experiment, at a moment when protestant England was labouring from shore to shore with silent and suppressed indignation and apprehension. But it served an immediate end: Shaftesbury was accused and sent to the Tower, and his papers seized. A strong contest of subornation prepared the way for his trial; but, notwithstanding the efforts of the court, and the rashness of his language and conduct, nothing could be proved against him on sufficient evidence: there was an unsigned paper containing a plan for the government of the kingdom, by which the king was to become entirely governed by the councils of Lord Shaftesbury, but it was not sufficiently authenticated to satisfy a jury which was selected by the sheriffs, who were in favour of the accused. He was tried upon suborned information, and acquitted by a packed jury, yet the publication of the trial impressed the public mind with a strong sense of his guilt, and of the reality of the conspiracy, and contributed very much to the triumph of the king's party.

In the mean time, the ferment which had been raised by the machinations of Shaftesbury's faction in Ireland subsided, as their influence declined: and the duke was desired to come over to England for a short time. He appointed lord Arran his deputy, and left Dublin about the middle of April, 1682. He was received in London with enthusiasm, being met by so many persons of distinction, that "no spectator could have imagined that the king and court were absent: he was attended in this entry by twenty-seven coaches with six horses, and three hundred gentlemen on horseback, with five of the king's trumpets, &c."*

In November the same year, the duke was advanced to the rank of duke in the English peerage,† by king Charles, on the express ground of having preserved tranquillity in Ireland, during the ferment caused by the popish plot. On this occasion, a question arose, whether the duke could retain the title of Ormonde, which he was reluctant to give up, there being in England no territory bearing that name. It was, however, decided by Sir William Dugdale, that as titles were no longer territorial, a peer might be designated as he pleased.

The marriage of his grandson, the young earl of Ossory, took place at this time. Several matches had been proposed, and were on different grounds rejected by the duke. But the duke of York proposed a match for the young earl with Miss Hyde, daughter of the earl of Rochester, to which all parties gave a ready assent, and the young couple were married.

The principal reason for sending for the duke is so interwoven with a multiplicity of small details of the perplexed manœuvres of party which have exclusive reference to English history, that we cannot here enter upon them in such a manner as would be satisfactory to the reader, who, if curious, will find a great deal of minute detail in Burnet and other contemporary writers. The violence of the party-contest had overblown, and the court was allowed to pursue its intrigues in comparative quiet; but within its bosom there were too many anxious oppositions of feeling and interest for quiet. The king's ministers kept him on the stretch by their contentions; and it was perhaps felt that the anxious and dangerous question about the succession, though it might be suppressed, was yet too deeply bound up with seri*Carte, II. 519. † Note in Southwell's Life of Ormonde.

ous and awakening emergencies and difficulties, to be set at rest for more than a short interval. The very triumphs which had been attained, were such as to ascertain the true state of national feeling in every part of the kingdom, to all who considered the probabilities in the case of the king's death. The king's entire want of principle would, during his life, prevent the collision that was to be sooner or later expected. Free from obstinacy, as he was devoid of all fixed principle, he could, when perils appeared to menace his conduct, unblushingly retrace his steps: content if in the strife he could secure the means to pursue his pleasures and satisfy the rapacity of his mistresses. The duke was ascertained to be a tyrant, devoid of all the restraints of equity or humanity, resolute in his opinions, and, as his conduct in Scotland had shown, fully capable of adopting the utmost stretches of despotism, to maintain their authority. With these elements of disorder, fermenting in its recesses, the court was agitated with internal apprehensions and divisions, the result of which was that while all breathed the sentiments of devotion to the king, and of subjection to the more decided will of the duke, there was a strong sense of insecurity felt by both: and their whole conduct exhibits the fact that, with the exception of the small and not very efficient party who were known to participate in their secret designs, there was no one upon whom they could implicitly rely. Under such doubtful circumstances, a nobleman whom all honest men had ever respected, and who was known alike for his integrity and loyalty, was naturally looked to as one who might be a trust-worthy sentinel in an hour of concealed danger: and the duke of Ormonde, avoided and shrunk from in the time of strength and safety, was now as ever, sought when the ground was uncertain and unsafe. The circumstances are such as, from their nature, cannot have found their way into the historic page; but we should infer, from the king's naturally shrewd and sagacious character, with his growing love of security and ease, taken with the excessively violent demonstrations shown by the duke, to secure his own succession at this time that the king did not feel himself either as safe or as free as he would have desired. It is as apparent that the duke must have felt that there was great danger of his being set aside by a slight turn of that secret contest of intrigue, which is known to have been carried While the king would, under such feelings, rely on the old and tried good faith of Ormonde to himself, the duke would with equal confidence look to him as one who could not be warped into disloyalty.

on.

We are more particularly desirous to impress these suggestions, because a modern historian of such respectability as Leland, appears to consider his conduct at this time as less creditable to Ormonde. We are far from considering it as matter for eulogy, but we see in it nothing to detract from his reputation. One of the errors of that period of our history—an error never dissipated till the revolution, was that of considering loyalty as a paramount duty, as sacred as a knight's honour or a lady's chastity. The duke had been not only trained in this principle, and maintained it at the expense of fortune and the risk of life, but he had been most particularly exercised in it in times of great trial, in the adversity of a prince for whom he had made every sacrifice.

There were, it is true, before him, and even then, those who

acted according to a juster principle; but of these the former really acted from factious motives: and as to the latter, they belonged to a later generation; their knowledge was a fruit of experience. The duke was an aged man, and acted upon the principles of his life: he did not anticipate any disastrous consequences to the church, but he saw the danger which menaced the succession, and, as on former occasions, he thought it right first to secure the interests of the crown. He knew well the real strength of protestantism in England, and had no fear for it. He only saw the approach of a dangerous revolution and could not conjecture those fortunate results which are now the cant of schoolboy declamations. To this must be added, that Leland, whose usual candour does not fail him even when he is unjust, acquits the duke of Ormonde of all participation or privity in the real and final designs of the king and duke of York: and of this the proof is indeed full and conclusive. Under such circumstances, though now in the last stage of his declining years, he exerted his mind and body to support, and at the same time moderate the councils of Charles, and guided him through more perplexity and difficulty than can be fully known, unless from the fact that the king kept him in close attendance, and would move in nothing without his counsel. The discovery of a plot to assassinate the king on his way from Newmarket to London, led to measures of great but necessary harshness: in these the duke had no part, but they add to the unpopularity of this period and reign, and seem to cast a reflection on all its actors; but, however profligate the court, and however unprincipled and dangerous to civil liberty were its designs, conspirators and assassins merit the penalty of the law. The discovery of the Ryehouse plot completed the triumph of the court: but the struggle of private intrigues did not cease until the king's death, which there is abundant reason to believe was the eventual result of their intrigues. In February, 1683, during his residence in England, the duke had a violent and dangerous attack of fever, which his physicians pronounced to be dangerous, but from which he recovered; he was consequently in a weak condition for a long time. He was beginning to enjoy his usual vigour and spirits, when he received the disagreeable intelligence that the castle of Dublin had taken fire, and that some of his family had been in danger. The fire was considered to have proceeded from a beam which passed beneath one of the fire-places; this having taken fire, communicated it to the entire building. The accident is still one of frequent occurrence in old houses, and it is probable that the fire was slowly collecting force for several days under the floor during the gradual ignition of the beam. The danger was increased by the vicinity of a powder magazine; and as the means of suppressing conflagration were then far more ineffectual than now, the consternation was very great. The earl of Arran was the first who discovered this accident, and it is attributed to his great exertion, presence of mind, and skill, that it was overcome. The principal means to which he had recourse seem to have been by gunpowder, with which he arrested the communication of the flames, by blowing up the walls wherever they were advancing. The duke's loss was very great; but the circumstance led to the re-edification of the castle on a more commodious plan.

It was now, at the end of two years of continued absence, considered

necessary for the duke to return to his government. Useful as his counsels had been to the king, there was a limit to their utility; zealous as he was to guard the prerogative, and still to resist all plans likely to endanger the succession, there was a further aim in all the proceedings of the duke of York, which made it impossible to repose a whole confidence in the duke of Ormonde. As the intrigues concerning the succession became more deep, it became evident to the heir apparent that he might be compelled to have recourse to steps which would be rendered difficult, by the presence of one so firm and sagacious as the duke of Ormonde. And as it was the design of the infatuated prince to pursue that very course of measures which eventually led to his deposition, he was, to the utmost extent which the discretion of the king and the wisdom of Ormonde would countenance, already endeavouring to pave the way for his objects. As he advanced, or considered it expedient to advance, to farther lengths, it became absolutely essential to get rid of the duke of Ormonde. The king's affairs therefore being in a prosperous state, and the duke's requiring his absence rather than his presence, the duke of Ormonde was sent back to Ireland. It was on this occasion that he composed the following prayer after his arrival:

August 31st, 1684.

"O thou who art a most righteous judge-who neither despisest the meanest for their poverty nor acceptest the most powerful for their power—make me always to remember and seriously to consider, that as all those outward privileges I enjoy among men are by thee bestowed upon me out of thy goodness, so none of them can exempt me from thy justice, but that I shall one day be brought to answer for all I have done in the flesh, and in particular for the use or misuse I have made of those peculiar advantages whereby it hath pleased thee to distinguish me from others; more especially in the neglect of those means and opportunities thou hast put into my hands, either to perform my duty to thee my God, or else my king, my country, my family, my relations, and neighbours; or even to the whole people who have been committed to my care and subjected to my authority. O let the remembrance and continual thought of this and of thy favours now at length awaken me, to a cheerful and careful employing of all I have received from thee to those ends for which they were given by thee. Lord grant that the experience, and that measure of knowledge thou hast endowed me with, may have such an efficacy on my practice that they may help to advance salvation, and aggravate sins or guilt to my condemnation. I confess, O Lord, I have often been more elevated, and taken more pride in the splendour of the station thou hast placed me in, than in considering that it came from thy bounty and providence. I have often been less careful than I ought to discharge the trust committed to me with that diligence and circumspection and conscientiousness which the weight and importance of such a trust required. Nay, on the contrary, I have been vain, slothful, and careless; vain of my slender performances, slothful in not employing my talent to discover and execute justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, to the maintenance of virtue and religion, and to the relieving and delivering the poor, the innocent, and the oppressed. Nay, so

careless have I been of my own carriage and conduct, that by my ill example, and in compliance with a corrupt and intemperate life, I have drawn others into vanity, sinfulness, and guilt. Lord, of thy infinite mercy pardon these provoking sins of mine; and pardon the sins of those I have been the means of drawing into sin by my example, or for want of that advice, admonishment, or caution which it was in my power, as it was in my duty, to have administered. And, Lord, out of the same infinite mercy grant that for the time to come I may in some measure redeem the errors and failings of my past life, and of all these crying sins; and this not only by a hearty and prevailing repentance and a careful circumspection over all my ways and actions hereafter, but by a diligent attendance on thy service, and by a vigilant administration of the power and trust which is committed unto me. 'Tis hereby alone that I shall be enabled to render a good account of my stewardship and become capable of thy mercy, through the merits and mediation of my blessed Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ."

Among the questions connected with this period of his history, the principal was relative to the calling a parliament in Ireland. Several reasons rendered this an expedient step, but it was opposed in council by the duke of York, on very insufficient objections, but really on the ground that two several bills had been transmitted against the Roman catholics. Those bills were however unjust and inexpedient, and framed during the ferment of the popish plot, by the parliamentary faction for the purpose of exasperating the Irish. The pretence was the popish plot, and the purpose to turn the popish lords out of the Irish parliament, and to inflict death upon a certain class of their clergy.

The year 1684 was rendered melancholy to the duke by the death of the duchess, with whom he had lived in the greatest affection for the period of fifty-four years. She had for some time been in a declining condition, and her death had been expected on the previous autumn. On that occasion she went to Bath on the pretext of taking the waters, but really to save the duke from the aggravated shock which she thought her death would communicate if it were to occur in his presence. She however recovered then, to the general surprise, but was again taken ill, and died in July, 1684, in the sixty-ninth year of her age. As the short memoir with which Carte alone accompanies his mention of her death is, for many reasons, interesting, we shall here extract some passages for the reader. "The duchess of Ormonde was a tall, straight, well made woman, finely formed, but not a beauty. She was a person of very good sense, great goodness, and of a noble undaunted spirit, fit to struggle with the difficulties of the world, and perfectly qualified to pass through the great vicissitudes of fortune which attended her in the course of her life. She had an excellent capacity, which made her mistress of everything to which she applied her mind; and her judgment of the affairs of the world, and of the nature and consequences of things, was admirable. She understood all sorts of business, in which it came in her way to be concerned, perfectly well, and wrote upon them with clearness of expression and strength of comprehension. Not a superfluous or improper word appearing in her longest letters, closely written, and filling a whole sheet of paper. The earl of Holland, whose ward she was, had taken very