HENRY HYDE, SECOND EARL OF CLARENDON, [ELDEST SON of the lord chancellor Clarendon, to whose earldom he succeeded in 1674, when he appears to have been chamberlain to the queen. On the accession of James the second in 1685 he was made lord privy seal, and in the same year was constituted lord lieutenant of Ireland, from which kingdom most of his official letters were written. In 1687 he was recalled from his government to make room for lord Tyrconnel, and removed soon after from his office of lord privy seal, that lord Arundel of Wardour might succeed him. Lord Clarendon's firm attachment to the Protestant religion is conceived to have been the principal reason of his removal. Having refused to take the oaths of allegiance to king William, he passed the remainder of his life in a private manner in the country, and died on the 22d of October 17092, aged seventy. Lord Orford pointed out by this lord what he did not think of consequence enough to form a separate article, "Some Account of the Tombs and Monuments in the Cathedral Church of Winchester, Feb. 1683;" which was continued and printed with the History 2 Preface to his State Letters, &c. p. x. and Antiquities of that Church, by Samuel Gale, gent. 1717. But in the year 1763 were published in two vols, 4to. "The State Letters of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, during the Reign of King James the Second; with his Lordship's Diary 3 for the Years 1687, 1688, 1689, and 1690; from the Originals in the Possession of Richard Powney, Esq." And in Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa 4, the following productions appeared: "Matter of Fact; by the E. of Cl-." 1. Concerning the king's dispensing power. 2. Concerning the act imposing the test, 1678: in answer to the bishop of Oxford's (Dr. Samuel Parker) reasons for abrogating the test, &c. Two articles from his lordship's Diary may afford the more interesting extracts. The former relates to his public recal from Ireland: the latter, to a domestic concern which touched him still more nearly; and exhibits the natural result of parental affection. This Diary, says the editor, presents us with a picture of the manners of the age in which the writer lived. We may learn from it, that at the close of the seventeenth century a man of the first quality made it his constant practice to go to church, and could spend the day in society with his family and friends, without shaking his arm at a gaming-table, associating with jockies at Newmarket, or murdering time by a constant round of giddy dissipation, if not of criminal indul, gence. Preface, p. xxviii. * Vol. i. p. 309-13. Printed from a transcript by archbishop Sancroft. Jan. 8, 1687, Saturday. In the morning came in two packets from England of the 30th past and 1st instant. I received a letter of the last date from my lord president, acquainting me with the king's pleasure, that I was to leave the government. Whether I have been well used by my lord president in this affair; or whether, in truth, I have been well used by him in the whole time of my being here, I leave all men to judge who shall read my letters to him, or his to me all which shall (God willing) be carefully preserved. It will by them appear, that he scarce gave any other answers to my letters than the bare acknowledgment of them; and though I gave him, almost weekly, large accounts of all transactions; yet he never, in any of his letters, so much as told me the king was pleased or displeased with what I had done. It would have been a great satisfaction to have known the king approved of my proceedings; but the next best was to find that he did not blame them. I am not now surprised at my being recalled; having had so certain informations, though not from the secretary of state, of my lord Tyrconnel's being to come to the government, and it being owned by all his relations here. I did expect it but, I confess, the manner of my being recalled; to remove out of such a station at this season of the year, and at a week's warning, looks like a mark of the king's displeasure, which will ever be a mortification to me to lie under. But when I consider that I can thank God I have done nothing to s' Lord Sunderland. |