma- jesty was to judge and finally determine. He could but do his duty by informing of his majesty of what he knew to be true ; and particularly of this man whom he per- sonally knew to be a dunce and no lawyer ; not worth a groat having spent his estate by debauched living ; of no truth nor honesty, but guilty of wilful perjury to gain the borrowing of a sum of money : and then he opened more at large the matter of the affidavit. "And now," said the lord keeper, " I have done my duty to your majesty and am ready to obey your majesty's commands in case it be your pleasure that this man shall be a judge." 44 My lord," said the king, "I thank you;" and went 326 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. away; and, soon after, the warrant came, and he was instated. 368. Here was, underhand, a court experiment made whether of the two had the greater power with the king ; the lord keeper or the lord chief justice. There was also the vanity of the latter, of which I shall give demonstra- tion. But his lordship was above making contests of that nature. If he had took pet and made a public feud, as most of his enemies expected and also that he would not have endured that the chief justice should tread on his heels at that rate, he might have flown high in expostula- tions and made somewhat crack, before such time as the king (whose judgment of men was great) would have parted with the best minister in the law that the nation afforded, not knowing where to get another so faithful as well as able and willing, truly to serve him. But, as I said, his lordship was above personal competitions and satisfied himself in having done his duty, with which the making flagrant disputes at court and embroiling the king's affairs did little consist ; and some grandee also lay behind the curtain of whose concern his lordship was tender. But now, to show the effects of upstart court vanity, I must here subjoin a passage acted in Westminster-hall. It is the custom of the chief justice and his brethren of the King's Bench, in the morning to robe themselves at a bar below in the hall, before they go up to the court. This is called the side bar; and there they hear the attorneys wrangle about matters of practice. It stands just before the chancery court and in full view of the lord keeper as he sits upon the bench ; and the chancery useth to sit long before the judges of the King's Bench come to the hall. After this point of Wright's being a judge or no was de- termined at Whitehall as I related, the lord chief justice at his side bar seeing Serjeant Wright walking in the hall, extended his arm and beckoned him ; and straight, with all the humility and crouching imaginable, the serjeant hasted to him. And then the chief justice only leaned over the bar and compassed the Serjeant's shoulders in his arms and, after a whisper in his ear, flung him off from him, holding out his arms some short time in that posture. This was a public declaration that, " in spite of that man APOLOGY FOR THESE MINUTIAE. 327 above there," Wright should be a judge. His lordship saw all this, as it was intended he should, and it caused him some melancholy ; though not at all as concerning himself or the vanity of the chief justice; but for the nature of the affair and the manner of its proceeding; which he foresaw would have worse turns if so done, as was like to be, in other affairs of larger denominations. 369. I know that many will be apt to inquire how I came to know so particularly these court-dialogues, tete a tete, between the king and his minister. I can readily answer, by means lawful enough ; as also for more of like nature in the course of this relation ; and those who observed my course of life and conversation could make no doubt by what means. Some may also allege that I bring forward circumstances too minute, the greater part of which might be dropped and the relation be more material, and being less incumbered, easier understood and retained. I grant much of that to be true ; but I fancy myself a picture- drawer and aiming to give the same image to a spectator as I have of the thing itself which I desire should here be represented. As, for instance a tree, in the picture whereof the leaves and minor branches are very small and confused, and give the artist more pain to describe than the solid trunk and greater branches. But if these small things were left out it would make but a sorry picture of a tree. History is as it were, the portrait or lineament and not a bare index or catalogue of things done ; and without the how and the why all history is jejune and unprofitable. 370. There was an odd passage at the council-board, which, for its affinity to what is passed, shall be super- added. The justices of the peace about Stepney and Wapping, had great differences one with another which embroiled the very sessions and hindered the proceeding of the ordinary business of that court. One Smith headed one party, and one Baily another. These two used always to fall foul on one another in public with injurious reflec- tions : and the matter ran so high between them two, that it came before the king and there was a hearing before the council. His lordship saw no reason why the king should be troubled with such squabbles ; but if either had received injury he might right himself by the common course of law. 328 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. The lord chief justice, it seems, had taken the patronage of one of the parties, I think it was Smith ; and being naming drunk, came up to the other end of the board and (as in that condition his way was) fell to talking and staring like a madman, and at length bitterly inveighed against Trimmers and told the king that he had Trimmers in his court and he would never be easy so long as the Trimmers were there. When he had done, the lord keeper, knowing these darts were intended towards him, stood up and said only, "that he did not apprehend there was so much concern in this business; and my lord chief jus- tice appearing so well informed of it, he moved that his majesty would refer the whole to be examined into by his lordship, and that the parties attend him ; and then his lordship making a report of the whole controversy to his majesty in council, he might thereupon order as he should think fit." The parties being thus referred to the chief justice, the scandal continued; but in the end it was so ordered that Baily (as I take it) was undone. I suppose I need not here use many words to interpret the word Trimmer, which was taken up to subdivide the Tory party, of whom all (however loyal and of the established church professed) that did not go into all the lengths of the new high-flown party at court, were so termed. I can place under this passage no better corollary than that all times have their crisis in authority ; and no indecencies are so great but some will bear them. 371. His lordship always declined giving any opinion in that branch of royal economy, called foreign affairs. He could not avoid being in the way of the ordinary delibera- tions of that kind, by reason of his attendance on the usual councils. And although he was for the most part at the committees of the privy council, as for trade and planta- tions, &c. which might be called English business, he never cared to attend at the committee for foreign affairs. He professed himself, for want of a fit education and study, incompetent to judge at all of those matters. I have heard him say that of all the subjects that he had ever come in the way of to hear debated, he could least bring himself into a satisfactory resolution concerning foreign affairs, even when he was present at councils of that sort; and FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 329 then no wonder he declined giving any judgment there- upon. But yet he hath often ventured so far among his friends, as to declare that he thought King Charles II. understood foreign affairs better than all his councils and counsellors put together ; for, by reason of his unhappy exile and travels, he had either a personal acquaintance with most eminent statesmen in Europe ; or else, from such as could instruct, received their characters on whom the crisis of most courts depended. And this knowledge he perpetually improved by conversing with foreigners as they came over, men of quality and ambassadors, whom he would sift, as being a good judge of their veracity, and serve him- self one way or other of their conversation, and possibly drunk as well as sober. And when they thought to sift him who, to give him his due, was but too open, he failed not to make his best of them. It was his lordship's fortune to clear the doubt of a Turkish war contrary to the opinion of all the foreign ministers, by the means of his brother Sir Dudley North, whom for that end he caused to attend the king in council ; but this passage hath been accounted for in the Examen. 1 I might touch here upon an unhappy difference that fell out between the Earl of Halifax and the Lord Rochester, about the bargain made with the farmers of the excise, which quarrel his lordship had some small share in ; but as Sir Dudley was the chief actor therein, I shall leave it to its proper place in that gentleman's life. 2 372. His lordship took notice that the king, having had some aguish attacks at Windsor, appeared to be more con- siderative and grew more sensible of the niceties of state government than he had been before, especially relating to the treasury. He found that to be his sheet-anchor ; for the parliament would not always be in a giving humour ; and the less if he could not subsist without their help ; for that animated his enemies by giving hopes that his necessities would at length reduce him to the state of carte blanche. He used to be often present at the treasury, and saw the estimates and dispositions of his ministers in that office, 1 Examen, p. 462, et seq. 2 For a full account of this transaction, see Sir John Rercsby's Memoirs, p. 150, et seq. j Burnet's Own Time, vol. ii. p. 920 ; and the Life of Sir Dudley North. 330 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. and what hands were capable to supply what he had seriously in his mind to perform ; and particularly the providing for his natural children, and building the new house at Winchester which he thought to be a better air than Windsor. And reason good ; for the latter stands on a sharp cliff respecting the north, where all the air of the valley from that quarter pinches upon the castle, as water entering at the great end of a hunting horn passeth through at the lesser end with much more violence and swiftness. His majesty was very much concerned and impatient to have this new building finished, saying, " a year was a great time in his life." And so truly it proved ; and the more unhappy because now he was past the gaieties and pleasures to which he had been furiously addicted, and which had almost disabled him as to government. Such supine errors and neglects had he been guilty of ; and with- out a singular penetration and good judgment of men and things, which he was egregiously master of and at fit times exerted, he had been, as his father was, lost. Nay, pro- bably, if his father's example had not been flagrant before his eyes and if, of the two, it had been his chance to have been the earlier subject of the factious practice and thereby, as his father was, surprised into a fond way of trusting persons, in all probability his majesty had not escaped so well as he did. But now he was so timely instructed and also by experience capacitated and, withal, very good- natured and beloved that, had he lived long, his reign had been the most happy and glorious that the English histories could boast of. And whereas some of our barbarous writers call this awaking of the king's genius to a sedulity in his affairs, a growing cruel, 1 because some suffered for notorious treasons, I must interpret their meaning ; which is a dis- taste, because his majesty was not pleased to be undone as his father was ; and accordingly, since they failed to wound his person and authority, they fell to wounding his honour. But more of this in the Examen. 373. I am now come to that most funest alteration of 1 " He had," says Burnet, " an appearance of gentleness in his out- ward deportment, but he seemed to have no bowels or tenderness in his nature, and in the end of his life, he became cruel." {Own Time, vol. ii. p. 1052.) DEATH OF CHARLES II. 331 affairs by the king's sickness and death ; of which I shall mention only what took in his lordship and his ministry, leaving the history more at large to the Examen. The attack was at the levee, when the room was full and phy- sicians in waiting; and then the king fell back in his chair ; with some exclamation as one that dies suddenly. The physician straight blooded him in the arm and he recovered a little life and sense, and so was conveyed to his bed where he languished about a week and then expired. The privy council sat almost continually in the next room, and the physicians passed to and fro, as occasion required, to give them satisfaction of the king's case and their methods. His lordship never came from the council but in a pro- found melancholy ; for from the beginning he saw no hopes of his life to continue long. He told us that, observing the discourse of the doctors to run all upon indefinites, what they observed, their method intended and success hoped and the like, he said to them, 44 That these matters were little satisfaction to the council unless they would declare in the main, what they judged of the king's case ; whether his majesty was like to recover or not." But they would never be brought to that ; all lay in hopes. But one day they came into the council, and had such cheerful countenances that their lordships thought some good news was at hand. The business was to acquaint their lordships that now all was like to be well, for the king had a fever. At this his lordship started, and 44 Gentlemen," said he, 44 what do you mean ? Can any thing be worse P " One answered that 44 now they knew what to do." 44 And what is that ? " replied his lordship. The doctor said, 44 To give him the cortex." And so they proceeded whilst life lasted. I am not to enter into all the fatal circumstances and libel- lous reports ventilated abroad upon this dismal incident : but shall touch one, which was that the king's sickness was the effect of poison to make way for the succession. There are many reasons against this to be found in the Examen, 1 and therefore shall mention here only what I observed of his lordship which weighs with me as much as any tiling ; and that is his lordship's never suspecting or mentioning 1 See Examen, p. 648. 332 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. such a thing ; as he would have done had there been reason. And if any person about the king, on the Protestant side, had in the least suspected such foul play his lordship would have had an intimation of it ; which I believe he never had ; nor did it enter into his thoughts no more than it appeared in his discourse. But with the death of this good master and sovereign, all his lordship's joys and hopes perished ; and the rest of his life, which lasted not long after, was but a slow dying. 374. It pleased G-od that the temper of the nation was at this time so universally settled in loyalty (saving only the very dregs of a malevolent party) that there was no appre- hension of any disorder either during the king's sickness or after his demise ; but, on the contrary, almost every living soul cried before and at his decease as for the loss of the best friend in the world. The remembrance of which, other notices apart, makes it wonderful to me that have lived into succeeding times, to hear this good king's reign referred to as a touchstone of tyranny. But no more of that. The next work was for the council and great men in and about London to meet and order the proclamation of the successor King James II. which was done the same day ; and then all the great officers waited upon his majesty and rendered their several offices and charges into his majesty's hands, and he returned them back to them again. After this, the procla- mation issued to continue all country commissions and authorities whatsoever till farther orders should be taken ; and so in a few hours the government was upon wheels again without any concussion at all ; which succeeded according to the known law of the English monarchy, viz. that the king never dies ; whereof the virtue may be sensible to those who have felt a republic. I remember his lordship told us that a great man of the new court, in a bantering way attacked him ; and " What is the reason," said he, " that you lawyers say the king never dies and we are now considering how to order the king's funeral? " His lordship answered quick "that, bylaw, it was not the death but de- mise of the king." Which, by the way, was a law banter back upon him ; and so fools are often answered in their folly. How necessary it is for a courtier to be expert at repartee I may show by one instance. After this demise of DIFFICULTIES ABOUT LIFE REVENUES. 338 the king and the duke's accession to the throne, the Lord Rochester bore the greatest sway in the court and treasury. His lordship and that lord were once consulting about measures to be taken in preferring men to places of trust and management in offices under the crown : and his lord- ship was for taking in those who had been bred in the business and had gone through the servile part of the offices and were gradually come up to the station of directing others, as most like to serve profitably; for none could understand the business better than they. The Lord Rochester was for preferring Tories and High Fliers, whom he called the king's friends, for encouragement of others ; and " G — ds w ds, my lord," said he, " do you not think I could understand any business in England in a month?" " Yes, my lord," answered the lord keeper, "but I believe you would understand it much better in two months ; " which made a full close of the argument. 375. After this happy inauguration of the govern ment, the first great matter that came forward to be wisely de- termined by his majesty's council and ministry, was to settle the collection of the tonnage and poundage and other duties given by parliament only for the life of King Charles II. and by his demise, in all legal sense, deter- mined : about which the difficulties seemed almost insuper- able. The valuable merchants of London came to the commissioners of the customs, and entreated of them that the customs might be gathered as formerly. M Otherwise we," said they, " that have great stocks in our warehouses for which we have paid custom, are undone ; for the unfair traders and runners, and such as come in before the duties are recharged, will undersell us, as they well may paying no custom. There is no doubt but the parliament will give the customs for the whole time ; and why should they not be collected in the mean time ? " The commissioners were careful not to do a thing, however reasonable, so ob- noxious as that was; for the levying money of the subject without any law to warrant it, was a case utterly defence- less in parliament ; and they would not stand in the gap to be buffeted in case any members should stir up a charge upon them for so doing. Therefore, designing to disengage the thorn and fix it in the foot of their superiors, they 334 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. attended the treasury in a body and made a representation of the request of the citizens, their reasons and the un- doubted ill consequences to the king and people if the revenue of the customs was not collected, and prayed their lordships' directions how they should behave themselves in the matter. There sat Lord G-odolphin, Sir Dudley North, and other judicious persons commissioners. They saw the intent of these gentlemen, which was to screen themselves by their order ; wherefore, calling them in, they told them that they were his majesty's commissioners for collecting the customs and had all the laws touching the revenue before them ; which laws they would do well to peruse carefully and govern themselves accordingly ; and that was all the answer they could give them. This was cold com- fort ; but soon after, the business pressing, the king laid it before the council and demanded their advice what would be the best method for managing this affair. The Lord Chief Justice Jeffries moved that his majesty should cause his royal proclamation to issue, commanding all officers to collect and the subjects to pay the revenue as formerly. My Lord Keeper North was not of opinion that to issue such a proclamation, at this time, would be for the king's service ; because it would have the worst turn that such an affair could take ; that is, giving a direct handle to his majesty's enemies to say, that his majesty at the very entrance upon his government levied money of the subject without act of parliament. There was no doubt but the parliament would renew the act as full as before ; and if the collection might be carried on without such miscon- struction, it were better. Therefore he proposed that the proclamation should require the duties to be collected and paid into the Exchequer, and that the officers of the Ex- chequer should keep the product returned, safe and apart from other revenues, until the next session of parliament, in order to be disposed of according as his majesty and the two houses should think fit. One would have believed this expedient plausible enough and calculated to obviate the ill use a repullulescent faction might make, if the other way was taken. But it seems, this was too low and trimming for the state of the court at that time, and a positive pro- clamation issued. The temper of the public was, then, so THE NEW PARLIAMENT. 335 propitious to the crown, that almost any thing would be borne with which in other times would have raised a flame. All which was owing to the recovery in the predecessor's times, which, as a force impressed, carried the humour deep into the next reign ; though the moving cause was in great measure lost out of men's minds. Thus was the grand revenue, by law precarious, put into a way of being collected and answered by virtue of a direct proclamation. 376. The next great incident was the summoning a parliament ; and accordingly writs issued returnable Feb. 1684-5. All people interested themselves one way or other to procure, or disappoint, elections : and the court was not idle ; his lordship got as many of his friends and relations to be chosen as he could ; in which, besides his own influ- ences, he had the nomination to some of the king's boroughs. Those who came in by his recommendation, were for the most part gentlemen of honour and estates as well as credit in their countries ; such as Sir Henry North, 1 and Sir G-eorge Winieve in Suffolk ; Mr. Robert Foley, and others I might name whose memories are resj>ected, in their countries at this very day. And to make the attendance easy to these gentlemen whose concerns were in the country, he took divers of them to rack and manger in his family, where they were entertained while the parliament sat. His lordship's design was to have the parliament truly church of England Protestants, and loyal to the crown ; which character he thought aptest to establish the religion and laws of the kingdom, and to resist all attempts of altering any of our fundamentals in church and state. And he was happy in not seeing it dissolved ; for he died before that happened. It may be his wisdom and foresight might have prevented that fatal stroke. But that was not to be accounted the only state error which his death made way for; since it is well known how precipitously they flowed in one after another as soon as he was gone. How far his lordship concerned himself to keep the king in a way of using parliaments and for the preserving this, with his reasons, will be shown in a proper place. His principles and resolutions, firm to the national establishment, were so 1 Of Mildenhall in Suffolk, ob. July 6, 1695. 336 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. well known at court that he was not trusted in any impor- tant step that was made. He considered well, that, at the meeting of this parliament it was his office, and had been formerly the usage of the great seal to declare at large the cause of calling, and the king's pleasure to the parliament ; and he had framed a speech 1 to be made at the opening, and calculated it to the happy genius of the assembly as he understood it, tending all to a continuation of settlement 1 [For the entire justification of his lordship, and in order to demon- strate the sincerity and uprightness of his intentions, I have thought fit to subjoin the speech itself as it was found among his papers. It is as follows : A speech prepared for opening the parliament 1 Jac. II. in case the king had commanded it, and had not taken the whole upon himself. My lords and gentlemen, The causes of summoning every parliament, expressed in his majesty's writs, are certain. The writs by which you are called to attend his majesty for the holding this parliament, express the cause of summons in the usual manner for certain weighty and urgent affairs concerning the king and state, and the defence of his kingdom and the church of England. If at any time there arise weighty affairs and if at any time they are urgent, it is at the entrance of a king upon his government. For that is the time upon which both king and people make a judgment of their condition. If the beginnings prove auspicious, they give assurance of a serene and happy reign. It hath pleased Almighty God hitherto to bless his majesty with prosperity. His accession to the throne was calm and peaceable, not- withstanding all the former threats of faction ; and the people have not only submitted to him according to their duty, but with great zeal given early demonstration of their affection, by waiting upon him from all parts with addresses and congratulations ; and none have departed without entire satisfaction by those gracious expressions of his goodness, which his majesty was pleased to make them. The coronation was solemnized with an universal joy and acclamation, and had the most numerous and splendid attendance of the nobility that any age hath seen. Nothing can equal the lustre of it but the solemnizing of this day, when it is truly said the king is seated most high in his estate royal, being attended by his three estates, whose advice and assistance makes him the greatest prince in Europe. And this day is no less auspicious by the appearance of so many persons of eminent and constant loyalty who have, in all times of diffi- culty, given abundant testimony that they can never fail the service of the crown. May the good omens be continued to his majesty, not only in this SPEECH PREPARED FOR THE OPENING. 337 of peace and resistance of innovation. In which speech he had employed more of oratory than I ever saw in any thing he had on any other occasion performed. He showed ns this speech, being what he was minded to say ; bnt withal, happy meeting between him and his people but through the whole course of his reign, to make him the greatest and happiest of princes. If we look back a few years and consider to what distress the crown was brought by the power and insolence of faction, which was grown to that formidable height that it had almost taken possession of the govern- ment, had overspread the kingdom, and by its false arts, and the activity of its emissaries, prevailed, not only in the choice of magistrates, but to bring the most violent of their party into the House of Commons, whereby to render parliaments, the most tirm and powerful support of the crown, useless. It was hardly safe to speak in defence of the king whilst treason was talked in the streets and the faction openly provided arms and every day threatened rebellion. I say, when we look back upon the dark face of those times, and con- sider the change that hath been wrought in these few years, we must attribute the felicities of this day to the providence of God Almighty, who stilleth the raging of the sea and changeth the hearts of men. It must be acknowledged to be his doing for it is marvellous in our eyes. It is he, and he only, that could bring such a sudden confusion and desertion upon the king's enemies by his signal providence in discover- ing their infernal designs of assassination, massacres, and rebellion ; whereby all good men were brought to an utter detestation and abhor- rence of them. When we were newly delivered from this danger it pleased God to deject us by a more sad calamity, in the sudden sickness and death of our late gracious sovereign, under whose merciful reign we had lived in a most happy condition, and upon whose life our peace seemed to depend the faction having openly threatened to fly to arms against his rightful heir. But it pleased God quickly to dispel our grief, and to raise our droop- ing spirits, by showing us the same excellencies, the same princely virtues in our most gracious sovereign, and all the assurance our hearts could desire of an happy government. And at the same time to dispirit the king's enemies, who had mali- ciously represented the prospect of his reign in the most odious manner they could devise, as a scene of cruelty and all the evils imaginable, so that they saw it in vain to take up their former pretences of being patriots, they thought it more safe to lie hid, knowing themselves odious to the people whom they had so abused by their abominable lies in traducing the best of princes. Their disappointment, their disgrace, their confusion, will be no small part of their punishment ; and may they go on daily from one degree of despair to another. Let them burst with envy to see this happy day, z 338 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. declared he would not utter a syllable of which he had not the king's allowance at the cabinet council. But the policy of the court was such that all this proved labour in vain. He was not trusted to speak to the parliament, but the king this happy meeting of the king and his people. Let them see all the mutual endearments that can pass between a most indulgent father of his country, and a most loyal parliament. His majesty hath this day already done his part towards it by his gracious expressions of so much tenderness for his subjects, so much care of those things that are most dear to them, their religion and their laws. And I dare say there will be no failure on your parts to complete this good correspondence, by making a steady and public demonstration of that duty and affection which is in your hearts. You may look upon the gracious promises you but now received from his majesty as concessions made in full parliament, as laws which his majesty hath given himself, which will be more binding and effectual than any that can be proposed to him. Never therefore let our church of England, fear to want support, when he hath said he will defend it. Never let any man entertain the least jealousy of arbitrary government, when his majesty hath declared against it. What suitable return can we make for so much goodness ? Let us give him fresh and powerful instances of our loyalty, that may confirm the good opinion he hath expressed of his church of England. That may make him love parliaments, and redeem that credit which the violence and unreasonableness of the commons have of late impaired. Let us show to all the world that we love our king, that we trust him, that we shall never be wanting to his service. This will deter all un- quiet spirits at home from troubling our peace, and will give his majesty that reputation in foreign parts, that will make him arbiter of the affairs of Christendom ; an honour the people of England always desired their princes should have. My lords and gentlemen, The summer advanceth so fast, that you may be in some pain to think that you cannot have time to bring to perfection those things which may be needful, and you should do for the king's service. I would therefore recommend to you to take up those things which are most plain and easy of dispatch, which is to look into those laws which are expired of late ; laws ready drawn, already put in practice, (it will be a short work,) such of them as you have found useful. But your first and chief care ought to be of those laws which concern the king's revenue ; by the continuance whereof, you will establish him in the same condition with the late king, in whose throne it has pleased God to place him. There are other laws expired which were of public consideration for maintaining the peace, and suppressing sedition, which will deserve your REVENUE MATTERS. 339 took it all upon himself ; and he made his own speech ; at least the lord keeper had no hand in it. For he was not so much as consulted about either the matter or expres- sions the king intended to use ; as one may well judge by the unguarded tenor of it. The private consult knew that his lordship could not forebear commending and recom- mending what of the constitution they designed to alter. 377. When the parliament was met and qualified to do any business, all the revenue matters were dispatched to the king's content, and a supply was given of a half -penny per pound upon tobacco and a farthing upon sugars ; very small with respect to what hath been given since ; but it made a greater stir and had more opposition in parliament than any later revenue or supply bill ever had ; and, upon voting the supply and charging it so to be levied, it was cried out upon as if it had been a surrender of liberty and property. " For," said some, " we shall enable the king to raise and pay an army to enslave us : doth he not talk of his armies in his speech ? " And the merchants, who for the most part chimed in with those opposers, declared the trade would be clogged and ruined. The grocers declared they would throw up and not deal in those commodities : particular regard. Though, God be thanked, faction is now low, and out of countenance, we must not despise it so as to neglect to make whole- some provisions against it. We may be sure it will begin to creep again upon the least warmth, and will lose no opportunity of troubling our peace. We ought therefore to keep a watchful eye over it. And above all things, we ought to be careful that it gain no footing within these walls, by creating divisions amongst us, or reviving that absurd distinction between the court and the country party ; as if the king's and his people's true interest were not the same. Let it be always a maxim in parliament, that what is given for the support of the king and his government, is bestowed for the people's benefit ; and that proposing laws for the convenience of the people, is a service to the crown. And therefore you may assure yourselves that what bills you shall prepare and tender to his majesty for the advance- ment of trade, the easy and speedy administration of justice, detecting frauds, suppressing enormous crimes, or any other matters that conduce to the happiness or ease of the king's subjects, will receive a most gracious answer. For it will always be the interest of the king, that his subjects should live happily ; and the greatness and prosperity of the king will always be the safety and satisfaction of the people. I have it farther in command, &e.j 340 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. insomuch that my Lord Eochester was frighted and was inclined to fall off from this, and to busk for some other way to raise the supply. It seems that, to answer these clamours, the tax was so qualified that it must needs lie upon the inland consumption only and not affect the ex- portation ; and for that end, a drawback of the duty was given upon all tobacco and sugars exported. This did not satisfy ; and the traders clamoured no grain the less ; and when men look grave and object, though without reason, folks are apt to think them in earnest. On the other side, Sir Dudley North, a commissioner of the treasury, who managed for the king in the House of Commons, and other intelligent merchants, told the Lord Rochester that all this noise was knavery and there was nothing in it ; and, at a meeting of the grocers at my Lord Rochester's, made it plainly appear to be so ; as will be showed more particularly in the course of that gentleman's life. 378. The first overture of setting up the dispensing power, was in this first sessions of the parliament ; for the word army, in the speech, gave great offence. But what gave more was an attempt to indulge the military officers to act without qualifying themselves according to the test laws. 1 By this attempt in parliament and other more pri- vate prognostics, his lordship perceived a disposition in the interior court, to decline parliaments and rely upon an army 5 for which deliberation they had but too much encouragement by Monmouth's rebellion which broke out during this first session of parliament. The loyal and honest temper of the parliament, appeared in nothing more than in their behaviour in this point. After much debating, they showed a disposition, by a particular law, to qualify any persons the king should in particular nomi- nate to them : But that would not be accepted ; which on the one side was a great oversight, and on the other a great escape ; for the members had incurred no little infamy abroad, by consenting to enact even so much as that was. And as for a general qualification, that is a repeal of the test and penal laws in military cases, it would by no means be agreed to : and upon that point in the end the parlia- 1 See Hallam's Constitutional History, chap. xiv. JEFFRIES IN THE WEST. 341 ment was broke ; as the accounts of the closetting, 1 after- wards make plain. I have no more to relate of this parliament : in which his lordship presided as speaker upon the woolsack, an employ mostly taken up with forms. Only the business of appeals from some of his decrees was fastidious ; because Jeffries affected to let fly at them, as if he would have it thought that he was fitter to be chan- cellor. During this session of parliament Monmouth landed, 2 and all the acts that could be thought of sig- nificant against him were passed ; as attainders, e accounted a carnage and not law or justice : and thereupon, orders went to mitigate the proceeding ; but what effect followed I know not. I am sure of his lord- ship's intercession to the king on this occasion, being told it at the very time by himself. 3 1 The judges were commanded, during their circuits, to ascertain the dispositions of the members of parliament with whom they should happen to meet. (Sir John Reresbt/s Memoirs , p. 239.) ♦ 3 Monmouth landed at Lyme, 11th June, 1685. The battle of Sedg- moor was fought on the 6th July. 3 It has been observed that North is not correct in his statement of this transaction. (See Ralph, vol. i. p. 893, note; and HowelVs State Trials, vol. ii. p. 303.) The lord keeper died, according to Ralph and Collins (vol. iv. p. 342, ed. 1735), on the 5th September, 1685; and this account is corroborated by Roger North (ante, § 4) s and by Evelyn, who, under the head of the 6th September, says, " About six o'clock, came Sir Dudley, and his brother Roger North, and brought the great seal from my lord keeper, who died the day before, at his house in Bed- fordshire. The king went immediately to council ; every body guessing who was most likely to succeed this great officer : most believed it would be no other than my Lord Chief Justice Jeffries, who had so rigorously prosecuted the late rebels, and was now gone the western circuit, to 342 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. 379. At this time, the solemn coronation of the king and queen was promulged ; 1 a committee of council to settle the formulary and a court of claims erected by com- mission ; in which his lordship, as chief, gave the rule. At the former, the Archbishop of Canterbury 2 and his lordship had some difference. The archbishop, as the council thought, spun too fine ; for that was his way ; and he would not abate one scruple of what he thought his duty which made them think he trifled ; and my Lord Halifax said his name should be Sede Vacante. However all ended smooth and well. And here I must introduce a dismal catastrophe ; which was his lordship's sickness and death. All these loads of the death of King Charles II. the managing in order to the coronation and the parlia- ment, and sitting there to hear his decrees most brutishly and effrontuously arraigned, which he must defend with all the criticism and reason as well as temper that he could, by stress of thought muster ; besides the attendances at court and council, where nothing squared with his schemes, and where he was, by Sunderland, Jeffries, and their complices, little less than derided ; to all which the dispatch of the chancery business is to be added, where, for want of time, all run in arrear; which state of the court was always a load upon his spirits : — all this was more than enough to oppress the soul of an honest cordial man ; and I verily believe it did that to his lordship which people mean when they say that " his heart was broke ; 99 punish the rest that were secured in the several counties, and was now near upon his return. 5 ' {Memoirs, vol. i. p. 569.) Roger Coke also expressly says that the lord keeper died " when Jeffries was in his march in the West." (Detection, vol. ii. p. 434.) Now it was not until the beginning of September, that Jeffries (to use the words of Kalph) " hoisted his bloody flag, and made it appear that he resolved to give no quarter." The commission, according to the same author, being opened at Dorchester, whither the bulk of the prisoners had been con- veyed on the 3rd of September, the statement in the text cannot, it should seem, be correct. 1 This coronation was performed with great magnificence [23rd April, 1685]. Burnet tells us that the king was " for some weeks so entirely possessed with preparations for that solemnity, that all busi- ness was laid aside, and nothing but ceremony thought on." (Own Time, vol. iii. p. 107.) 2 Dr. Sancroft, the first of the seven bishops. BEGINNING OF LAST ILLNESS. 343 but I guess that with him it was rather his head than his heart. Some time before the parliament rose, I had notice brought me in the morning that my lord keeper was taken desperately ill. I got ready as soon as I could and, coming into his chamber and to his bed-side, he looked at me and said, " Will you believe I am ill now f 99 I was one that used to rally him upon his fancies as to health, as if he ailed nothing ; and truly, for the most part, I was in the right ; for he was inclined to the splenetic. But now it was plain he was in a very bad case. He was taken in the night with a very bad cold, that obstructed all the passages on one side of his head, and he had very great pains there, and withal a fever. The afternoon before he was not well, but made no show of it. The barber trimmed him and, being uneasy, he thought he never would have done ; and the image in his dream, at the accession, was of the barber's hand patting his cheek with cold water till it was numb. And after he was awake, that thought stuck in his mind and he could never shake it off as long as he lived, which was not above four months after : and he would often inveigh against the barber's impertinence, which he sin- cerely thought gave him his cold. Let all that reflect on non-sanity of mind, observe that it hath its degrees and importances and that corporal inflictions shall impress ideas which shall ever after remain involuntary : if about trivial things they are conceit and fancy ; if important madness. For in the extremity of fatuitous madness there is nothing to be found but the consequences of error and credulity, by what means soever, whether pride, fright, fever, love, &c. impressed at first. But, to return to his lordship, his family physician, Dr. Masters (who was bred under Dr. Willis, and introduced by him) was sent for ; and he ordered phlebotomy and, having directed his diet, expected what turns the distemper would take, and watched him carefully and continually in order to farther prescrip- tion as reason might require. And thus the man might have had fair play for his life ; for who is exempt from fevers ? and it is but some, not all that have them, die. Thus he lay restless, under a burning acute fever without any notable remissions and no intermissions. This dan- gerous sickness of the lord keeper being known about 344 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. town, all the accustomed impertinences of messages and visits were acted, but kept from the sick man to whom they were of small profit. There were some relations, and particularly Sir William Soams 1 a sort of brother-in-law, who were much concerned about his physician ; he was too plain a man and not in top practice and but one : and it was absolutely necessary that some other famed doctor should be called in, saying, " A man of his lordship's dis- tinction ought not to be trusted with one physician.' ' People will ever be fond of doctors, as Popish zealots are of saints, and think that the power of life and death is in their hands. Whereas generally the practice is common to all ; and, when they swerve and are singular, it is as much for death as preservation. But hereupon Dr. Short was sent for who, finding his lordship in an acute fever, approved of what had been done and, to qualify his pre- scription, said " that a man of his value was not to be trusted with a fever/ ' So to work he went with his cortex to take it off ; and it was so done ; but his lordship con- tinued to have his head-ache and want of sleep. They gave him quieting potions, as they called them, which were opiates to make him sleep ; but he ranted and re- nounced them as his greatest tormentors, saying "that they thought all was well if he did not kick off the clothes and his servant had his natural rest ; but all that while he had axes and hammers and fireworks in his head, which he could not bear." All these were very bad signs ; but yet he seemed to mend considerably ; and no wonder, his fever being taken off by the cortex. 380. All this while the parliament was sitting and the business of the coronation attended his coming abroad, and he, having an impulse in his nature to dispatch whatever belonged to him to do, ventured out before he was in any competent manner healthful ; and sat in parliament, dis- patched all the claims, attended the council and the com- mittee for the coronation, and did what he could in the Chancery, and, what was more, paid his last duty to his master in walking at the coronation. And, as an instance of his lordship's caution in great matters, I must here 1 See § 257, n. PARTIAL REMEDIES. 345 take notice that he had his majesty's sign manual to order his not publishing a general pardon ; which, sometimes, men have thought belonged to the great seal to do of course. During these employments, every one that saw him said he went about as a ghost with the visage of death upon him. Such a sunk, spiritless countenance he had. And yet his strength of mind carried him through all ; and his bearing the long fatigue of the coronation cere- mony and walk was really a wonder. Nor had it been strange if one, with mortal wounds upon him as he had, had dropped in the piazza. During all this time his appe- tite was gone, and cookeries were provided in order to tempt his palate ; but all was chip. We made his evenings as comfortable by society as we could with such news as the town afforded and all kinds of familiar chat, which was his greatest delight when he was well. He found his spirits low and thought to favour and erect them by a glass or two of sherry, or Sandwich ale, after his no-supper. But the case of his fever was this : the rage of the disease, which was the effort of nature to throw off the venom that caused it, was taken down by the cortex ; but the venom, then afloat, was let sink into his constitution : and it is now found that, without there be an intermission of the fever, the cortex doth but ingraft the venom to shoot out again more perniciously. And so, in his lord- ship's case, he had a seed of a malignant fever in him which turned to a malignant cachexy, kindling and burning in the centre of his very vitals, making little show but in his pulse, and a general pain and continual uneasiness, languor, and want of sleep. 381. While his lordship went about in this disconsolate state, it is easy to be conceived how little of comfort was his portion. He had no glimpse of satisfaction in the prospect of future eveuts as to the nation at large (and how much he laid that to heart will be made appear after- wards), concerning which he had no fair expectation but what terminated in himself : viz. that, after having done the utmost that lay in his power to do to obviate the im- pending mischiefs, he might hope to have delivered his own soul. And his feverish disease growing upon him, his spirits and all that should buoy a man up under oppres- 346 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. sion, not only failed, but other things of a malign com- plexion succeeded to bring him lower : which may be fully understood by this circumstance. He took a fancy that he looked out of countenance, as he termed it, that is, as one ashamed or as if he had done ill and not with that face of authority as he used to bear : and for that reason, when he went into Westminster-Hall in the summer term, he used to take nosegays of flowers to hold before his face that people might not discern his dejection ; and once in pri- vate, having told me this fancy, he asked me if I did not perceive it. I answered him, not in the least ; nor did I believe any one else did observe any such thing : but that he was not well in health as he used to be was plain enough. His lordship in this state, took a resolution to quit the great seal, and went to my Lord Rochester to intercede with his majesty to accept it ; which had been no hard matter to obtain. But that noble lord had no mind to part with such a screen, and at that time (as he told me himself) he diverted him. But his lordship per- sisted, as will be made appear afterwards by a letter. Whereupon the Lord Rochester obtained of the king that his lordship might retire with the seal into the country, and that the officers with their concerns should attend him there, in hopes that, by the use of the waters and fresh air, he might recover his health against next winter ; when it was hoped he would return perfectly recovered. This was indeed a royal condescension, and singular favour to him. 382. During this mixture of disease and business in town, there was no want of physicians to attend upon and prescribe to him. They found he had a lent fever which was growing up out of the dregs which the cortex had left ; and if it were not taken off, they knew he would soon perish. So they plied him with new doses of the same, under the name of cordial powders, whereof the quantity he took is scarce credible ; but they would not touch his fever any more than so much powder of post. And still he grew worse and worse ; no means would restore him any appetite. At length, the doctors threw up and said their medicaments had no effect and his blood afforded him no kind of nourishment ; and he had no way left but to repair to his seat at Wroxton, which was near to Astrop GOES TO THE COUNTRY. 347 Wells, 1 and drink those waters, which they hoped would cleanse his blood and restore his decayed spirits. After this sentence pronounced, we straight packed up our alls and made as full a family of relations as we could to divert him. The family physician went with us, and he had his chests of medicines as if we were going a voyage to the Indies. We that rode in the coach with him had a melan- choly journey ; for he was hopeless of life to continue long and of any comfort while it did continue, and declared expressly that this was to be his last journey. There were pillows and all contrivances that he might be easy. He complained of no inconvenience in the journey by jogging and tossing, though he could not but feel a great deal ; but his patience was extraordinary ; and, as he had resolved beforehand, he made the same stages he formerly had been used to. We had a great rout attending, that belong to the seal, a six-clerk, under-clerks, wax-men, Ac, who made a good hand of it, being allowed travelling charges out of the hanaper ; and yet ate and drank in his lordship's house. I must own that, bating his lordship's illness, (which was bitterness with a witness) I never was in a more agreeable family. For it was full as a city, and with persons of good value and conversation ; all under the authority of one whom all revered ; and, out of decency as well as respect to him, not the least intemperance or dis- order of any sort committed. And what crowned all, was first, the chief table almost filled with the dearest of his lordship's relations, and the hopes that sometimes were afforded us in the country of his lordship's recovery. 383. The gentlemen of the country were very humane and obliging ; for they all came and dined with him and, with deference to his ease, invited him. But his regimen permitted him to go no where ; nor did his relations make many excursions : but some he obliged them to, for excuse for himself, where he had great respects. He took the waters in bed, for they die at quiet ; and his engagements against them were all defensive. The king knew all this, and therefore was as tender of affronting him as he was of disobliging his majesty, or putting it in the power of any one to say he ever did an undutiful or ungrateful act ; much less flying in his ma- jesty's face, taking part with his enemies, as certainly had been the court language of him if he had delivered up the seals in full health. And upon these terms, as I take it, hung the great affair of the lord keeper's holding or going out in that reign. 391. But not to part with his lordship without a due account of his nearer comportment with his majesty upon the subject of the new methods which his lordship saw to be furiously entering at court ; which account being not only for his vindication, but for his lasting honour I must observe, that Monmouth's landing gave too fair an occa- sion for the king's raising forces to suppress that rebel- lion, as was happily done. But afterwards, the king, partly from his own humour which might affect other braveries and partly from the fears and consequently treachery of his ministers, who thought themselves not safe in what they had done or intended to do but upon the foot of force, 358 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. kept up the army, although there appeared no real occa- sion, or reason, for so doing. This created discontent enough ; but, what was worse, the king gave his commis- sions to persons unqualified by law and then expected the parliament should sanctify all; which did not prove ac- cordingly, as was showed before. This was looked upon as a forerunner of the setting aside the test and penal laws. And his lordship was not so short-sighted but fore- saw not only that this current, though beginning afar off (for military commissions do not pass the great seal), yet, in the end, would overflow him, but also that upon the main it would bring a confusion fatal to our happy consti- tution in church and state, and for certain destroy the king. This was a subject melancholy enough for him and void of all hopes or consolation. For he knew the king's humour, and that nothing that he could say to him, would take place, or sink with him. So strong were his preju- dices and so feeble his genius, that he took none to have any right understanding that were not in his measures, and that the counsel given him to the contrary was for policy of party more than for friendship to him. But for all that, his lordship in this difficult case was resolved, once for all, to be plain and explicit with him and so (at least) satisfy his own conscience. And once, getting an audience, he took occasion to declare to him all his prog- nostics depending upon his majesty's declining the test and penal laws, and that with no less zeal, sincerity, and tenderness, than if he had been a parent. " He minded him of the uncontrollable influence of an universal discon- tent ; that no branch of his affairs, especially those of his colligible revenues, would move with any content to him. People would go on continually exaggerating each other's discontents, and mutual encouragements would take place therein, and among persons that should appear fair to him, and neither he, nor any of his ministers, would discover any such their secret practices and engagements ; and if there happened any advantage to cover attempts all would break out in a flame as if a mine fired under him. And although the Duke of Monmouth was gone, yet there was a P. of O. on the other side of the water. And as to his army, his lordship said that upon an universal discontent BEHAVIOUR AS TO INNOVATIONS. 359 he would find it a broken reed, that the people would grow upon it or wear it out by their intermixed conversation. Men naturally fall in with parties and their interests among whom they live, and they will not bear the re- proaches of their women and pot-companions without falling into harmony with them. That it was utterly im- possible to bring the people to a reconciliation with his persuasion ; and that the more they were urged, or even showed it, the worse they would be. And that the sec- taries were false and treacherous and would infallibly, at a pinch, whatever countenances they showed him to the con- trary, not only desert his party but turn against him ; for they never were, nor would be friends really to the royal family, and their peculiar way and means of working was by fraud." I can with great assurance affirm the sub- stance of this free discourse to the king to have been really so made as I have represented : for his lordship hath often said to me, that, whatever happened, he would do it and would have it in his power to say to himself at the hour of his death, that he had done his duty to the king and his country. And after he returned from court he told me he had done accordingly ; although, as well before as since, he thought it signified nothing. And he seemed very much at ease within himself ; having thus declared his thoughts at large and freely to the king ; and, at times, he mentioned to me the several matters he had spoke of to him. And, according to his custom of noting things, he set them down upon papers from whence I have taken them and have inserted them elsewhere. There is an obscure cast upon them there ; for his lordship had always that caution in his writing, to secure that to whose hands soever his papers came there could be no public nor private offence taken, but a little attentiveness to the manner of these notes will discover what they are. 392. Perhaps some of these prophetic hints given by way of advice to the king by his lordship, being now penned by me so long after, may look a little like poor Robin's method of taking time to foretel things until after the event is past. So conformable may they seem with what happened. And, to say truth, I almost distrust my own pen, lest my unhappiness of having known the events 360 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. should infect my expression with a cleverness derived there- upon. And, if allowances must be made me on that account, which I profess not to crave, I hope they will not be thought very large by reason of what I shall say for myself. Barring the unavoidable defects of memory, which will let go the niceties of words and terms and so oblige us to take up with things as in effect they remain in mind, I must here protest an untainted integrity and that what I have related is true. But I am not in a state to rely altogether upon observations; for divers of his intimate friends (I do not name any because I suspect most of them are dead) were so far intrusted in discourse, as to be made acquainted with his lordship's submissive but dutiful counsel to the king, not to break the laws for the sake of any innovation ; and, particularly that item of pro- digious import, viz. that " although Monmouth was sup- pressed there was a P. of 0. abroad." 393. But to drop these apologetics and conclude, I shall freely subjoin my sentiments of the very root of his lord- ship's distemper and the cause that rendered it inapt to be cured, and therefore mortal. And that was, in a word, his laying things to heart. The business of his office was too great for one who thought he was bound to do it all well. As to the part of his justice in the court of Chan- cery, I have said enough. That load, though heavy, was not insupportable. It afflicted his spirits but did not crush them. If the business of the court by reason of necessary attendances in other places ran in arrear, he might hope for more enlargement of his time to recover it. But considering what was added from the ill state of the public, for which he thought himself in great measure obliged to answer or to feel the ill consequences, he saw plainly that he must either disgrace himself by quitting, the very thoughts of which flew in his face as a desertion of his royal master and benefactor in distress ; and what, at court, would be expressed in the terms of flying in his majesty's face : for when a minister in so great credit quits, it amounts to a public accusation and declares he could serve honestly no longer ; or else he must stay until he should be pressed, as he continually expected, to pass some of the illegal commissions which he was determined RESPONSIBILITIES HEARTBREAKING. * 361 not to do, and, upon that, be removed, with the foul lan- guage of the then court, for sauce to it. He had been happy if he could have got clearly off without any of these trials : and it was not a little uneasy to him that, in the interim of these expectations, the courtiers conspired, by ridiculous slights, affronts, base experiments and buf- fooneries, to grieve and torment him, with design either to bring him into their guilty measures or else to make him withdraw himself out of their way ; which, without better reason than to gratify them, he had no mind to do. And he so far restrained himself and his resentments from the public, which seldom or never takes such matters by the right handles, that whatever machinations or inven- tions were set on foot purposely to diminish him, though he knew out of what shop they came, yet he never main- tained any open feud or party on his own account, or either expostulated abroad or troubled the king in private. All which ill usage lay burning in his most sensible breast. And adding thereunto that he saw no dawning of any good to his master, the nation, or himself, he lived in a state of judicious despair ; and then no wonder that a distemper, otherwise of an ordinary crisis, got the better of him, or, more directly, that his heart was broke. 394. I have elsewhere noted that his lordship should say that he had not enjoyed one moment of comfort in his life, from the first commitment of that pestilent seal to him. If there was no ease under it at first it must needs be Hell at last. He wanted a good general apathy : and that one may break into two qualifications necessary to an over- charged minister of state. 1. As to himself, equanimity. 2. As to all others, indifference. 1. The former sounds a little philosophic and means a carelessness of events, and the being no more concerned at what may happen to him than at the weather, or any thing else that is out of his power. 2. As to others, the case is not very commend- able ; for it supposeth one to be wholly unconcerned in the questions of right and wrong, not caring who is injured or suffers, or who gets or loses, how, when, or why ; and in office to be without compassion, as a butcher that kills and slays habitually without remorse ; nor to let any plea- sure or advantage be frustrate, or sleep broke for what 362 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. men call duty, and making no account of good or evil but what self -enjoyment, or interest, shall denominate. These qualifications, supposing them to be so necessary as in some times they are, show how little qualified an honest wise man and a good Christian, is for this great employ- ment in ill-natured and perverse times. 395. His lordship had been sensible that he was ob- noxious to danger of his person and family, between two great parties, papist and fanatic : neither of whom he had complied with, but resisted in all their projects calculated for making alterations in church and state: and if an unlucky turn should give the public a toss into the hands of either of them, what then must become of him ? He looked upon the papist interest in England (at the begin- ning at least) to be less inhuman and barbarous than the republicans and sectaries ; yet he would not be exposed to them, although he had not officiously hurt any of them. But from the others he expected no moderation, who had exercised him with loud threatenings for several years and would have been glad to be as good as their words. And he did not rely upon retirement to render him secure from the malice of those men ; and his interest lay chiefly in that they called the church of England party, who might have enough to do to defend themselves ; and considering their easiness and aptitude to be imposed on, and that they either hide (as I may term it) or flow along with the cur- rent, no dependence in bad times was to be expected upon them. Therefore his lordship resolved to get into the peerage as soon as he could, and enjoy the ordinary privi- leges and protection of that order. And that he did it not for vanity or puff, appears by his unaffectedness in the preamble of his patent. The common custom about pre- ambles to patents of honour, (which patents are preparec by Mr. Attorney-General in all points except the preamble, which is left to the order of the person to be prepared) is to employ some chaplain or rhetorical scholar, who is set on work to pump hard for eulogiums and, by dint of elo- quence, to varnish out his majesty's gracious act. But his lordship, nauseating all such fulsome self- flatteries which like commendatory epitaphs are accounted no better than solemn lying, would have none but a common preamble, as MADE A BAROX. 363 that uionarchs use to reward persons who had served faith- fully and well, with marks of honour or the like ; which service his lordship might modestly own. His chief doubt was how he might decently apply to the king ; and that ended in a resolution to beg it as a boon of the Duke of York to recommend him. This some thought improper, with respect to his not complying with the Papists. But his lordship believed that the duke thought him an honest man and was really his friend : and so it proved ; for the duke took kindly his lordship's request and, without hesi- tation or delay moved the king, and it was as soon granted. Another doubt that he had was about the title ; for he would not fix it upon any of his possessions, because it looked as a vanity ; nor upon any place which was in the style of any other honour, nor on any new one which had not been in some past time used as a title. At last he settled it upon Guilford, which had belonged to his friend the Duke of Lauderdale, and was by his death extinct. The duchess was then living and he had her approval of it ; and many fancied he courted her in the way of marriage and that this was one of his compliments. 1 He was aware of such rumours ; but valued them as little as he intended thereby any such courtship. And although (if he had asked) it might have been an earldom, he made a barony his choice, since he did not seek the honour for vanity but for a real protection. And he was infinitely satisfied that he had made no other means but by the duke ; which if he had not done, but gone by himself or any other way, it had proved a real offence and had been aggravated as a slight j»ut upon his royal highness. 396. I shall not take upon me to give a summary cha- racter of this great man, till I have wiped off some calum- nies that have been cast upon him and shown some parti- cular instances of his excellent qualifications in the several parts of life, which I could not conveniently insert in the 1 John, Duke of Lauderdale, married as his second wife Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, and widow of Sir Lionel Tollemaehe. (See § 261.) Lauderdale had been created Duke, in the peerage of Scotland, a few months previously. He was not made Earl of Guilford in the peerage of England till June, 1674. The Duke died in 1682 ; the Lord Keeper had been left a widower in November, 1678. 364 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. body of this work, in order to demonstrate him to have been a wise and just man, and a good Christian. Slander is like the fish called the remora, which sticking to the helms of great ships disorders the steerage. Ordinary persons are obnoxious to slander ; but for the most part it is frivolous, slightly regarded and turns to merriment. But, when applied to great men and ministers of state, it disturbs the course of affairs and the whole government feels it. When he was young, and passed his time in study and the early practice of the law, he fell under no person's evil tongue (except some of his nearest relations, as has been touched already x ) and no fraud, misdemeanour or vice, could be laid to his charge ; but he was esteemed a person of the greatest hopes of any of his profession. And as to his general character, then and afterwards some fancied he was inclined to avarice ; but they knew not his circumstances nor his humour. At first he lived in a course of shifting with a little, as I may style it, when he was to buy the way into a settlement fit for the business he aimed at. And one that hath neither fund nor friend whereby debts, if any were contracted, might be paid, as many of his rank have, hath reason to be careful. But it often happens that extravagant rakish people, if one upon a level with them doth not spend his money in their wild way, think him covetous. His lordship kept always a reasonable and select company, and never was what they call a company keeper. But with his friends was liberal and free and, in paying reckonings and other seasonable bounties, none more free than he was. Of which instances will be produced hereafter. After he came to make a figure, there are witnesses enough of his generous way of living. So that whoever hath imputed avarice to him, hath been altogether out of the way of right judgment. The faction never applied heartily to calumniate his lordship until he was touched in parliament. And from that time forwards all the party artillery of foul mouths were pointed at him ; and the Earl of Sunderland marched at the head of them, who commonly gave out the signal. His lordship's virtuous course of life was a vile obstacle ; and 1 See § 30. SCANDAL AND SLANDERS. 365 slanders on that head would not stick. But I shall show some snares laid to cateh him. In the mean time vilifica- tions plenty. Those were at their tongue's end. He was neither courtier nor lawyer; which his lordship hearing, he smiled, saying, " That they might well make him a whoremaster, when they had dislawyered him." And to show their intent of fixing some scandal and contempt upon him, I shall allege a ridiculous instance or two. His lordship's brother-in-law, more than once named in these papers, 1 came to him seriously with advice ; which was that he should keep a whore, and that, if he did not, he would lose all his interest at court ; for he understood from very great men (the Earl of Sunderland and his gamesters I suppose) that he was ill looked upon for want of doing so, because he seemed continually to reprehend them for prac- tising the like as almost every one did ; and if his lordship pleased, he would help him to one. His lordship was in his mind full of scorn at this proffer, which the messenger did not penetrate ; and it was enough to decline the coun- sel and not accept of his assistance. And with his nearest friends he made wonderful merry with this state policy, especially the procuring part ; and said, " That if he were to entertain a madam, it should be one of his own choosing and not one of their stale trumpery." But his lordship had deeper reflections, that, besides the sullying his cha- racter if he had such a snake in Ins bed, they would find a way to come, by her, into his most retired intentions. For the courtiers knew the use that, in politics, might be made of the fair ladies whom they could charm better than his lordship ; and no spy like a female. 397. When these pointed darts would not lay hold they were contented to throw dirt ; as appears from what they inserted in a newspaper of his lordship's behaviour in the Western circuit ; a full accoimt of which may be found in the Examen. 2 And whoever looks into that time, will find a strange tendency to split the laws against those who do not go to church, that is to say Recusants. And some votes of the House of Commons looked that way ; as if it 1 William Soame. See § 257, n. a Examen, p. 364. 366 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. were a grievance that those laws were made to extend to sectaries, who are softly styled Protestant Dissenters ; such as Presbyterians, Quakers, Anabaptists, &c. But the judges, as his lordship in particular and Justice Jones (who, though absent at Taunton, desired to be comprised in the advertisement) had not such a notion of law as for any body's humour, to treat plain words and expres- sions as a nose of wax to bend one way or other to gratify parties. But the charge given by the earl as secretary to the judges to that effect, was an ignis fatuus or will in the wisp of the faction, concerted to mislead, at least with showing a feint of indemnity to seduce them. 398. I have elsewhere noted that, during the reign of King Charles II. calumny against his lordship at court was kept under ; for he would not suffer his mimics to fool with the persons of his ministers that he had a value for. But, in the next reign, when the Eoman Catholic designs began to work and his lordship was found utterly unfit for their purposes, and the court instruments of which the Earl of Sunderland was the chief were employed to shake him off that the Lord Jeffries might come on, then the reins were let loose to calumny ; and when no misdemea- nour could be found to harp upon, they fell, like foolish clowns, to call names as they say ; and no scruple was made to vilify him as the unfittest man that ever sat in his place : partial, passionate, unreasonable, impotent, corrupt, arbitrary, popish, and ignorant. Any thing to make him avoid the room. But his lordship cared not to humour these barkers or to quit his place till he might do it with salvo to his dignity. 399. To show that his lordship's court enemies, the Earl of Sunderland in particular, were hard put to it to find or invent something to report, tending to the diminu- tion of his character, I shall give an account of the most impudent buffoon lie raised upon him and, with brazen affirmations of truth to it, dispersed from the court one morning, that ever came into fools' heads ; and Satan him- self would not have owned it for his legitimate issue. It fell out thus : a merchant, of Sir Dudley North's acquain- tance, had brought over an enormous rhinoceros to be sold THE LIE OF THE RHINOCEROS. 367 to show-men for profit. 1 It is a noble beast, wonderfully armed by nature for offence ; but more for defence, being covered with impenetrable shields which no weapon would make any impression upon ; and a rarity so great that few men in our country have, in their whole lives, opportunity to see so singular an animal. This merchant told Sir Dudley North, that if he, with a friend or two, had a mind to see it they might take the opportunity at his house, before it was sold. Hereupon Sir Dudley North proposed to his brother, the lord keeper, to go with him upon this expedition ; which he did, and came away exceedingly satisfied with the curiosity he had seen. But whether he was dogged, to find out where he and his brother housed in the city, or flying fame carried an account of the voyage to court, I know not ; but it is certain that the very next morning, a bruit went from thence all over the town and (as factious reports use to run) in a very short time, viz. that his lordship rode upon the rhinoceros ; than which a more infantine exploit could not have been fastened upon him. And most people were struck with amazement at it ; and divers ran here and there to find out whether it was true or no. And soon after dinner some lords and others came to his lordship to know the truth from himself ; for the setters of the lie affirmed it positively as of their own knowledge. That did not give his lordship much distur- bance ; for he expected no better from his adversaries. But that his friends, intelligent persons who must know him to be far from guilty of any childish levity, should believe it, was what roiled him extremely ; and much more, when they had the face to come to him to know if it were true. I never saw him in such a rage, and to lay about him with affronts (which he keenly bestowed upon the minor courtiers that came on that errand) as then ; for he sent them away with fleas in their ear. And he was seriously angry with his own brother Sir Dudley North because he did not contradict the lie in sudden and direct terms, but laughed, as taking the question put to him for a banter, till, by iterations, he was brought to it. 1 This was the first rhinoceros ever brought into England, and was sold for an enormous sum of money — Evelyn tells us upwards of £2,000. (Memoirs, vol. i. p. 539.) 368 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. For some lords came, and because they seemed to attribute somewhat to the avowed positiveness of the reporters, he rather chose to send for his brother to attest, than to impose his bare denial. And so it passed ; and the noble earl, with Jeffries and others of that crew, made merry and never blushed at the lie of their own making ; but valued themselves upon it as a very good jest. 400. I know not any thing, that came out in public, of calumny against his lordship in his life- time, worth taking notice of more than hath been hinted. His justice was so exact and course of life so unexceptionable, that the libellers had no subject to make any work with. The vilest of them, in all three entitled, " The no Protestant Plots," published to waylay the course of justice against traitors and cunningly contrived for that purpose, if any thing had been known to discredit his lordship's character, had there displayed it. But the worst that the author could contrive was to call him Slyboots ; and a younger brother, that usually went about with him, young North. There's all while living ; but, since his death the press hath been more free. 401. And, since that time some particular matters were muttered about, without as well as within St. Stephen's walls; as if he had not therein done his duty as lord keeper of the great seal ; which, though it never rose to any accusation or public censure, I think may be aptly taken in here. One was, that his lordship refused to put the seal to a mandatory writ directed to the Lord Chief Justice Saunders, to sign a bill of exceptions tendered to him at the trial of the rioters in London. The information was for the riotous fact of the old sheriffs holding a com- mon hall and pretending to elect new sheriffs, after the assembly was dissolved by the lord mayor. At the trial the defendants urged, as hath been related in the Examen, that the lord mayor had no power to dissolve the common-hall ; which point the Lord Chief Justice Saunders overruled, as a vain and empty pretence, and utterly against law. Upon that, the bill of exceptions to the opinion of the judges was tendered, which he refused to sign. After the trial was over, they came to his lordship for a petition for a writ and suggested a form of it express in the register. SIR THOMAS ARMSTRONG'S CASE. 3G9 Upon examination, his lordship found that that precedent was of a writ to the sheriff who is, in some cases, a judge; hut is also a ministerial officer to whom mandatory writs may fitly be directed. But it follows not from thence that they may be directed to the judges of the courts in West- minster-hall. And what process can be upon it ? There is no form of any attachments nor precedent of any like pro- cess to follow. And the penalty in the form, is only — H on pain that shall fall thereon : M which shows it to be a mere writ of favour where it might be granted. But there never was any such, to the knowledge of any man living, sent out ; and thereupon in this case it was denied. These matters were thus pressed, not because there was any right or sense in them, but by way of coals to be blown up for exasperating the fire when time should serve. It may not pass that the Chief Justice Saunders was in the wrong in refusing the signing ; but the chicane upon that point of law which was most clearly with him, is too tedious to be inserted here. 402. Of a like nature with this, was another application to the great seal for a fiat that a writ of error might issue to reverse an outlawry against Sir Thomas Armstrong. The law is, that if a man outlawed for high treason renders himself within a year, he may have the benefit of a writ of error to reverse the outlawry and so take his trial ; other- wise not : and an outlawry in such case while it stands, is a complete attainder, as if tried and attaint by verdict and judgment. 1 Armstrong fled into Holland and was out- lawed for the Rye plot treason. Afterwards, within the year, he was taken up in Holland and brought into England and, being opposed as to what he had to say for himself why execution should not be awarded, he insisted that, being present here within his year, he ought to have a writ of error and be admitted to plead. But the judges were of opinion that being brought in by force, against his will, was not a rendering himself within the statute ; and thereupon 1 For an account of the proceedings against Sir T. Armstrong in the King's Bench, see HowelVs State Trials, vol. x. p. 106. u When Arm- strong insisted that he asked nothing but the law, Jeffries, in his brutal way, said, * he should have it to the full ; ' and so ordered his execution within six, days." (Burnet, p. 997.) B B 370 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. he was executed. Pending the question, application was made to his lordship for a writ of error ; and, examining into the matter, his lordship found that writs of error to reverse outlawries in treason, had never been made out without a warrant from the attorney- general ; for it is not a writ of right but of favour : and it could not be demanded at the great seal otherwise ; nor had the seal a warrant without a fiat from the attorney-general. But besides, the matter of right depended before the justices of oyer and terminer ; and the writ would follow or not upon their determination : for which reason, it was impertinent to come to the great seal about it. But then and afterwards a clamour was raised and ventilated abroad, as if the man had been hanged for want of a piece of common justice at the great seal ; and, after the revolution, divers warm members began to open about it. For which reason a paper was framed and put into the hands of some mem- bers, wherein it was thought fit to represent farther, that, 1. It is the office of the cursitor to make out writs of error in criminal cases when the usual and proper warrants are brought to them. And the lord keeper's fiat never was and, in that case, would not have been a warrant to the cursitor for such writ. Wherefore the refusal of it lay not upon the lord keeper. 2. The application to the great seal for special writs must be either by motion in open court or by petition ; which being granted, a fiat is wrote and signed upon it ; and that remains in the offices and is the warrant for farther proceeding : else it is delivered out unanswered ; which is the refusal to grant what is desired in the peti- tion. And no such application was ever made in that case. 3. An oral application in private is not to be regarded, because there is no certainty of what is either asked or denied. Business of that kind is not trusted to memory ; but must be in writing, because the lord keeper is not to solicit any man's suit at his instance. He may direct if he thinks fit but is not bound. Suitors must follow in the proper offices ; and it was never heard that such suit was made to the lord keeper, but from the person whose case it is. There was reason to endeavour a right understanding at that time when committees, of both houses apart, were appointed to inquire into the foregoing proceedings. That THE SIX CLERKS MAKE A PRESENT. 371 Of the House of Lords was called M The Committee of Murder.' 9 But, after all methods of inquiry that could be taken upon oath or otherwise, no blame was found in any judge or minister in the time of King Charles II. Which as has been touched already, is a vindication that few ages put to such a trial, could hope for. 403. One thing more is to be remembered which was talked in coffee-houses concerning his lordship ; but by those only who were the culpables. The six clerks have great dependence on the course of the court of Chancery for their profits ; and are always disposed to keep the judge in good humour and prevent alterations to their prejudice. And the judges of all the courts make no scruple to accept of presents of value from the officers by way of new-year's gift, or otherwise ; which is a practice not very commend- able, because, with some, it may have bad effects. 1 Ac- cordingly these six clerks clubbed, and made a present to his lordship of .£1,000 which he took as an instance of their respect, without regard to or knowlege <>f any other design or intention of theirs. But soon after this, they began to fall out with the sixty under-clerks, and pretended to re- move them at pleasure, being their substitutes for whom they were to answer, as masters turn servants away whom they can trust no longer. The sixty, on the other side, stood upon it that they bought and paid for their seats and were sworn into their places; and however they were sub- ject and accountable to the six, they were not at their mercy, to ho removed without the authority of the court. The six thought fit to put in practice their own authority, and began with one Sewel a clerk, one of the sixty, and ordered him out of his seat, and (as I remember) gave it to another. This produced a petition of this Sewel to his lordship, pray- ing to be restored and the rest of the sixty confirmed in their places ; of which decree the justice is unexceptionable. It is no wonder that the six were infinitely disgusted ; for, if they had any bad design, as it seems plain they had, viz. of adding sixty to their six, they had their reward. I am 1 This practice was abolished by Lord Cowper on his being made Chancellor. The gifts had grown so considerable as to amount to i£l,500 per annum. {Burnet's Own Time, vol. v. p. 872.) 372 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. firmly persuaded that his lordship knew nothing of it till the cause upon the petition came before him ; and if he had known of it before, he had not accepted their kindness, and that afterwards he repented him of it. And of all the actions of his life, this came nearest to a colourable mis- construction. Nay, there is no other capable of any. And I guess that, although I have here related it undisguised and out of my personal knowledge, many will incline to take it in the worse sense and as being a plain bribe, though the consequence flies in the face of it: and, for that reason, many would have left out this whole passage so singular as it is ; but professing, as I do, to render every action of his lordship conspicuous, I could not acquit myself to deal so with this which would have manifestly tainted all I have showed for his lordship's advantage. 404. I have now done with all that appeared, or could appear, of diminution to the reputation, true or false, which his lordship, by his steady course of life, before his parting with the world, had acquired. I shall now, pur- suant to my design, show by many particular instances, how much he shined in every part of life. I have already hinted that his profession of the law did not prevent his entering into other kinds of learning, and particularly natural knowledge. His lordship was an early virtuoso ; for after his first loose from the university, where the new philosophy was then but just entering, by his perpetual inquisitiveness and such books as he could procure, he became no ordinary connoisseur in the sciences, so far as the invention and industry of the then latter critics had advanced them. And the same course he pursued, more or less, all the rest of his life ; whereby all discoveries at home and from abroad, came to his notice, and he would have been loth to have let any escape him. 405. His lordship had great pleasure in the society of that very good master in chancery, Sir John Hoskins, 1 who was a proof experimental that that office might be exe- cuted with integrity. Their chief enjoyment of each other 1 " A most learned virtuoso, as well as lawyer." (Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 513.) "He was," says Granger, "a man of irreproachable character : more inclined to the study of the new philosophy than to- follow the law." (vol. iii. p. 371.) SIR JOHN HOSKINS. S76 was early, when his lordship began to be eminent in prac- tice and the other had some aspect towards the law. But his chief, or rather entire, application was to philosophy and experiments. And therein he became so far an adept, that, being one of the Royal Society, he was at last advanced to be their president. This resignation to philosophic studies spoiled the lawyer ; but made an accomplished good companion, especially to one who delighted in those matters as much as himself. After a long day's work, if his lordship could get Sir John Hoskins to a French house, for a petit supper but ample feast of discourse, he was happy ; which I can the better testify, having often been one of the company. There was no corner of the universe that imagination could make accessible, but they searched it to the quick ; and nothing new sprang abroad or at home, but one or other of them, early or late, brought it under examination. The good knight made use of his profession so far as to make an accomplished master in chancery ; in which post he had all just encouragement from his lordship when he had the great seal. And ac- cordingly his lordship was always pleased when he sent references to him, because he knew his integrity and that, in his office, the suitors were well used and no ravenous practices took place : which, as to himself, was egregiously so ; but masters in chancery, by their clerks, as well as justices of the peace by theirs, are but too much imposed upon. One rule was verified in him, viz. " That no credit is to be given to the outside for he was certainly one of the most hard-favoured men of his time, and his visage was not more awkward than his dress. So that going, as his use was, on foot, with his staff, and an old hat drawn over his eyes, he might be taken rather for a sorry quack than, as he was, a bright virtuoso. So men discover what they value themselves for ; and, on the other side, the same is to be said of them that cultivate dressing ; whereof the solicitude or neglect, however proper it may be, will show itself by some kind of affectation. 406. His lordship was no concealed virtuoso ; for his diffused acquaintance and manner of conversation made him known and esteemed, as a professor of most polite arts, and given to scientific inquiries. This brought upon him 374 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. an importunity to be admitted a member of the Royal Society ; and one Sir Theodore de Veaux was employed to press him upon it. But his lordship never countenanced the proposal ; and at length gave his positive denial. He esteemed it a species of vanity for one, as he was, of a grave profession, to list himself of a society which at that time was made very free with by the ridiculers of the town : and he could not discover what advantage of knowledge could come to him that way which he could not arrive at otherwise. His lordship had another acquaintance who resided in the Temple, and, being of a retired disposition, was very far gone in the mystery of algebra and mathe- matics. This was Mr. John Werden, afterwards Sir John, and many years a commissioner of the customs. He was the only son of an incomparable courtier, cavalier, and a most faithful servant in the royal family, Colonel Werden. 1 This Sir John inspired his lordship with a sort of fury in pursuit of the art of perspective. He showed him the picture of a tree upon the boughs of which hung the letters of his name cut solid, and placed as it were contingently, but expressed in true perspective. There was one Mr. Aubrey of Surrey, 2 a professed virtuoso, and always replete with new discoveries. He often visited his lordship, who encouraged him by his attention and asking many ques- tions : and his answers served well enough in order to a farther inquiry. One Mr. Weld, a rich philosopher, lived in Bloomsbury. He was single, and his house a sort of knick-knack-atory. Most of the ingenious persons about town sometimes visited him ; and, among the rest, his lord- ship did suit and service there. This gentleman was of a superior order, and valued himself upon new inventions of his own. He sowed salads in the morning to be cut for dinner, and claimed the invention of painted curtains in varnish upon silk which would bend and not crack ; and his house was furnished with them : and he delighted in nothing more than in showing his multifarious contri- vances. His lordship was once invited to a philosophical 1 Some farther account of this gentleman may be found in the Life of Sir Dudley North. 2 John Aubrey, the antiquary. FK1ENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES. 375 meal at the house of Mr. Evelyn at Deptford. 1 The house was low, but elegantly set off with ornaments and quaint mottoes at most turns ; but above all his garden was ex- quisite, being most boscaresque and, as it were, an exemplar of his book of Forest Trees. They appeared all so thriving and clean that in so much variety, no one could be satiated in viewing. And to these were added plenty of ingenious discourses which made the time short. 407. His lordship had a great value for Sir Jonas Moor, a capital mathematician, knowing well his worth and honesty by means of his employment under the commis- sioners for dividing the fens ; at which his lordship had presided. That good man had taken Mr. Flamstead, 2 the noted astronomer, into his protection and, when he was scarce able to subsist in his college at Cambridge, planted him in the Tower with accommodation in the buildings of the ordnance, of which Sir Jonas was an officer ; 3 procured him instruments and, at last, settled him in the new-built observatory at Greenwich. Sir Jonas once invited his lord- ship to dine with him at the Tower and, after dinner, pre- sented Mr. Flainstead. His lordship received him with much familiarity and encouraged him to come and see him often, that he might have the pleasure of his conversation. The star-gazer was not wanting to himself in that j and his lordship was extremely delighted with his accounts and observations about the planets, especially those attm- dant on Jupiter ; showing how the eclipses of them, being regular and calculable, might rectify the longitude of places upon the globe, and demonstrating that light did not pass instantaneously but in time ; with other remarkables in the heavens. These discourses always regaled his lord- 1 Evelyn and the lord keejter appear to have lived upon very friendly terms. 44 I dined with my lord keeper, and walking alone with him some time in his gallery, we had discourse of music. He told me he had been brought up to it from a child, so as to sing his part at first sight. Then speaking of painting, of which he was also a great lover, and other ingenious matters, he desired me to come oftener to him." (Memoirs, vol. i. p. 534.) * 44 The learned astrologer and mathematician, whom his majesty had established in the new observatory in Greenwich l'ark, furnished with the choicest instruments." (Rvelyn's Memoirs^ vol. i. p. 458.) 3 Sir Jonas Moor was surveyor-general of the Ordnance. 376 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. ship; and a good benefice 1 falling void, not far from the observatory, in the gift of the great seal, his lordship gave it to Mr. Flam stead, which set him at ease in his fortunes and encouraged his future labours from which great things were expected; as applying the Jovial observations to marine uses for finding longitudes at sea, and to correct the globes celestial and terrestrial which were very faulty. And in order to the first, he had composed tables of the eclipses of the satellites, which showed when they were to happen one after another ; and of these, finely painted upon neat board, he made a present to his lordship. And he had advanced his other design of rectifying maps, by having provided large blank globes on which he might inscribe his places corrected. But plenty and pains seldom dwell together ; for as one enters the other gives way : and in this instance, a good living, pensions, &c, spoiled a good cosmographer and astronomer ; for very little is left of Mr. Flainstead's sedulous and judicious applications that way. His lordship had another virtuoso acquaintance in the Temple, one Mr. Ball, son of Sir Peter Ball, that, from his first society of that kind kept him company. But family misfortunes overtaking him, his activity and incli- nations deadened or rather degenerated into domestic cares ; so that I think it enough to have named him as one in the list of his lordship's ingenious acquaintance. 408. There were two or three more persons very eminent in their way, and also particularly acquainted with his lordship. I shall therefore take this opportunity to remem- ber something of them. And first, of Sir Eobert Sawyer, who rose no higher than attorney- gen eral ; for, at the Eevolution, for reasons I shall give, he was dropped. 2 He was a proper, comely gentleman, inclining to the red ; a good general scholar and perhaps too much of that, in show at least ; which made some account him inclined to the pedantic. He was of the family of Sir Edmund Sawyer and so related to his lordship. He was continued at the 1 Burstow in Surre}', the only preferment which Flamstead ever obtained. 2 He became ^ Attorney-General 21st February, 1681. His only daughter, Margaret, married Thomas, eighth Earl Pembroke, to whom he left his estates. He died 28th July, 1692. SIR ROBERT SAWYER. 377 university till he had taken the degree of master of arts. And being designed for the gown, he had his logic and arts and, by performing the academic exercises, he had acquired an assurance and formality of speaking in public ; which is always profitable to a professor in Westminster-hall. It was his good fortune to divert to the law ; and his first prac- tice was at the Exchequer court ; and there he pitched his camp and arrived at top practice. It was also his advan- tage to come up under the Lord Chief Baron Hales, whose learning in the law and records and most pertinent appli- cation of it were admirable ; and students in the law or prac- tises under him, profited more than by any study. And no business in the law is so instructive in order to serve the crown as that of the Exchequer; which, by propel institu- tion, is the court of the king's revenue ; and the royal pre- rogative is at home there. It is no wonder therefore that Sir Robert Sawyer, being taken into the attorney-general's place at a time when the crown was very much embar- rassed at law, as about the time of the Rye plot, condu< sted those great affairs so steadily and well as he did. But we must charge to account, among his very great advantages, his relation to his lordship which created a friendship and a familiarity betwixt them; and thereby he had the m<»M cordial assistance that his lordship could, on all occasions, give him. And this alliance was the firmer because Sawyer's bias was to loyalty which had been the character 01 his family. 409. I need not recapitulate the great dependences of law that succeeded well under his conduct ; for all notes of the latter end of the reign of King Charles II. are full of them. He was continued in his office by King James II. but then he was soon off the hooks : for soon after the Lord Keeper North died, a deluge of irregular dispensa- tions and 7ion obstante' 8 were coming towards him ; and he was so just a man in his nature that he was resolved, whatever became of him, he would not pass any such. So there was like to be a stop at him. He was always very careful of his office and, when he did not fear any imposi- tions but was free to use his judgment as other attorneys- general did, yet when matters of life and death were depending he used to summon the king's counsel to attend 378 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. him at his chamber, where it was freely consulted if there were a fitting evidence to proceed upon, or not ; and if the general opinion was that the evidence did not come up, he never pushed any trial against any man. Now in this time of peril he was so kind to his friends, the king's counsel, as to give them warning to study the points ; for they would be asked whether the king might not, by his royal grant, appoint officers unqualified with non obstante' s to the test laws ; and that the first case would be concern- ing the soldiery. And I believe the whole nation of the law were at that time apprised of all the arguments pro and con; so none could be taken napping. The first person that was tested was Mr. Solicitor Finch, a younger son of the Lord Nottingham ; and he refused plumb. Upon one Saturday, in the afternoorj, I was cited to the lord chancellor and told I must give him an answer in writing forthwith. I answered, " that so nice a point ought to be well considered/' He replied, " there was no need of that ; " and cited some books. I told him I had seen those books, and would send him an answer the next day, which was a refusal. On Sunday after, Mr. Solicitor Finch was discharged and one Powis made solicitor in his room. Mr. Attorney did not stay long, but was displaced to make room for Powis to be attorney. And there ended Sir Roberi Sawyer's preferment. 1 He ended his days honourably anc in peace ; and his acquisitions remain in a noble family by a match with his only daughter. And nothing ever im- 1 The following is the account given by Sir John Reresby of the trans- action mentioned in the text : — '* He," (Mr. Jones, the sun of the Chief Justice) " told me further, that Sir Robert Sawyer, the attorney- general, had been directed by the King to draw up a warrant, by virtue of his prerogative, to invest a priest of the Church of Rome with a benefice 5 and to confirm one Walker, the head of a house in Oxford, and some fellows of the same who had erred over to the papal commu- nion, by a non obstante; that the attorney said, this would not be against one statute only but against all the laws since the days of Eliza- beth ; that he therefore durst not do it, and desired the King, therefore, to weigh the matter a little with himself, for that it struck at the very root of the Protestant church, quite contrary to his majesty's late gra- cious promises. In short, that the attorney further said, he doubted not but as soon as another could be found to do the work, he should lose his place; such a slave was the King to the priesthood of Rome." (Beresby's Memoirs, p. 233.) MR. WILLIAM LONGUEVILLE. 379 peached him or his actions, in public. And that is a fair conclusion of a man's life ; although we might see that, without such a noble support, he might have been calum- niated for what was done in his time, as well as some of his contemporaries. 410. Another of his lordship's acquaintance was one Mr. William Longueville, sometime a bencher of the Inner Temple, who was one of his lordship's much esteemed friends and companions. His discourse was fluent, witty, literate, copious and instructive ; and those who did not well attend to him or did not understand him thought he talked too much. His excellence of conversation lay in a select society of one or two ; but he had too much in him to allow more a due share in the conversation. He was a master of classic wit, and had the best Latin sentences from the orators, historians, and poets, at his tongue's end ; and used to apply them significantly and with that judg- ment as cleared him of pedantry. His method was much after the way of epic compositions, full of digressions and episodes ; but neither was the main let fall, nor time lost, upon the by. This copia rendered him less fit for bar- practice, where submission and reference doth more in a cause than reasoning, and insinuating more than dis- coursing. For this reason he diverted to conveyancing ; and in that practice rode one of the admirals. His indus- try was indefatigable and his integrity as the driven snow ; and as few blunders (if any) have come from his chamber as from any of his pretensions. His beginning was low, for he was the son of a cavalier father who spent extrava- gantly what the tyranny of the times had left him, and at last fell to his unprovided son to be maintained, not only in his necessaries, but in extravagances. And he with incomparable piety and application was a father to his father. A good-natured six-clerk took a fancy to the young man and gave him credit, by which he crept into that office and at length made it his own ; and in fit time he sold it. By which he had a foundation of estate ; and what with a match by which he hath posterity, and his practice, he hath re-edified a ruined family. His address and flowing wit recommended him to the knowledge of most eminent persons and he was entirely trusted by divers considerable 380 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. families. And he used with his lordship an untainted friendship which he continued after daily familiarity must cease ; for he omitted no opportunity of giving his lordship information, admonition, and advice, when he thought he might do him service by such freedoms. All which his lordship accepted with exquisite candour and had a very great value for such a friend as he was ; and how many great men reject such and divert to flatterers ! Mr. Longue- ville was the last patron and friend that poor old Butler, the author of Hudibras had, and, in his old age, he sup- ported him. Otherwise he might have been literally starved. All that Butler could do to recompense him was to make him his heir, that is give him his remains ; but in loose papers and indigested. But Mr. Longueville hath reduced them into method and order ; and some of them have been been since printed. It might have been better, perhaps, if they had never seen the light; for, under a variety of surprising wit and lively conceit there is couched but an awkward morality. 411. This Mr. Longueville first introduced to his lord- ship's acquaintance the most florid and accomplished gen- tleman of the law as in the course of his practice he appeared to be, Sir John King. His beginning was in general learning, having his face directed towards the church ; and so far as polite literature reached he was accomplished, being master of Tully and the Latin oratory. He left the university and applied to the law. His first practice was before the judicatory for the rebuilding of London after the fire. There he made himself known, and as that court consumed its business, he crept into better in Westminster-hall and was soon let into the wheel of preferment ; that is by being put into some minor attor- neyship, as of the queen or duke, I remember not which : but he became the top practiser in the court of chancery ; for he was cut out by nature and formed by education for that business. He had the most of an orator and was withal the most polite and affable gentleman that I ever knew wear a gown. His principal care was to be instructed and then his performance was easy. All his misfortune lay at home, in a perverse consort who always after his day-labour done entertained him with all the chagrin and VALUED FRIENDS. 381 peevishness imaginable ; so that he went home as to his prison or worse ; and when the time came, rather than go home, he chose commonly to get a friend to go and sit in a free chat at the tavern over a single bottle till twelve or one at night, and then to work again at five in the morning. His fatigue in business, which as I said was more than ordinary to him, and his no comfort or rather discomfort at home and taking his refreshment by excising his sleep, soon pulled him down ; so that, after a short illness, he died. 412. His lordship had one friend that used to frequent him much and was greatly countenanced by him. It was Mr. Charles Porter, who, in the reign of King William, was made lord chancellor of Ireland, where he dLied. 1 This person had run a strange course of variety in his life. He was the son of a prebend in Norwich and a 'prentice boy in the city in the rebellious times. When the committee house was blown up, he was one that was very active in that rising, and after the soldiers came and dispersed the rout he, as a rat among joint-stools, shifted to and fro among the shambles and had forty pistols shot at him by the troopers that rode after him to kill him. a In that distress he had the presence of mind to catch up a little child that, during the rout, was frighted and stood crying in the streets and, unobserved by the troopers, ran away with it. The people opened a way for him, saying, " Make room for the poor child. " Thus he got off and, while search was made for him in the market-place and thereabouts, got into the Yarmouth ferry and at Yarmouth took ship and went to Holland, there being an opportunity of a ship then going off ; and he was scarce out at sea before the pursuit came down after him ; so narrowly he escaped hanging at that time. In Holland he trailed a pike and was in several actions as a common soldier. At length he kept a cavalier 1 He was originally made lord chancellor of Ireland, in the reign of .lames II., during the vice-royalty of Lord Clarendon. " He was," says Burnet, u a man of ready wit, and being poor, was thought a person tit to be made a tool of. When Clarendon was recalled, Porter was also displaced, and Fitton was made chancellor, a man " who knew no other law but the king's pleasure." (Own Time % vol. iii. pp. 1119, 1163.) 2 24th April, 1(34H. See Blomefield\s History of Norfolk, vol. iii. p. 382 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. eating-house ; but, his customers being needy, he soon broke and came for England and being a genteel youth, was taken in among the chancery clerks and got to be under a master, in which employment he laid a foundation for practice in that court beginning with drawing ; and after- wards he applied to the bar. His industry was great and he had an acquired dexterity and skill in the forms of the court ; and although he was a bon companion and followed much the bottle, yet he made such dispatches as satisfied his clients ; especially the clerks who knew where to find him. His person was florid, and speech prompt and arti- culate. But his vices, in the way of women and the bottle, were so ungoverned as brought him to a morsel ; and he did but just hold up his head with all the advantages that fell to his share ; which were very great : for when the Lord Keeper North had the seal, who from an early acquaintance had a kindness for him which was well known and also that he was well heard, as they call it, business flowed in to him very fast and yet he could scarce keep himself at liberty to follow his business. The best account of which strange conduct is that he was careless and joined with others in taking up monies ; and so carried on a jolly way of living. At the revolution, when his interest fell from and his debts began to fall upon him, he was at his wits' end. And some knowing his case and pitying him (for, at large, he was indeed a very honest fellow) recommended him as a plausible man, fit to be lord chan- cellor of Ireland ; and accordingly he was knighted and sent over. There he lived some years and in that place concluded his days little better than insolvent. It is not to be wondered at that this fair- conditioned gentleman of the Chancery order should be acceptable to his lordship ; for, barring his private failings and no less secret debts, his character for fidelity, loyalty, and facetious conversation, was without exception ; and his lordship knew little of his secret ways to give him a disgust to his person who also had the good fortune to be loved by every body. I have remembered thus much of a gentleman that underwent all extremity of good and evil fortune ; whereof the particu- lars that are not of my own knowledge I had from his own mouth, in very serious conversation. All which is PAPER IN PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 383 worthy to be known ; and the rather, because he had that magnanimity and command of himself that no surprise or affliction, by arrests or otherwise, could be discerned either in his countenance or society : which is very exemplary ; and in cases of the persecuting kind, as injustices and the malice of powers, heroical in perfection. 413. The Lord Chief Justice Hales, a profound com- mon lawyer and both devotionair and moralist, affected natural philosophy as I have already observed of him. 1 But here I shall take notice only of a book he put out, entitled " Of the Non-gravitation of Fluids.'' His lordship did not approve of his doctrine but wondered that a man of his great ability in other things should lapse so childishly into error, as in that book he showed himself guilty of. But the perusal of it put him upon a stricter consideration of hydrostatics than he had been used to before. And among the many instances he thought of for illustrating the pres- sure, or gravitation, of fluids, he fell upon the considera- tion of the bladders of fishes ; what effect they had, and by what means. He concluded that the contracting and dilating of the bladder, whether by a muscular action or the more or less compression of the water and perhaps both, caused the fish to rise or sink, or rest in the water, without any action of the fins. It was alleged against this, that there is no time when the fish doth not make use of her fins ; but whoever observes them even in their most quiet state shall discern their fins more or less movent and employed. This may be no labour or pains to the fish as under any constraint, more than it is to us by virtue of our muscles to stand, or sit, upright ; but it is an action in a manner involuntary and that atttends common life, and neither we nor they perceive it. Thus the matter used to be debated between him and his nearest friends ; but he yielded nothing but was continually more satisfied of his own notion. At length it was agreed that each party should draw up their reasons and send them to Mr. Olden- burgh, the publisher of the Philosophical Transactions, 2 as to a public notice. His lordship's paper is to be found in 1 Supra § 80 et scq. 2 And secretary to th? royal Scc'ety. 384 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Mr. Lowthorp's Abridgment, 1 vol. ii. p. 845, to which I refer the reader. 414. It appears in Mr. Lowthorp's collection that his lordship's hint was laid hold of and approved by the virtuosi of the time ; particularly by Mr. Boyle 2 and Mr. Ray, 3 who in papers there entered have pursued there- upon. I have not found that any of them knew who was the author of this paper. His lordship sought no fame nor commendation but information only. Therefore he did not add his name ; which he would not have to be tossed what- ever became of his notion. 415. About this time the philosophical world was enter- tained about settling the grand affair of the mercurial barometer, and its indications. Among the rest Sir Samuel Moreland 4 published a piece, containing a device to prolong the indicatory space from three inches, as in common tubes, to a foot or more as you please ; and he defied all the vir- tuosi to resolve it. This he called a static barometer ; for it was contrived by suspending a common tube at one end of a plain balance, and the other arm to be duly counter- poised and drawn to a point directed to play against an arch of about a sextant, divided into three parts ; and that was to correspond with the three inches on the plate of an upright tube. The cistern was a cylindrical glass of more than the double diameter of the tube ; and in that charged 1 Of the Philosophical Transactions. 2 Robert Boyle, the celebrated philosopher, " a man illustrious by birth, by learning, and by virtue." 3 John Ray, the naturalist. The paper referred to is No. 115, p. 349. 4 It is to be regretted that there is no account of this singular man to be found in our biographical collections. During the Protectorate he was employed under Thurloe, Cromwell's secretary, and dedicated to the Protector a " History of the Persecutions in Piedmont." (Memoirs of T. Hollis, p. 746.) While thus intrusted with the secrets of the government, he was in the habit of betraying them to Charles II., and on the Restoration was knighted, "as a public testimony that the king had received most considerable services from him for some years past." (Rennet's Eegister, p. 135.) His majesty was also pleased to present him with a medal, on the reverse of which was the following inscrip- tion : "In ADVERS1S SUMMO VITiE periculo PROSPERIS FELICI INGE- nio frequens adfuit 5" and at the same time, gave him leave to wear the medal, " as an honourable badge of his signal loyalty," (Evelyn's Numismata, p. 141), "or more justly," say the authors of the Life of Hollis, " as a badge of baseness, which should render him infamous to all MORELANJi's STATIC BAROMETER. 385 with mercury, the tube, erected according to art, was im- mersed ; and the moving of the mercury in the tube, higher and lower, was of no regard, but the index only. His lordship wrote a paper in answer to the knight's challenge and considered this experiment according to the laws of hydrostaticks, and concluded that the mystery lay in the difference of specific gravity between mercury and glass which may be nearly as one to twenty. The standing of the mercury in the tube is always taken upon the distance of the upper from the lower superficies; and whatever happens, the mercury will find that distance as the pres- sure of the atmosphere requires. He considered also that the quantity of mercury and the quantity of the glass tube not immersed, taken together, were the sum of the whole weight above the stagnum, supposed to make an equili- brium against the counterpoids. This standing level, and the index pointing (for example) to 29 { inches, if the varia- tion of the pressure comes to require a 30 inch column, then i inch mercury in weight is added on that side. This must draw down the tube into the stagnum, till so much of the glass tube is immersed as shall answer that increase of weight ; and then the index riseth, because the tube and the mercury tend down into the stagnum. But as the glass goes down the mercury seems to rise in the tube ; for the column will always, as I said, answer the pressure whether the tube goes up or down. His lordship consi- dered also that the specific weight of glass is so much less than that of mercury, that the glass tul>e must lose two or three inches to countervail one half, or perhaps one quarter posterity." The honours bestowed upon him by the kin£ did not pre- vent the public, however, from appreciating him as he deserved; and Pepys tells us that " he was looked upon by all men as a knave." (Diary vol. i. p. 44.) In his old age he became entirely blind, and had the misfortune to be entrapped into a marriage with a woman, who was represented to him to be " a very virtuous, pious, and sweet- disposi- tioned lady, an heiress, who had £500 per annum in hmd of inheri- tance, and £4,000 in ready money," &c, but who unfortunately turned out to be " a coachman's daughter, not worth a shilling." (Pepys s Cor- resp. vol. ii. p. 78.) Sir S. Moreland has sometimes been supposed to have been the inven- tor of the steam-engine ; but this conjecture is incorrect. (See the subject examined in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxxii. p. 406.) C C 386 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. of an inch of mercury, whether sinking into the stagnum or emerging from it, and so in proportion as it shall happen ; which makes the opposite arm, with the index, make larger sweeps than the rising and falling in com- mon tubes show. His lordship considered farther that the stagnum not being very wide, as the tube sunk the mercury there rose and swallowed the glass faster than, if wider, it would do ; and that it ought to be so adjusted for quantities of mercury and glass, that the arm shall not play much above or below the level, which otherwise would create some impediment if not inequality in the motion ; and lastly, that the arch must be graduated mechanically ; for the measures must be taken as they happen and will not be adjusted by calculates. It is obvious how, by this means, the beam moves and stands in continual balance and the index shows the barometrical action by the arched and graduated plate with advantage. But in practice, the many frictions, as of the mercury in the tube and of the glass in the stagnum, corrupt the nicety of the instrument (and in time exaggerating) so much, that it is not made use of but for show. 416. When the virtuoso received his lordship's paper, he blustered and threatened a most powerful answer but never was so kind, as to send any. On the contrary he took an opportunity to wait on his lordship and they be- came good philosophical friends and acquaintance; and once, upon an invitation, his lordship dined with Sir Samuel at his house ; and though his entertainment was exquisite the greatest pleasure was to observe his devices ; for every thing showed art and mechanism. A large fountain played in the room and all the glasses stood under little streams of water. He had a cistern in his garret which supplied water to all parts of his house as he thought fit to contrive it. The water was raised by a common pump (as it seemed to be) in his yard : but, going to lift the sweep, it rose (as it were) of itself ; for it was prolonged beyond the tree and there had a counterpoise of lead ; which made the sweep nuwe as the beam of a scale : and wherever there was like to be a friction a roulet was placed to receive it. In like manner, windows, doors, hinges, and chimneys spoke the owner to be an artist : and his utensils abroad had the BAROMETERS FIRST SOLD IN SHOPS. 387 same taste. His coach was most particular ; and he made a portable engine that moved by watehwork, which might be called a kitchen ; for it had a fire-place and grate with which he could make a soup, broil costelets or roast an egg ; and for that, his contrivance was by a fork with five tines (as I may call it) which stood upright at a due dis- tance before the firegrate and turned slowly. An egg put into that would roast according to art ; and if a piece of meat were stuck upon it, it was dressed by clockwork. He said himself that this machine cost him <£30. He took it with him in his own coach, and at inns he was his own cook. But to conclude with a capital invention of his. When he was told that the Lord Keeper North was dead, he asked of what disease ? It was answered, of a fever. " It is strange," said he, " that a wise man as he was should die of a fever." " How," said the other, " should a wise man prevent it?" "By doing as I do," said he; M that is to go to bed with a glysterpipe always in my reach ; and that is a box to hold the liquor the lid of which is a plug that screws down and evacuates it : and from the box pro- ceeds a flexile pipe with the tool at the end ; by winch at any time when I find myself not well, I give myself a clyster. Whereas others are forced to send for help ; and in that delay a fever lays hold which might have been sup- pressed at first. 417. His lordship was much affected by the discoveries which fell in the consequences of the Torricellian experi- ment ; whereby a new world of air compressing every thing it touches is revealed. He could not but observe a manifest connexion between the alterations of the mercurial station and the course of the winds and weather ; but could not fix in his mind any certain rules of indication but rather the contrary, viz. that events failed as often as corre- sponded with the ordinary expectation. But yet he would not give it over for desperate, and hoped that a more general observation might generate a better prognostic of the weather from it than was yet known. And that must be expected from a more diffused if not an universal use of it, which could not then be thought of ; because the instru- ments were rare and confined to the cabinets of the vir- tuosi ; and one was not to be had but by means of some of 388 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. them. Therefore his lordship thought fit to put some ordinary tradesmen upon making and selling them in their shops ; and accordingly he sent for Jones the clock-maker in the Inner- Temple Lane; and, having shown him the fabric and given him proper cautions in the erecting of them, recommended the setting them forth for sale in his shop ; and, it being a new thing, he would certainly find cus- tomers. He did so and was the first person that exposed the instrument to sale publicly in London. But his lord- ship, perceiving that his business lay in other operations he was more used to and that he began to slight these, sent for Mr. Winn, a famous instrument- maker over-against his house in Chancery-Lane, and did the like to him who pur- sued the manufactory to great perfection and his own no small advantage ; and then others took it up, and few clock- makers, instrument-makers, cabinet-makers, and divers other trades, were without them always in their shops, ready for sale : and all moving from the first essays, as I related, set on foot by his lordship. He was a true lover of arts ; and as well for the encouragement of that Mr. Winn as for his own speculative humour (for he had not time to practise drawing) he caused a case of mathematical instruments to be made by him, which are yet extant, and cost fifty pounds ; and nothing of the kind can be made by the hands of men more nice, elegant, and curious than those are. 418. Now, to illustrate his lordship's inclination to inge- nious arts and sciences, I have two subjects to enlarge upon. 1. Music. 2. Picture. As for his music I have already mentioned his exquisite hand upon the lyra and bass-viol, and the use he made of it to relieve his solitude in his chamber. He had a desire to use also the theorbo and violin. He scarce attempted the former but supplied the use of it by the touch of his lyra viol upon his knee, and so gained a solitary concert with his voice. He attempted the violin, being ambitious of the prime part in concert, but soon found that he began such a difficult art too late ; and his profit also said nay to it for he had not time for that kind of practice. It was great pity he had not naturally a better voice ; for he delighted in nothing more than in the exercise of that he had, which had small virtue but in LOVE OF MUSIC. 3S9 the tuneableness and skill. He sang any thing at first sight as one that reads in a new book, which many even singing- masters cannot do. He was a great proller [?] of songs, especially duets ; for in them his brother could accompany him ; and the Italian songs to a thorough bass were choice jmrchases ; and, if he liked them, he commonly wrote them out with his own hand. And I can affirm that he transcribed a book of Italian songs into a volume of the largest quarto, and thicker than a common-prayer book. And this was done about the time he had received the great seal ; for if he would discharge his mind of anxieties he often took the book of songs, and wrote one or two of them out. And as he went along, he observed well the composition and elegancies, as if he not only wrote but heard them ; which was great pleasure to him. 419. His lordship had not been long master of the viol and a sure concerteer, but he turned composer and, from raw beginnings, advanced so far as to complete divers con- certos of two and three parts ; which, at his grandfather's house, were performed with masters in company ; aud that was no small joy and encouragement to him. But it was not to be expected he should surmount the style and mode of the great music-master Mr. Jenkins, then in use where he came: and after hifl rapacity reached higher he had no time to be so diverted. Yet while he was chief justice, he took a fancy to set to music in three parts a canzon of (xuarini, beginning thus, Cor mio del, •• styled the Columen familiar et fastigium domus. 440. But now we dismiss the family and advance to his 1 This was Charles, fifth Lord North, summoned to Parliament in his father's life time as Lord Grey of Rolleston. 40G LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. lordship's benevolence to others. There was a young gentleman known by the name of Charles Crompton ; he was bred up by Sir Henry North of Mildenhall and shrewdly suspected to have been his natural son. A wilder character of a man never was known ; but withal he had some extraordinary talents, as industry for example. If he fancied to write out a book, he would sit at it as a hen upon her nest and deliver it with scarce a sully or blot in it. He had an inexhaustible vein of artificial nonsense and, at any time, if desired, would write a letter of such incomparable stuff as, from a poet, would have passed for wit. He had a good estate in Yorkshire, and as soon as he was of age, he repaired to London in quest of those joys which young heirs dream of to be had there. He was soon scented by the Voltores and Corbaccios, who had fairly begun to pluck him ; but he died before his estate was half eaten. His custom was to visit his lordship with view of borrowing ; and his lordship was diverted by his amazing extravagances of discourse, and frequently lent him small sums upon his notes; but not without the superfluity of good counsel. He not only diverted but instructed his lordship in all the rakery and intrigues of the lewd town ; and his own follies were his chief subject to rally upon as he did with most lively description and wit : particularly his being cheated of his best horses brought up to him from the North and bubbled into a duel, which came off with an acquittance signed upon the cheat's back in the field, and was the very action which Mr. Etheredge describes in his play of " Love in a Tub." His lordship, perceiving this young gentleman going pre- cipitously down hill to ruin and that the scriveners had got hold of his estate, omitted no opportunity, with argu- ment and demonstration, to make him stop his career : and he promised to take his counsel for he feared but two things ; one was that he was Sir Henry North's bastard and the other that he was a rank coward, which, known in town, would disable him to live in it. Once in a melan- choly humour, he would make his will and his lordship must write it ; which he did and, after providing for his debts, he gave all to his sister. " But," said his lordship, " I hope to live to spend it myself." " Ay," said he, " write CHARLES CROMPTON. 407 that and add to the wonderful improvement thereof." This was done and the will signed and published ; by the title of which the estate is held at this day. After this he came to his lordship in the habit of a London 'prentice, and declared he was a going to bind himself to a merchant. His lordship bade him consider well, for by his indentures he would be bound to live chastely. " Ay," said he, " I have a trick for that ; for I will find a merchant that hath a handsome wife and lie with her during my time ; and that will save my indentures." But enough of this bizarre monster, whom his lordship laboured to preserve but could not. He died not long after ; and what was left came to his sister. The younger Sir Henry North courted her, and they seemed agreed but did not marry ; which was thought to proceed from a scruple of conscience upon a point already hinted. However when she died, she left the estate incumbered as it was to him, and he was forced to stand a long and stiff chancery suit with the heir-at-law, who insisted that her gift was not a benefit but a trust. At length the cause was heard before Judge Twisden and two masters ; and he dismissed the bill, declaring that the lover deserved more than laborem and mdorem, or as we say in English his labour for his pains. And then his lordship, who had advised and assisted throughout the process of this cause, completed the service by taking in the mortage and discharging the usurious trade which had been driven with it, and paid the money to Sir John Dun- comb who, seeing only a short assignment indorsed for him to seal, " What," said he, " is this all that Mr. Attorney requires ? G — d d — mn all these lawyers ; for here's a mortgage scrivened up to ten skins of parch- ment ; and the king's attorney-general is content with six lines." 441. His lordship always delighted to redeem his friends out of usurers' clutches and so, without any loss or hazard to himself but by retrenching charges and interest, ex- ceedingly befriended them. And this he did for a relation on the Whitmore side, Sir Charles Kemisb <»t ( ihunorgan- shire. He had been very wild and had dipt his estate .£6000 deep by mortgage to an old usurer in London, ai six per cent. He dealt by a scrivener who was an artist ; 408 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. for, besides continuance money, he made him come to his house every six months to seal new defeasances which increased the charge at every instance. He complained to his lordship of this usage and had directions from him to give notice, as of course, to receive his money, and he should have it of him at five per cent, and be at little charge in the transfer. The assignment was approved by the old gentleman's counsel, and ingrossed with the com- mon covenant against his own acts. At the day the old fellow came but would not seal ; for he would enter into no covenants. His lordship was sent to for directions, and he ordered that the money should be paid upon a common acquittance without his sealing, and, rather than fail, to pay it him and keep only a private memorandum of it attested. The old man, seeing this close play, and foreseeing the consequences which were (not taking the money) to lose his interest and be forced by decree to assign at his own charge, thought fit to seal the deed as it was ; and there was an end. I cannot forbear, for the credit of the Welsh country, to remember an able steward Sir Charles had who solicited his money matters for him. He was a thinking careful fellow and all tending to the good and safety of his mester. Nothing could persuade him but that, if interest was not paid at the day, his mester must lose his estate ; and on that account he never failed to bring up the interest, and pay it half-yearly. How much a better man was this than a wit ! 442. I have mentioned already his lordship's engage- ments of friendship with that great master of painting, Sir Peter Lely. His lordship considered that if he being a foreigner (though naturalized) should die, his estate, by reason of some circumstances, would go to the crown and not to his children, unless he made settlements by deed or will in his lifetime. This startled the good old gentleman, who begged that his lordship would put the matter in execution for him ; and it was soon done according to his mind; and his lordship told him withal that he would present him with a trustee, meaning his younger brother, that should be worth an estate to him. This timely pro- vision saved the estate. How, after his death, that trustee conducted the disposal of his pictures &c. and bred up his SIR PETER LELY'S ESTATE. 409 children was well known by the whole nation of virtuosos both at home and abroad. On the other side, Sir Peter hely presented his lordship with excellent portraits of him and his relations, which are still extant and of great value; and between them this was called commuting of faculties. But it fell out unluckily that his mansion- house at Kew-Green, being copyhold of the Duke of Xork s manor of Richmond, was not surrendered ; so that for reasons hinted, that, for want of a heir, escheated to the lord of the manor ; and a courtier straight begged it and had a promise. Upon this, his lordship's brother ad- vanced his petition and solemnly begged this escheat, and ins lordship joined his request for the benefit of voune Lely About this time the Duke was in Scotland, and his lordship was pleased to write to Sir John Werden, then in waiting, to prefer his request to his roval highness • but haying no satisfactory answer his lordship wrote to old Colonel Werden, more pressing and particular. Which letter, being very expressive of his lordship's sincerity and good wil to his departed friend as well as duty to his royal highness, is here subioined 443. "Sir. " When Sir John Werden was in Scotland, I desired linn to present a humble request to his roval highness on the behalf of Sir Peter Lely's son. Sir John was so kind as to embrace the trouble and wrote me word that the IHike was pleased to receive the motion very favourably, but deferred to determine any thing upon it until he had an account of the thing from Sir Allen Apsley. I spoke with Sir Allen who gave me the most specious promises imaginable; but, not hearing since that the matter is any way advanced, it is my desire that you would be pleased to renew my suit to his royal highness. The case in short is this. " ^ r ,? et rM V P urehased of one Mr. Mountney a small copyhold of £19 per ann. It was holden of the Duke's manor After the surrender and before anv court-baron he died ; so that he was never admitted tenant to it. Sir Peter s boh being born before marriage, cannot by our law inherit, though he be legitimate by the law beyond sea; and Sir Peter could not settle it upon him as he did his 410 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. other estate because he was not admitted. Hereupon the son cannot claim it. But whether Mountney shall keep it or it be escheated to the Duke, may be a question. Mr. Mountney gives his pretences to the child. The trustees for the child are very sensible how indecent it will be for them to have a contest upon the Duke's title, and desire by all means to avoid it. I have advised them to submit to his royal highness ; which I make no doubt they will do although they tell me they have learned men's opinions that it is no escheat. "Now, sir, whereas there be two fines due upon this estate, viz. one upon the purchase, another upon the death of Sir Peter Lely, which fines I suppose will be set at fifty pounds or under, if his royal highness will command his steward to set twice as much as otherwise the fines will come to, it will be very gracious. " It is my earnest desire that the Duke would be favour- able and not look upon the thing as forfeit, and the favour will be acknowledged as if it were. I wish I could be thought to merit such a boon, but my small sphere gives me no capacity ; and indeed I already owe all I have to his royal highness' s favour and therefore owe all I can do to serve him ; from which I shall never be diverted by fear or any other consideration. " Sir, I ought not to think that I have troubled you too long, considering I have another favour to beg of you, which is, that you would be pleased, at your leisure, to let me know if I may hope for success. By that and your pardon for this trouble, you will extremely oblige, &c." 444. I have given this letter in the very words because, if it is well considered, it will appear to be candid, re- spectful and, for the purpose, charming. But this instance verifies the opinion some had of his lordship, that he was no courtier ; for when did any such ever spend their own interest in procuring a boon for a friend ? and much less when it is for a child on account only of friendship had) with its deceased parent, whence no return is to be ex- pected but the conscience of having done a generous action. 445. His lordship endeavoured to preserve a livelihood to a poor woman : it was one Mrs. Jackson, who had a MRS. JACKSON. 411 family and fell under the misery of having her husband hanged for coining ; but upon the testimony of persons worse than himself and, considering the officers of the mint and the trade some of them drove at that time, as like to be false as true. After his lordship had done what he thought reasonable in his own person, he seconded the disposition of a friend by instructions, of which I find a copy under his own hand, which is as follows. 446. " One Jackson, widow of Jackson, who was executed at Tyburn for coining, petitioned his majesty for a grant of her husband's goods for her subsistence. I moved the king in her favour and the king referred her petition to the lords of the treasury. " Her husband was a very ill man ; but her friends are very loyal and good ; and, for their sakes I was desirous her husband might have been pardoned which had been moved by the Duke of Albermarle. But because the prose- cutors were the officers of the mint and the crime was rife, it was thought a pardon would have done great prejudice to the public. His case was this : — " A fellow was accused for clipping who had no way to get off but by accusing others ; he accused this man, (who had been one of his companions in roguery and lent a room to work in and sold silver for him, but denied at his death that he ever joined in clipping with him, as he swore at the trial), and this man was bound over, but at the sessions had nothing to say against him ; whereupon he was discharged. For fear of this the witness gets him taken up again and, though he said nothing against him at the former sessions, now he preferred an indictment and swore so fully that he was convicted and hanged upon it. " He denied the fact at his death, though he confessed many ill things against himself; and, which is very ob- servable, the witness was committed afterwards for stealing and was hanged himself. " After all this set down, I hold no argument ought to be made with such a reflection on the proceedings of justice : but the only argument will be that her friends are very loyal. She was a gentlewoman of a good fortune ; and it is but a small matter that is left ; and it would be hard she should be utterly ruined when her friends had interest 412 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. enough to have got her husband's pardon, if the example of the public had not been concerned. " It need only be said I recommended it, unless the particulars are asked." 447. What was done in this matter is not now material to be known. The design of this paper was to get a favour- able report from the treasury upon the woman's petition. The whole tenour of it shews a just and compassionate mind and judicious expression ; for which reason I have given it in the very words, for no epitome is sufficient. 448. I think it is of small moment to give an account of some pecuniary benefactions, as to Trinity college library in Cambridge, Trinity college in Oxford, and the parish-church of Harlow, and some others ; because they were not great. It is enough to say that his lordship was a noted encourager of all learned foundations, societies, and persons ; and most of all, the conformable clergy and their dignified superiors. He never failed to do them justice ; which being their due, no thanks to him ; but only as it was a strain of popularity to do them wrong. He revered their order, and advanced rather than stayed to be importuned for his acts of bene- volence and advices. He used to discourse familiarly with them, and communicate his schemes, as he thought might aid their understandings in the conduct of their common concerns. And he used to take a freedom to ask their thoughts in questions of history, theology, and civil law. He advised them to study more of the common law than was ordinarily found amongst them. He had a great re- spect and value for the incomparable Dr. Hickes, sometime dean of Worcester. His lordship had knowledge of him first at the Duke of Lauderdale's, where he attended as domestic chaplain. He was a truly venerable, learned and pious Christian minister, of a primitive spirit, patience and resolution. In his stupendous work, entitled, Thesaurus Linguarum Sejptentrionalium, &c. in his preface to his grammar, Franco -Theotisca, fol. 8, he gives this testimony of his lordship's goodness to the clergy. 449. " Ante sedecim aut eo plus annos, vixit vir amplis- simus sapientissimusque et sui temporis jurisconsultus sine pare maximus, Franciscus Dominus North, Dominus G-uil- ford, Carolo 2°. et Jacobo 2°. E.E. Angliae magni sigilli DR. HICKES. 413 custos, qui me multuin et farailiariter utebatur. Itaque multa ab eo prud enter disputata multa etiam breviter et commode dicta memorise mandabam, ut qui fieri semper studebam illius prudentia, doctior. Is autem, cum saepe multa narraret, turn praeclare memini domi in ccenaculo sedentem, cum et ego essem una et pauci familiares in ser- monem de proceribus sacerdotii incidisse ; in quo episcoporum vicem magnopere dolebat vir maximus ; utpote quorum authoritatem diu in senatu labefactatam turn ferme jacere dicebat,ex eo quodadrotulorum parliamentariorum studium contra praedecessorum suorum qui in anterioribus saeculis tioruissent, minime animos appulissent. Memini etiam saepius audivisse ilium vehementer hortari egregios e clero viros, turn qui facti episcopi erant turn quos ad episcopatum destinatos esse sciebat, ut in rotulorum istorum studio quas senatoriarum rerum quasi biblia appellabat nocte dieque se exercerent." In English to this effect : — " About sixteen years ago lived that great and wise man, and the ablest lawyer of his time, the Right Honourable Francis North, Baron of Guilford, Lord Keeper of the great seal to King Charles and King James the Second. I had the honour of being one of his particular acquaintance, which gave me frequent opportunities of treasuring up in my memory many of his instructing discourses and no less excellent sayings; which I never failed to do, being ever desirous of gathering from him wherewith to add to my own stock. But I remember once in particular, that this noble person whilst he was sitting in his parlour with only myself and a few more of his friends, took occasion to enter into a discourse of the prelates of our church ; wherein he expressed great concern for that order ; in regard that the respect formerly paid them, after having been upon the decline for these many years, was now almost quite laid aside ; which he attributed to their neglecting to study the parliament rolls contrary to the custom of their predecessors in former times. I have likewise often heard him earnestly recommend the study of those rolls to some of the greatest divines, as well those that were already bishops as those whom he knew were designed to be made so ; because he 414 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. said that, as to all parliamentary transactions, they were a very bible." So testifies this great man, who cannot be accused of flattering a person then dead. 450. There are many passages in the current relation of his lordship's life, which might fall in properly here ; as the constant war he maintained against all monopolists, projectors and other deceivers of the people ; but being of a public quality I have not drawn them down in this place : only I must add here as a negative benevolence, if I may, with respect to the actions of some others, so term it ; that, when forfeitures of goods and estates flew about at court 1 and the harpies continually begging them, his lordship never had a thought of profiting to himself out of the misfortunes of families, as when the Lord E[ochester] obtained the Lord Grey of Wark's estate and the Lord J[ef£reys] that of Prideaux, &c. ; 2 but on the contrary, as in the case of Jack- son, where he saw reason, inclined to assist the miserables : and once when his lordship interceded with King Charles the Second for his favour to one that was obnoxious, " It is very strange," said the king most facetiously, " that every one of my friends keeps a tame knave.' ' 451. Let us now retire with him into his family, and show what he was in his private character and how he passed his time when at a distance from the public stage ; and there show him a no less indulgent master than, as we have before demonstrated him to have been, a most serviceable friend. 452. After the death of his lady, his lordship parted with his house at Hammersmith and passed much of his vacation- time at his great house in Wroxton, where he had usually with him his two brothers (one of the three being not then returned from Turkey) and his sisters with their appur- tenances, a company which he styles in one of his papers Societas exoptata or the company he was most desirous of. And those he never cared to be without when he might have them. At London they fell into a cursory good fellow- ship, I mean in a civil sense ; for every Thursday night the 1 See a curious instance of this in Sir J. Beresby's Memoirs, p. 34. a On these confiscations see Macaulay's Hist., chap v. INDULGENCE TO SERVANTS. 415 meeting was at Sir Dudley North's in the city, and on Sunday with his brother at his Chambers in the Temple ; but at his lordship's almost every day. Which felicity had no allay until the appointments were known, and then some friends at large would find them out which was not so well. 453. In the country his lordship entertained himself with setting his great house in order ; and although he was afraid of building lest he might find himself engaged in over- expensive undertakings, yet he ventured upon a large order of stabling very stately and convenient ; and he built from the ground a withdra wing-room and back stairs and finished up the room 8 of state, as they were called, and shaped the windows, which before had made the rooms like bird-cages. He never would hearken to any designs of waterworks or gardening, although the situation was hilly and in some respects very inviting. But yet his brothers were always measuring and mapping ; and these modellings pleased his lordship to look over and wrangle with them about. 454. He was a very indulgent master to his servants, and never parted with any but for knavery (when it ap- peared to him) ; and of that I knew but one instance, but that was a flagrant one. When he was solicitor-general, he took one John Zacharias Smarthwait, a fellow of good address and creditable, and made him his chief clerk. When the town of Taunton-Dean renewed their charter this forward fellow got to be employed in it : he imposed upon their credulity, pretending much service by his atten- dance upon Mr. Attorney, and in the end cheated them of c£200. His lordship neither allowed nor knew of any such trading ; and it no sooner came to his knowledge but he drove him away as an infection, leaving him to the town to worry as they thought fit ; but he was secure in being worth nothing. However they had a revenge ; for he died a beggar and crippled with the }><>x in While- Friars. His lordship's indulgence to servants cost him wry dear : for most of them were but eye-waiters and diligent only for fear of losing their places, otherwise negligent and wasteful. And he used to complain that he could not turn away an unprofitable servant without being urged as if he went about to ruin the fellow. 41C LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. 455. His lady had much of the same good-nature ; and did all she could that the old servants might not think she wrought any thing prejudicial to them ; and when his lordship mentioned any design of reform amongst them, she would say, " No ; for then they would be worse than they were before.' ' She had found out when her husband had any trouble upon his spirits ; and she would say, " Come, Sir Francis," (as she always styled him) " you shall not think ; we must talk and be merry and you shall not look upon the fire as you do. I know something troubles you ; and I will not have it so." With many such obliging importunities she put him out of his dumps. And these kind forms never offended him as morose persons are often offended; but he corresponded with cheerful and engaging replies. And on the other side he was always tenderly concerned for her in all her sicknesses ; so that her infirmities were not of one but of two. And he always consulted and conferred with her physicians about her regimen, in order to better health. And in the furnishing her with jewels, plate or furniture, he always complied with her desires, which, circumstances considered, were not at all unreasonable. 456. After a competent time, his lordship was not with- out thoughts of matching himself again ; and beadrolls of reasons, pro and con, presented themselves to his mind which took up no small time to digest, and thereupon with a clear satisfaction to determine ; and at last the negative carried it. The chief reason which he declared, was that he would not have two broods in his family, to perplex him and endanger the bringing disadvantages upon his children by the first venter. And thereupon he lived a virtuous widower without scandal and much to his honour, all the rest of his life. But afterwards in his last sickness while he was drinking the waters, he seemed to repent that he had not taken a wife ; for then he thought that such a friend would have instructed him in a better regimen of health, as letting blood and taking physic sometimes, which he had not done for many years and might have pre- vented his fever. Besides he fancied that, in the night, human heat was friendly. Once he was in a humour to blame his family physician for not watching his health * THE LORD KEEPER'S HOUSEHOLD. 417 better and (almost) forcing him to take physic. But, when he was told that he used to repel from him all over- tures of that kind, he seemed satisfied and said no more. I remember he once asked his physician if he could cure his course of spitting which was very troublesome. " Yes," said the doctor. " But then," answered his lordship, " will not that bring upon me worse inconveniences P" "I cannot answer for that/' said the doctor. So the cure of his best cure was not entered upon. When, after his lordship's death, the apothecary's bill was paid ; the man, irritated with the executors' expostulations about the prices and the length of it, laid all the fault upon the physicians, saying, " he was to dispense what they prescribed ; and that my lord keeper had been all his life an enemy to physic ; but now he thought that physic had met with him." 457. After his lordship had the great seal his economy in London was very much altered. He had his stables adjoining to his house and a formal (good for nothing) master of the horse ; but he was an old cavalier and a neighbour and acquaintance of the Wroxton family, and could smoke and taste claret ; which qualifications supplied care and skill in his office. There was a major-domo, or rather prefect of eating ; and having a good stroke of his own was fit for the employment. His table, which com- prised the gentlemen servants, was kept in good order ; but the inferior servants ate like harpies at the catch and, to say truth, most scandalously. Those whose office it was to observe them gave themselves no trouble with such matters ; and his lordship knew nothing thereof. What fell in his view, which was the butler's and waiter's offices, was very well performed. He had one gentleman waiter who was of a singular character ; he was an arrant cox- comb, void almost of common sense and yet the most exquisite observer of his duty in all formal respects. He was as sure at call as the door-post. I never knew any one at the table look as wanting any thing, that he had not instantly in his eye and readily served. And to give one instance for all to show the top of his formality : in tra- velling, if he were detached upon a message, In* not turn and go off directly, but rode before and planted him sell as mating a guard till the coach went by, and then made his 418 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. devoir ; as much as to say, " I observe your commands ; and have you any more?" With these observances he got credit with his lord and all the family ; and dying as he did, of a pleurisy, was accounted a loss not easily supplied. His lordship's custom was after dinner to retire with his company, which were not a few and of the best quality in town, into a withdrawing-room ; and the tea-table followed where his youngest brother officiated ; and him his lordship often set at the head of his table, for want of a lady, to carve. His suppers were in another room and served in a more familiar way, and where his best friends and some (painted) enemies ordinarily assembled. And this he thought the best refreshment the whole day afforded him ; and before twelve he retired and, after a touch of his music, went to bed : his musician not leaving him till he was com- posed. So that never any person had more assured wit- nesses of his conversation than he had ; and if ever music was a relief to a mind overwhelmed with troubles, it was so with him. 458. Hitherto of his lordship's retiredments, but chiefly within his private economy, relations, and servants ; with- out looking into the public and as if he had nothing to do there ; which, perhaps, may have led us to touch upon circumstances less proper to be noted in a life of his im- portance. But now I must cashier all those matters and retire with his lordship into his solitudes, and show him there as he was both a moral philosopher and a good Christian, incessantly labouring to improve the faculties of his mind, and also to coerce all exorbitances as well of his inclinations as passions. And if we find any real symptoms of his prudent, faithful, and (I had almost said) prophetic speculations, regarding either himself or the vast consequences of his employments, we shall lay hold and make the best we can of them, and say with Yirgil, " paulo majora canamus." So I proceed to note his lordship's manner of direct and reflex thinking, and what endeavours as well as artifices he used to keep his mind at ease, his judgment steady, and, when wavering, to confirm it. 459. His lordship was sensible of many natural infirmi- HIS CONDUCT IN PRIVATE. 419 ties. I have already mentioned his innate modesty and how apt he was to passion and, upon any offence, to in- flame ; and more than ordinarily inclined to be amorous : not forgetting that, coming into the world with little in present and nothing expected from his family, he was very solicitous of keeping within compass and then to improve his fortunes. And yet he broke through his temper and acquired a commendable assurance, and kept under his passions to such a degree as made him be thought mild and dispassionate ; and, while unmarried, lived virtuously and without the least scandal or occasion for it ; and as his condition mended, became easy in his expenses and bountiful to many. It may be now asked by what arts and assistances he gained these great victories over him- self. I must answer first, in general, that strength of reason and rectitude of will gave him such a mastery over his temper: but withal, 1. That when he fell under any deliberation of great concern to him, and the point was nice and stood almost in cequilibrio, he took his pen and wrote down the reasons either way as they fell in his mind, in any words or manner of expression, and had that paper for the most part lying in his way ; which gave him frequent opportunities to weigh the cogency of them. 2. When he observed himself in his mind unsteady, or disturbed, he set down the truths that ought to confirm him ; and so upon occasion of divers emergencies of his life. And these he titled speculums, 1 which frequently admonished him of some growing fondnesses : for when he perceived the rising of them, he took up his speculum which soon reduced them. Of these speculums, he had many that lay loose about his desk ; and but few of them are come to my hand : and some of such as I have, I shall present as specimens. 460. His lordship, by certain symptoms, ohserved some mischief brewing at court which drew him to set down these notes, that he might often reflect upon them. " Why hastened?" What the matter was which occasioned this query, I 1 The English of this word is a looking-glass, or mirror, wherein any one may see his own image. And from thence his lordship, by a meta- phor, called these papers speculums ; because, as a man looks in a mirror in order to be acquainted with his outside; so by looking upon what 420 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. cannot remember, nor with clear satisfaction guess. Pro- bably it was the reform of the council, whereby the Lord Shaftesbury, and all the mal-contents were let in. Perhaps the following may explain it. " For that impressions, made at Newmarket, should not be removed here." 461. It was usual for the perverse party at court, when the king was to be wrought upon to do somewhat cross to the ministry, to besiege him at Newmarket where they (the ministers) did not attend, and having gained a reso- lution, at the return to precipitate the dispatch lest better advice should alter it. This seems to have been at the vernal meeting and agrees with the former conjecture ; for the experiment was tried not long before the meeting of the abhorring parliament. 462. His lordship follows this with these queries. " Why such a stir to oppose petitions ?" It was foreseen that the parliament would be very severe against the anti-petitioners ; and who should be moved to oppose them but such as were already obnoxious? and that course was most like to expose them to the fury of the parliament. And this was a hopeful way to have the king's friends torn from him. 463. " Why must judges be commanded to discounte- nance one, and to show a diversity ? " This was noted elsewhere, where it is remembered that the Earl of Sunderland (always in dark practices), in the abhorring vacation, ordered the judges as here is queried ; and withal to declare that the laws of recusancy should not extend to protestant dissenters. 464. " Why commissions purged upon that point ?" That is, for being concerned with the petitioners, or at least not being active in opposing petitions. 465. " Why corporations held to the oaths ?" These oaths were proper for officers in corporations ; but it was required they should be pressed upon all freemen, contrary to law. was written in these papers, he might see his inside and have a thorough knowledge of the inner-man, his excellencies, atid imperfec- tions. {Note in the original Edit.) SPECULUMS. 421 466. "Why were commissions of association pressed; and the bailing of the Earl of Danby ?" When the charter justices would not, as they seldom would, do their duty against sectaries and seditious persons, it was urged that the king should associate other justices out of the country by special commission, to sit and act in the corporation with them. I do not remember that any of these issued ; but the legality of them was more than suspected ; and they would have malcontented the corpo- rations, having the clause ne intromittant, in the highest degree. And as to the bailing of the Earl of Danby, who lay committed upon an impeachment by the parliament, it was urged that it should be done by the oyer and terminer at the Old Bailey. His lordship was of opinion it could not be done. 467. " Causa patet." The reason is plain. All these matters were extraordinary and irregular, but would have been matter of furious blame in the House of Commons and fallen hard upon the king's forward friends. And that was it which his lordship understands to have been the intent of the Earl of Sunderland and others that pushed them ; and not a little pointing to aggravate his case in parliament. But this will appear more luculently in the next. 468. "Why must I discharge the jury for fear of a pre- sentment ; and such ado about the sheriff of London and application to discharge others after ill ex. and Rec r . put K. upon it, and Sec. I come of that mess. " Causa eadem." The reason is the same. It was foreseen that the ignoramus jury, at the sessions, would present the Duke of York as a popish recusant. To prevent this by a discharge of the grand jury would have drawn an accusation ; as for the like the judges of the King's Bench were impeached. His lordship put by this indiscreet, or rather treacherous, pass, and let the present- ment come and then it was immediately removed by a cer- tiorari which did not afford any matter of charge. The stir about the sheriff of London, I suppose, was the order to reform the panel, noted in the Examen ; which was much squeak and no wool, but an impertinent contention to no profit. And that order was managed and carried by his 422 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. lordship, and some of the panel discharged; which he thought of no good example, and deems that the Recorder Jeffries and the Secretary Sunderland, put the king upon insisting that, not being against law, it should be done, and also that those courtiers intended by it to heap coals of fire upon his lordship's head. 469. " To make electors take the corporation oath and charge the judges to see good juries of anti-petitioners, and scrutiny afterwards. ,, This of oaths was touched before ; but this brings it to the parliament ; which would have been termed downright packing the parliament, though, as to choice, it had signi- fied nothing: for, at that time the temper of the public would not admit a choice fair for the crown ; and these provocations did but exasperate the ill humour : and the charge to the jury was an egregious trepan ; but frustrated as hath elsewhere been noted. I am not satisfied as to the meaning of scrutiny afterwards. Perhaps it intends an inquiry into the behaviour of the judges, and who obeyed orders and who not. 470. This following passage is somewhat remarkable, and therefore I shall insert it here. " Mich. Sir Edward Hales." 1 This Kentish knight was a man of florid parts, and had made some undue advantage in dealing with one of the sons of Mr. Lechmere a bencher of the Middle- Temple. This was referred to his lordship ; who, finding the case foul on the part of Hales, determined against him. But at this time Hales, though somewhat concealed, was no better than a papist and had engaged all the court interest of that party to urge in his favour ; which gave his lordship no small trouble and occasioned this remembrance of him, intended to be explained at leisure. After his majesty's demise this Sir Edward Hales declared himself a papist, and was a busy agent in managing the projects of that party in Kent. 471. His lordship had some affairs upon his hands which were difficult to manage ; and those he noted under the title " difficilia" or difficulties. 1 On Sir Edward Hales, see Macaulay, ch. vi., and other references which may be found in the Index. SPECULUMS. 423 " Want of pension. " That is an addition of J22000 per annum more ; for the Lord Nottingham had .£4000 per annum, which, to his lordship, was screwed down to <£2000, on pretence of de- pending on the king's bounty rather than bargain. And it seems he had an intent to have moved on this head ; which was a difficult matter for a non-courtier to under- take. 472. " Controversy inter grands, E. of Rochester and M. Halifax." Disputes among the great ones ; E. of Rochester and M. Halifax. This was about the contract with the farmers of the excise and hearth money ; of which before. 473. After the king's demise and his brother James suc- ceeded his lordship was overwhelmed with sorrow ; and however commonly he was used to give vent to his troubles and, by converse with his nearest friends, ease his mind, now it was too full and he held it in to his great oppression and expresseth himself in his memento thus. M Ne redintegrentur planctus et contemplaiio dolorosa et gemitu8 maximi et continui, et pavor erga omnia et torpor et insomnia. 11 Let me not disquiet myself afresh with lamentable and melancholy apprehensions of what may happen ; or renew those excessive and continued groans attended with fear on every side which break my rest, and even deprive me of my senses. 474. His lordship saw no end of evils that impended on this change and here tries to ease his mind upon his paper in this pathetic prescription. " Deus dedit occasionem optimam quo? mitrime est negli- genda ; solatium enim est nimis breve et subito transit 11 God has given a favourable opportunity, which must not be let slip ; for the comfort I shall have is but for a little while and will soon pass away. This respects his purpose of quitting the seals, whether it were upon occasion of the king's demise or in the time of his last sickness : — when that purpose was confirmed in him and he did what he could to put it in execution doth not appear in this paper. I am inclined tiO think the latter; and the occasion to have been his weakness which most 424 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. was sensible to him at that time : arid then he reflects on the consequence. 475. " Semper idem ; otium dat observationem et pascit lienem." Never the better ; leisure does but give time to think and feeds the spleen. This reflection is very profound ; for it is a vanity to ex- pect ease in retiring from the world ; for the case will be still the same. A man cannot run from himself but his thoughts will follow him ; and if he has not troubles from without to divert, he will have more attention to himself ; and splenetic humour, of which his lordship was afraid, will arise. But for an inward comfort, as he was he contrived this Speculum, entitled " Bene. " Conditio aptissima. '* Honor augens et divitice. 44 Beverentia universa. 44 Societas exoptata. 4 ' Nogotium continuo diver - tens. " Beneficentiam exercens. 4 4 Modestia laudata." Well. His qualifications most fit for the justice of the chan- cery. Increase of credit and riches. Universally respected. The desirable company of his brothers and friends. Kept in full employ by the business of his place. Doing good to his friends and servants. Approved modesty. 476. The next is a speculum of all the evils that may happen, with the apt remedies applicable to them ; and this he titled Speculum Magnum. What is there to make me uneasy ? 44 Quid causce ? 44 Inopia ? Want? ' 4 Onera ? Difficulties ? 44 Metus ? Satis quod sufficit aut nun- quamP Enough, now or never. Corpus sanum sit ita mens." Sound in body let me keep my mind so. Objectum nullum nisi phan- tasma" SPECULUM8. 425 Fear? Nothing but fancy to affright " Infamia ? Disgrace ? me. Notus es et expectatio vera.' 1 They knew you and you have not balked their expecta- 4t Pudor ? Shamefacedness P tion. Irrationabilis et abigendus" Unreasonable and to be drove " Solitudo ? Solitude ? " Senectus ? Old age 9 away . Remedium amarius." Worse than the disease. Levantine indiget." That wants support. 477. His lordship perceived plainly that the adverse party were setting up Jeffries to supplant him and gave him all encouragement to be troublesome ; which, as his lordship thought, might induce his giving way to make room for him. And regarding that case his lordship wrote this and titled it, Speculum alter. " Nidi, favor de penur. Not afraid of being in want. u Null, reproach pro ebrietat. Not reproached for drunken- These seem somewhat comparative; for Jeffries was tainted with all these. 478. His lordship framed another speculum respecting a private state, which had place in his soliloquies, and is entitled Speculum tertium. " Optimum retire." 2 It may be best to retire. After all the advantages he could propose to himself in his Keeper's high station, a private life was safest and best. 1 Whatever else may have been meant by this note, it is certain it cannot refer to the contest between James II. and Magdalen College, Oxford, which broke out two years after the death of the Lord Keeper. Roger North, writing late in life, evidently forgot the date of these transactions. The probability seems to be that reference is made to something entirely different in its character. 2 Did the Lord Keeper really write retire? lH'SS. Null. Magdalen Compl" No way 8 concerned in the complaints from Magdal. College. 1 426 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. u Turbatio bene interpret." My confusion would admit of a favourable interpre- tation. The disturbance he found in his attention and counte- nance, which is touched elsewhere, would have no ill construction as he thought it might have upon the bench. " Satis quod sufficit." I have sufficient. Non-increase of wealth no grievance while he had suffi- cient. " Colbert pro posteris" Let posterity think of Mr. Colbert. This great favourite under disgrace was very ill used ; and let that concern his successors ; as for himself. " Fouquet pro present" As for the present, let Fou- quet be an example. Disgraced also and dealt ill with ; but then turned loose to shift for himself. " Quid timendum ?" What have I to fear ? Here his lordship accuseth himself for using the instances of these disgraced ministers, who acted high in matters of state and war and might be obnoxious. But he acted in a confined post, and having a good conscience and nothing of mal-administration or corruption to be laid to his charge, what had he to be afraid of ? " Promotus es, et omnes de- They promoted you and fectus ante apparuerunt" knew all your failings be- fore. If he were unfit for a court station, as he suspected him- self to be, and they must needs know it beforehand ; why did they not let him alone but promote him ? This lays his own failings at their door. " 26 Sept. 1684, lord chief justice of the cabinet council much to my ease and relief." 1 479. It was obvious that this bringing Jeffries forward was to prepare him to succeed his lordship, then, by the rising party, resolved to be laid aside to make way for him. 1 Jeffreys was made of the Privy Council 4th Oct., 1683, he being then Chief Justice of the King's Bench. In the Lord Keeper North's note it appears he became member of the Cabinet at the date indicated. On the supersession of the Privy Council by the Cabinet see some important re- marks in Hallam's Constitutional Hist. y ch. xv. vol. iii. p. 184 (10th ed.). SPECULUMS. 427 But the king had no such thought and, if he had lived a little longer, he had broke all their schemes. I heard his lordship say that he took an opportunity to thank his majesty for the ease he gave him in this pass, as to advis- ing his majesty in matters of law ; but he did not say that the king made him any answer. 480. But as to the motion for pardoning all recusants, mentioned elsewhere, the job for which Jeffries was espe- cially introduced and which was (singly) opposed by his lordship, I find a paper in which his reasons are concisely expressed. " Papists, 2 October, 1684. " There is no need (for such pardon), for if they are not punished they will be envied, not being sheriffs, justices, deputy-lieutenants, jurors, &C. " The punishments are but three. 1. Praemunire. 2. Thirds. 3. Disability upon convictions. 11 They avoid the first by bribing gaolers, under-sheriffs, and bailiffs, so that they are not in prison. " And, 2. Nothing being found, nothing is levied. 11 And, 3. They may be brought under disability at the suit of a common person. M This will discontent the gentry and make them lean on the other Bide. " Their hearts cannot be lost ; but should serve cheer- fully : else the whole use of the law is lost ; for they are slier i it's, &C. " If the gentry are discontented the rabble will quickly be poisoned by preachers, eeu before related. 488. Now to conclude with a summary character of his lordship. He was descended of a noble family, virtuously educated, an early student of the law, signalised in his first performances, preferred for his abilities ; passed gradually from the meanest initiation of practice through every degree of business and preferment in the law ; court keeper, practiser in the King's Bench, chief in his circuit, king's counsel, solicitor-general, attorney-general, chief justice of the Common Pleas, lord keeper of the great seal, and created a baron : and in all this walk trod upon no man's heels ; for he entered only by vacancies and never by ungrateful removes, and was helpful and a friend to those whom he succeeded ; especially the Lord Notting- ham who almost owned him for his successor. Whilst he was chief justice he was taken into the privy council, and then into the cabinet. He travelled most parts of the kingdom as judge in the several circuits, and gained the F F 434 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. friendship, I had almost (and well I might have) said the love of the chief gentry of England, who afterwards stoo