In consequence of the removal of Clifford and Shaftesbury, the staff of Lord High Treasurer was entrusted to Sir Thomas Osborne, soon afterwards created Earl of Danby; and the seals were given to Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Earl of Nottingham. CHAP. IV. PROROGATION FOR FOURTEEN MONTHS. TEMPLE'S AD VICE TO THE KING.- A PARLIAMENT.-LORD RUSSELL TEST BILL. SUCCESS. LUTION OF PARLIAMENT. -FAILS OF As soon as Charles had prorogued the Parlia ment, he entered into fresh intrigues with the court of Versailles; and humbly asked pardon for the peace he had lately concluded, excusing himself on the necessity of his affairs. Lewis, on the other hand, was urgent to obtain a prorogation of Parliament, lest Charles should be forced into a war against him. The King of February, England willingly came to terms, and 1674. for the sum of 500,000 crowns was glad to dispense with the presence of the Commons for fourteen months. In order to comply * Dal. App. 99. in appearance with the public wish, a mediation between France and Holland was resolved upon; and Sir William Temple, whose honest character was universally esteemed, was named to give credit to the embassy. On his arrival at court, he had a private audience with Charles, in which he endeavoured to convince him, that it would be impossible to assimilate the government of England to that of France; and after various arguments, drawn from the situation of the two countries, he attempted to reconcile him to a limited authority by the saying of Gourville, a Frenchman much esteemed by the King, that a king of England who would be the man of his people would be the greatest monarch in Europe but if he tried to be more he would be nothing. Charles, who had heard him with some impatience at first, seeing it was necessary to dissemble, pressed his hand and said, “And I will be the man of my people." * He soon afterwards connected himself more closely with France, and betrayed to her ambassador all the information he received from Temple. + April, The chief business upon the meeting of 1675. Parliament, related to the large body of English troops which were still allowed to serve * Temple's Works. † Dal. App. p. 109. with the French. The Commons could obtain no more than a promise, that they should not be recruited. In the debate, Sir T. Lyttleton said, "The King ought not to be in such a mediation as may leave the King of France a terror to all the world." Soon after the meeting, Lord Russell accused the Earl of Danby of mismanagement at the Treasury, and of having said at the Council Board, that a new proclamation was better than an old law. He concluded by moving an address to remove him from the King's presence, and that articles of impeachment should be drawn up against him. In the course of the debate, Sir C. Harboard expressed his surprise, that so young a man, and a country gentleman, should pretend to understand the treasury. The articles of impeachment were delivered the next day by Sir Samuel Barnadiston; but, upon a division, they were all rejected. Marvel says the Earl got off by high bribing. The articles contained charges of very different degrees of importance; the Earl being accused, in one, of the high crime of using the power of general warrants, to intimidate a witness in a suit at law; and in the next, of the trivial offence of having obtained an office in Ireland, the duties of which he had not time to perform. A bill for voiding the election of members of parliament who accept offices, was at this time brought into the Commons, but was rejected. A bill for making it treason to levy money without consent of Parliament, and another to secure the personal liberty of the subject, were also introduced. But the grand affair of this session was the non-resisting Test Bill, which, although it was never in the House of Commons, yet being of paramount importance, deserves some notice in this work. It may serve as an excuse for the insertion that Lord Bedford was "so brave in it, that he joined in three of the protests." * It is also worth relating, as a specimen of the manner in which a bill, unfavourable to liberty, is resisted in its progress through an English House of Parliament. cording to Mr. Locke, who published under the direction of Lord Shaftesbury the history of these debates, the Church and Cavalier party were determined, this session, to carry a law which should place their adversaries at their feet; "and as the topstone of the whole fabric," he says, "a pretence shall be taken from the jealousies they themselves have raised, and a real necessity, from the smallness of their party, Ac * Locke. See Cobbett's Parl. Hist. vol. iv. Appendix. |