94 CHAP. LXXII. publicans in England and in France. Commonwealth, we ought to be grateful to the enlightened men who then flourished, for they acomplished much, and a comparison between them and the leaders of the French revolution would turn out greatly to the advantage of our countrymen, who not only showed a much greater regard for justice, humanity, and religion, but a sounder knowledge of the principles of government, - not changing merely for the sake of change, but only where they thought they could improve. The French copied the most exceptionable measures of the English Revolution-such as the execution of the King, the commencement of a new æra from "the first year of liberty," and the appointment of "a Committee of Public Safety," which disposed in an arbitrary manner of the lives and fortunes of the citizens. But they wholly neglected the wise lesson set before them to preserve what is good-to amend what is defective-to adapt ancient institutions to altered times and to show some respect for the habits, the feelings, and the prejudices of the people to be governed. It is difficult for us to separate the men who suggested and supported the wise civil measures of the Commonwealth parliaments from the excesses and absurdities of the Puritans ; and the Cavalier party having gained a complete victory over them, we take our impressions of them from their enemics; but I believe that many of them were of the same principles, and actuated by the same spirit, as Lord Somers and the authors of the Revolution of 1688,- whom we are all taught to admire and venerate. If the Restoration had not been conducted with so much precipitation, if the proposition of the virtuous Lord Hale had been acceded to, "that before recalling Charles II., they should consider what reasonable restrictions on the abuse of prerogative the late King had consented to, and what good laws had been passed in his absence as the basis of a happy settlement," the nation might have escaped much of the misgovernment, dissolution of manners and political convulsions, which marked the history of England during the remainder of this century, and we should have been taught habitually to do honour to the memory of those by whose wisdom and patriotism such blessings had been achieved. CHAPTER LXXIII. LIFE OF LORD KEEPER HERBERT. LXXIII. Reasons for Life of I SHOULD now naturally proceed to the Life of the Earl CHAP. of Clarendon, who executed the duties of Chancellor in England upon the Restoration; but as Sir EDWARD HERBERT actually held the Great Seal for a considerable time, writing with the title of Lord Keeper, although in partibus only, Lord and as his name is always introduced into the list of Lord Keeper Chancellors and Lord Keepers, some account of him may be expected in this work. He acted a prominent part in one of the most memorable passages of English history. HERBERT. Charles II.'s Great On the execution of Charles I., the Prince, being in Holland, Feb. 1649. took upon himself the royal title, and had a Great Seal engraved; but he did not deliver it to any one, although he im- Seal. mediately swore in some of his fellow-exiles Privy Councillors. He carried this Seal with him into Scotland when he A. D. 1650. was crowned King there, having subscribed the "Covenant," and he still kept it in his own custody when he advanced at the head of the Scottish army into England. After the fatal Sept. 3. battle of Worcester, this Great Seal was lost. It would Lost at rather have been an incumbrance to Charles in the royal battle of oak, and in his marvellous adventures with the Penderells, the Mortons, and the Lanes. It was probably thrown into the Severn, that it might not be sent to the parliament as a trophy of Cromwell's victory. 1651. Worcester. Seal in A. D. 1652. When Charles was again in safety under the protection of New Great the King of France, he caused another Great Seal of England to be engraved in Paris, chiefly as a bauble to be kept by himself, till, upon a fortunate turn in his affairs, it might be handed over to a Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, to be used for actual business within his recovered realm. But it became an object of ambition and contention among his courtiers, who amused the tedium of their banishment by intrigues for the titles of offices of state and offices of the royal CHAP. household, although no power or profit for the present belonged to them. LXXIII. Struggle between Hyde and Herbert. April, 1653. Herbert, Lord Keeper. His birth. bar. Charles himself favoured the pretensions of Hyde to the Great Seal; but this minister was most particularly obnoxious to the Queen Dowager, Henrietta Maria, on whom her son chiefly depended for a subsistence; and out of spite to the man she hated, she warmly supported the cause of his rival, Sir Edward Herbert, about whom she was indifferent. Her importunity succeeded: the Great Seal was delivered by the King, with all due solemnity, to her candidate as Lord Keeper: he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the oath of office, before a meeting of the pretended Privy Council; and from thenceforward, on all occasions of mock state, when the King of England was supposed to be attended by his high functionaries, he strutted about bearing the purse with the Great Seal in his hand, and he was addressed as "Lord Keeper Herbert." This gentleman, whose professional honours brought him so little comfort or advantage, was nobly descended, being the son of Charles Herbert, of Aston, in the county of MontgoPractice at mery, of the family of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. After leaving the University, he was entered of Lincoln's Inn, that he might be qualified for the profession of the law. He applied himself very diligently to his studies, and on being called to the bar,--from his connections and his own industry he rose into good practice, without gaining any great distinction. In the famous masque given by the Inns of Court to the Queen in 1633, he was one of the managers for Lincoln's Inn, and assisted Mr. Attorney General Noy in exposing to ridicule the projectors who, about this time, anticipated some of the discoveries of the philosophers of Laputa. Strong prerogative lawyer. He likewise assisted him and Banks, his successor, in the scheme for taxing the people without authority of parliament, under the name of "ship money," - an invention as new and impracticable as many of those which were ridiculed. He actually abetted all the measures of the Court, and was one of those who hoped that parliament would never more meet in England. Their wish would very likely have been fulfilled, had it not been from the Scottish insurrection, caused by the LXXIII. Made Solicitor General, attempt to force Episcopacy upon that nation; but money to CHAP. pay the army being indispensable, and a parliament being called, to be dismissed as soon as a supply was granted, he was returned by family interest a member of the House of Commons, and testified his determination to defend every abuse which had been practised during the preceding eleven years. For this earnest of his services he was made Solicitor General on the promotion in the law which took place in consequence of the death of Lord Jan. 25. Keeper Coventry. Clarendon, who always mentions him 1640. ill-naturedly, says that he was remarkable in the House "for pride and peevishness;" that "his parts were most prevalent in puzzling and perplexing; "-accuses him of speaking very indiscreetly on the question of the subsidy, whereby it was lost; and imputes to him the fatal advice by which the King was induced suddenly to dissolve the parliament, because "he found he was like to be of less authority there than he looked to be."* When the Long Parliament met in the end of the same year, Herbert was exposed to the pelting of a most pitiless storm, for he was posted in the House of Commons to defend the Government, and the task of excusing or palliating ship money, and the monopolies, and the cruel sentences of the Star Chamber and High Commission, fell exclusively upon him; for Mr. Attorney General Banks, who was much more implicated in these grievances, was quietly reposing on the Judges' woolsack in the House of Lords, -availing himself of the old opinion that the Attorney General, being summoned as an attendant of the Peers, could not sit as a Member of the House of Commons. Awed and terrified by the proceedings taken against Strafford, Finch, and other ministers, Herbert apprehended that he might himself be impeached. Under these circumstances, without venturing boldly to meet Hampden and the other parliamentary leaders, he tried by private applications to them to soften them towards him, but with little effect, and he repented that he had ever taken office. * Hist. Reb. book ii. Nov. 3. His difficulties at 1640. commence ment of the Long Par liament. СНАР. LXXIII. Jan. 29. 1641. Made * "Longing infinitely to be out of that fire," he was snatched from it at a moment when he least expected relief. Lord Keeper Finch having fled the country, and Littleton, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, having succeeded him, Banks was made Chief Justice, and Herbert Attorney General. With infinite satisfaction he vacated his seat in the House of Commons, and, in obedience to his writ of summons, Commons. took his place on the woolsack in the House of Lords at the back of the Judges. Attorney General, and leaves House of His irk House of His joy must have been a little abated by having soon for his colleague the famous republican lawyer, Oliver St. John, who, agreeing at this juncture with two or three of his party to take office in the momentary prospect of an accommodation, became Solicitor General.† It is impossible that there could have been any cordiality between them, for St. John, though continuing down to the King's death to be called "Mr. Solicitor," soon ceased to have any intercourse with the Government, still pressed on the impeachments with unmitigated rigour, and was in reality the chief legal adviser of those who were preparing for civil war. Herbert, as Attorney General, passed a year in anxious some posi inactivity, during which Strafford was attainted and executed, and a revolution was making rapid progress, which he deeply deplored, but was unable to oppose. As assistant to the Lords, he remained during this time in the place assigned him in the House, a silent witness of the proceedings against his colleagues, of the passing of the acts to abolish the Star Chamber and High Commission,-and of the debates upon the bills for excluding the Bishops from parliament, and for transferring to the two Houses the power over the militia. Jan. 3. 1642. He is or dered by the King to prose cute Lord Kimbolton and the five members for treason. At last he was suddenly called into action by the King sending for him to Whitehall,-personally delivering to him articles of impeachment ready ingrossed on parchment, which charged Lord Kimbolton and the five principal popular leaders in the House of Commons with high treason,-and commanding him to proceed instantly to the House of Lords, that he might there exhibit the articles, and take the necessary steps for * Clarendon, Hist. Reb. book iii. † Hist. Reb. b. iii. |