Spain of a more powerful fleet of the parliament, the commander of which menacingly warned the Spanish government, "that he knew well how to do himself right for any injury or discourtesy they might sanction." Not only were orders issued to receive his ships with all hospitality, but he received a valuable ring from the King as a propitiatory offering.

66

CHAP.

LXXVI.

Assassina

Hyde and Cottington soon after got into still greater dis- May, 1650. grace by the assassination at Madrid of Ascham, the diplo- tion of matic agent of the Commonwealth. They immediately Ascham. sent a letter to Don Louis de Haro to express the sense they had of this unfortunate rash action, of which they hoped he did believe if they had any notice or suspicion they would have prevented it."*

Although Don Louis disclaimed a belief so injurious, suspicion fell upon them, as they had warmly protested against Ascham's reception, and one of his assassins was in their service. However, there seems no reason to believe that Hyde was at all privy to the affair. In a letter to Secretary Nicholas he said, "This accident hath been very unfortunate to our business, concerning which we were promised to have positive resolutions within a few days, but we must now sit still, without pressing them, till this matter be concluded; there having not wanted some malicious spirits here, which would beget an opinion that we were privy to this mad action, when, God knows, we knew not of the man's being come to the town till we heard that he was dead.” †

They were again courted, and fêted, and fed with fine promises on news arriving that Charles II. had been received and recognised as King of Scotland,—the Spaniards not being aware of the insecurity of his tenure of power there, and not understanding what was meant by his having been obliged to deplore the wickedness of his father, and to declare that, detesting prelacy, he would henceforth have neither friends

66

* Hist. Reb. b. vi.

† Clar. Pap. iii. 21. It is curious to consider that during the heat of the civil war, there were not a single assassination in England; but that when it was over, the recollection of it caused several assassinations on the Continent by Englishmen of the cavalier party, as that of Dorislaus in Holland, of Ascham in Spain, of Lisle in Switzerland, &c.

CHAP. LXXVI.

Ordered to leave Ma

drid.

nor enemies but such as were the friends or enemies of the COVENANT." But a despatch from Cardenas, the Spanish resident in London, announcing to his government the decisive victory gained by Cromwell at Dunbar, by which Scotland was conquered, proved the final ruin of all A. D. 1651. the hopes of Hyde and Cottington at Madrid. They had received instructions from Charles to protract their stay, and they tried to make it appear that this defeat would advance his cause in England; but the Spanish government placed no faith in this explanation, and after many hints that their continued attendance was unwelcome and fruitless, they at last received a formal message in the name of King Philip, "that they had received answers to all they had proposed, and were at liberty to depart, which his Catholic Majesty desired they would do, since their presence in the Court would be prejudicial to his affairs." They demanded and obtained an interview with Don Louis de Haro, but instead of being swayed by their remonstrances, "he pressed them very plainly, and without any regard to the season of the year, it being toward the end of January, to use all possible expedition for their departure, as a thing that even in that respect did exceedingly concern the service of the King." A day even was fixed by the Spanish government for their audience of leave.

Little sympathy in

Europe for the Stuarts, or enmity to the

English republic.

Hyde's destitute con

dition at Madrid.

It is a striking fact, that at no Court in Europe was much sympathy exhibited for the Stuarts, and in the middle of the 17th century there was no such coalition of Sovereigns in support of royalty as was witnessed at the conclusion of the 18th century, when a republic was about to be established in France. On the Continent, the contagion of republican principles does not seem to have been at all dreaded, and the English nation, being left to the entire management of their own affairs, first the Parliament, and then Cromwell, were cordially admitted into the community of European govern

ments.

Thus terminated Hyde's most irksome residence of fifteen months at Madrid. Besides the diplomatic disappointments he encountered, his pecuniary resources were so low, that he often found the greatest difficulty in providing for the per

LXXVI.

sonal wants of himself, and his wife and children, left desti- CHAP. tute in a distant land. "All our money is gone," he writes, "and let me never prosper if I know or can imagine how we can get bread a month longer."* Again, "Greater necessities are hardly felt by any men than we for the present undergo, such as have almost made me foolish; I have not for my life been able to supply the miserable distresses of my poor wife."†

But Hyde found consolation in that love of study which was his best friend throughout his chequered life. His history was suspended for want of materials, but he now assiduously cultivated the Spanish language, initiated himself in Spanish literature, and made himself familiar with Spanish laws and customs. He also here composed a devotional work, entitled "Contemplations and Reflections upon the Psalms of David, applied to the Troubles of this Time."

He had soon the affliction of losing the society of his colleague Lord Cottington, who having no wife or children to return to, being worn down by age and infirmity, being reconciled to the Roman Catholic church in which he had been educated, and sickening at the thought of being again plunged into the civil and religious distractions of his native country, resolved to spend the remainder of his days in Spain, and obtained permission from the Spanish government to reside in a private capacity at Valadolid. §

Lord Cottington, his colleague, settles permanently in Spain.

March,

1651. Hyde's

of leave.

Hyde accordingly had his audience of leave as sole ambassador. He had conducted himself during his residence at Madrid so decorously, so inoffensively, and, notwithstanding audience his narrow circumstances, with so much dignity, that he had made a very favourable impression upon the Spaniards, which now showed itself in spite of the usual selfish and timid policy of the Court. "Hearing that he intended to repair to his family at Antwerp, and stay there till he received other

Aug. 16. 1650.

* Jan. 6. 1650. He must surely now have read Don Quixote in the original, but he says only that he made a collection of and read many of the best books which are extant in that language, especially the histories of their civil and ecclesiastical polity," and I do not trace in his writings any allusion to Cervantes. He does not appear to have had any taste for what we call light reading; if he had, his history might have been a little less weighty.

§ He died there the following year in his 77th year.

LXXVI.

CHAP. orders from the King his master, they gave him all despatches thither that might be of use to him in those parts. The King of Spain himself used many gracious expressions to him at his last audience, and sent afterwards to him a letter for the Archduke Leopold, in which he expressed the good opinion he had of the ambassador, and commanded that whilst he should choose to reside in those parts under his government, he should receive all respect and enjoy all privileges as an ambassador: all which ceremonies, though they cost him nothing, were of real benefit and advantage to him, for besides the treatment he received from the Archduke himself in Brussels, as ambassador, such directions or recommendations were sent to the magistrates of Antwerp, that he enjoyed the privilege of his chapel, and all the English, who were numerous in that city, repaired thither with all freedom for their devotion; which liberty had never before been granted to any man there.” *

Hist. Reb. b. vi.

CHAPTER LXXVII.

CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF CLARENDON TILL THE GREAT SEAL
WAS DELIVERED TO HIM AT BRUGES.

June, 1651.

HYDE left Madrid in March, 1651, and after a fatiguing CHAP. journey, performed chiefly on mules, reached Paris. Here he LXXVII. was received more graciously than usual by Queen Henrietta, Hyde who was in a state of great anxiety from the perils to which leaves Maher son was exposed in Scotland. The ex-ambassador then drid. travelled on to Antwerp, where he had, for some months, the Resides at exquisite enjoyment of living quietly in the bosom of his Antwerp. family, although disturbed by the sad news of the battle of Worcester, and under long suspense respecting the fate of his young sovereign. At last, news came of Charles's miraculous escape and safe arrival in Normandy. Hyde Summoned soon received a summons to repair to Paris, and on Christ- to Paris. mas-day, 1651, again took up his residence there as a member of the exiled Court. All the former enmities, and jealousies, and rivalries, between the titular ministers now broke out with fresh violence, the Queen recklessly inflaming and exasperating them in her efforts to gain an ascendency for herself. She was at the head of one party, A.D. 1652. and Hyde of another. To strengthen herself, she tried to introduce Sir John Berkeley into the Council, and to have him appointed "Master of the Wards," an office depending upon the oppressive military tenures which the parliament had abolished, and to the abolition of which the late King, at several conferences, had readily agreed. Hyde urged "that the King could not, at the time, do a more ungracious thing, that would lose him more the hearts and affections of the nobility and gentry of England, than in making a Master of the Wards in a time when it would not be the least advantage to his Majesty or the officer; to declare that he resolved to insist upon that part of his prerogative which his father had consented to part with." This opposition succeeded, but rendered the Queen still more hostile to Hyde.