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XII.

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against Lord Clarendon.* An accusation is, in- CHAP. deed, extant, but of a very different nature-not that he lent his ear too willingly to such false tales, but that he was culpably negligent of the King's safety, in treating too lightly the information which was brought to him. The narrative of Sir Philip Monkton† affords a curious spectacle of the credulous violence of the Royalists, the difficulties which beset Lord Clarendon, and the abuse and calumny to which he was exposed for not rendering himself the subservient instrument of party rancour.

Nor was his conduct open to suspicion with respect to the plot in the winter of 1661, which is so confidently stated to have been fictitious. He did not eagerly avail himself of the information tendered, in November, by Sir John Packington and other members of the House of Commons. Not until a deputation from the Commons had waited on the King, on the 11th of December ‡, alleging the receipt of letters and messages from numerous counties, concerning a conspiracy of alarming extent, did the minister appear to have countenanced the rumour. And when, on the 19th, he delivered a message from the King to the Lords, informing them of the intimations he had received, and entreating the advice and counsel of both Houses, a conference ensued, in which the Chancellor proposed to submit the evidence to the investigation of a joint committee of lords *Ralph, 53. et seq. + Vol. III. p. 532.

Ralph, 56. Parker's History of his Own Times.

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CHAP. and commons. The committee sat during the recess; and in the following spring delivered a report, affirming a belief that general risings had been intended, and that arms were provided, and correspondence maintained with republicans abroad, stating also that precautionary measures had been adopted by the advice of the Duke of Albemarle, which precluded the necessity of any present proposal on the part of the committee, but that they were "sensible of the real danger, and hoped "the Houses would be so too." The plan proposed by Clarendon was not such as would have been recommended by one who was conscious of fraud, and dreaded detection. To have allowed reports to pass unsifted, after the warning of the preceding winter, would have exposed him justly to the charge of negligence. Packington's intelligence was not confirmed by the report of the committee; but they were satisfied of the existence of danger, were supported in that opinion by Albemarle, and demanded no fresh severities. That the impression of danger was prevalent, and that Clarendon believed there was ground for the impression, appears from a passage in a letter to Downing, in August, 1661.* Such, too, was the belief of men not concurring with Clarendon in principle, or bound to him by the ties of friendship. It was the belief of Albemarle, who leaned to the Presbyterians. Bennet, in the autumn of 1662, in a letter to the King, urged the expediency of having troops in the north and in the west, as well as in London,

*Vol. III. p. 167.

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"since the dissatisfaction towards the present go"vernment is become soe universal, that any small "accident may put us into new troubles ;" and as a reason for not sending money to Holland, he told Ormond, in December, that what remained of the produce of the sale of Dunkirk was not to be touched for a less occasion than an insurrection at home, "which the foolish and discontented people are apt every day to threaten and appre"hend."+

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At this very time dangerous combinations were existing in London. One who refused the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and confessed that he had been at Venner's meetings, owned, in December, 1662, that he was one of 900 members of "a congregated church," who had their usual meetings at Duke's Place, near Bishopsgate, and that there were "seven other "congregated churches" in and about London. ‡

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* Letter XCVIII., Vol. III. p. 197. + Miscellanea Aulica. Ralph, i. 82. Ralph quotes this passage as if it indicated Bennet's disbelief in the reality of the danger! It is evident that the people are called "foolish" because they are " contented," and "threaten" risings which are likely to fail. It is not meant that there is folly in apprehending the attempt. It would be strange if Bennet, in assigning a reason for not complying with Ormond's request, should at the same time have intended to convey that the alleged reason was unfounded. We might suspect a lurking malice if it had been Lord Clarendon's resolution which he thus communicates. But it was the vote of a council, at which were present the King, the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, Albemarle, Lord Ashley, and himself. In enumerating these persons, and in mentioning the date of the letter, I quote not from the Miscellanea Aulica, in which it is printed, but from the original in the Bodleian Library. In the Miscellanea Aulica Albemarle's name is omitted, and the date is changed from December to November. As there are interesting letters in the collection so named, it is to be regretted that so little reliance can be placed on its correct

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CHAP.
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In the ensuing year there was an insurrection in the north of England; and Buckingham was sent to quell it. Many were arrested, of whom fifteen were proved guilty; and the existence of conspiracy to an alarming extent is shown by the letters both of Buckingham and Bennet, who will not be suspected of undue compliance with the opinions of Clarendon.* In June and August, Bennet, in letters to Ormond, expressed anxiety lest the disaffected in Ireland should communicate with those in England and Scotland, and recommended the adoption of preventive measures. Buckingham, he says, in October, that alarm is diffused through the whole kingdom; and in the following month he wrote to Ormond, that, upon the whole matter, we find the grounds "of the plot farther laid than we conceived at "first."+

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Rapin and Ralph, and especially the former, not only under-rate the importance and desperate character of Venner's enterprise, but endeavour to throw suspicion upon either the reality or the extent of every subsequent plot. ‡ The conspiracy

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* See Miscellanea Aulica, passim.
Mis. Aulica, 319. et passim.

The following passage relative to the insurrection of 1663 may be taken as a specimen of the manner in which Ralph discourses upon plots. After quoting extracts from letters of Bennet to Buckingham, concluding with one which states that "the judges have found fifteen guilty, and this by the proof of two witnesses against each of them, as well as their own confession," he proceeds to say, "Upon the "whole, it is pretty clear, from these letters, that a rising had been "concerted; but then it is as clear, that it ought rather to have excited "the scorn than the apprehension of the government; that, like all the "rest of these wretched projects, it had been countenanced by none but "levellers, disbanded officers, and desperate enthusiasts, all of them

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of Tongue and others, in the winter of 1662, is CHAP. sneeringly discredited, because the agents were weak and their success hopeless - as if the hopelessness of Venner's success had prevented that alarming outbreak. They also rely much upon two false assumptions: first, that when a plot has not exploded, or suspected persons cannot be convicted, its non-existence may be fairly inferred; secondly, that when there is evidence of a fictitious plot, we are to accept this evidence as disproof of the concurrent existence of any real one. If the first argument were valid, the minister, who, by sounding the alarm, puts the people on their guard, and thus causes the suppression of the meditated enterprise, might always be accused of sinister intentions; and, for the protection of his own character, must mercilessly lie in ambush till the plotters had committed some overt act which might render them amenable to punishment.* As for the position, that a ficti

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persons of mean condition, without parts, power, credit, or interest." (Ralph's History, i. 98.) It is something more than " pretty clear" that a rising had been concerted, when fifteen persons had been found guilty by the evidence of two witnesses and their own confessions; but it is not so clear why a plot, countenanced by disbanded officers of Cromwell's army, and by men whose courage was made desperate by enthusiasm, should have excited only scorn. But lest we should not sufficiently despise them for their alleged "mean condition," and want of "parts, power, credit, or interest," he informs us, in a note, that "Ludlow "himself acknowledges, that about this time (summer of 1663) their "friends in all parts began to entertain hopes that they might be again "employed to rescue their country from servitude; and that, in this "posture of affairs, Colonel Algernoon Sidney, who had for some time "resided in Italy, thought convenient to draw nearer home, that, if any opportunity should offer, he might not be wanting in his duty to the "public service, and so resolved to winter in Flanders." (Ralph's Hist. 98. note.)

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* Clarendon, in his speech in December, 1660, warned the public of the probable occurrence of some desperate outbreak soon. If dealt

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