it till the measures of the CABAL were so atrocious, and the orders imposed upon him so revolting, that even he scrupled, and protested, and resisted,-when it was snatched from him by the most daring and profligate of mankind. He interfered with the general policy of the government less than any of his predecessors had ever done. If he can claim no merit for proposing or furthering the Triple Alliance, he was not implicated in the secret treaty with France for violating it, nor in the conspiracy deliberately formed to overturn the religion and the liberties of the country.

There are preserved to us speeches which he made at the opening of parliament in October 1669, February 1670, and October 1671; but they merely refer, in general terms, to the state of public affairs, and press for a supply to pay the King's debts.

He was in office when the Triple Alliance was negotiated, and he must have put the Great Seal to that treaty*, but the only two pulbic measures with which his name has been connected are. the Declaration of Indulgence," and "the Shutting up of the Exchequer:" and these led to his fall.

Clifford, who had planned the re-establishment of Popery, and the King's open profession of that religion,-in Feb

ruary, 1672, proposed in council that a royal Declara- [A. D. 1672.] tion should be published "for indulgence to tender consciences, suspending by the supreme power in eccesiastical matters inherent in the Crown, and recognised by several acts of parliament, all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, against whatsoever sort of non-conformists or recusants." As the Great Seal must be affixed to such a Declaration to give it any colour of validity, the Lord Keeper had been summoned to attend this Council. A most bigoted Protestant, he had been always eager for putting in force the penal laws against the Catholics, and his religion now warped his opinion upon constitutional law; for though he had often stood up for the King's dispensing power,-when he saw that such a use was to be made of it, he exprssed great doubts whether it existed, and positively refused, without further consideration, to allow the declaration to pass the Great Seal. As it must have caused great alarmı directly to dismiss him from his office on the ground (as it would be said) that he had shown himself the champion of the Church of England and of the Protestant faith, Clifford proposed a proviso which he hoped might be soon got rid of, or not enforced, "that the benefit of public worship should not be extended to the Catholics, who, to avoid molestation, must confine their religious assemblies to private houses."

The Lord Keeper agreed to this compromise, but at the same time expressed his determination never to consent to [MARCH.]

the legalising of the idolatry and will-worship of the

* See Sir W. Temple's Letters.

† He here imited the example of a greater man, Lord Clarendon, who, though a stickler for the dispensing power, flatly denied it when it was to be exercised in favour of liberty of conscience.-Ante, p. 183.

Parl. Hist. 515.

Church of Rome in this Protestant land. The Declaration came out, and he retained his office for some months, though thenceforth an object of suspicion and dislike to the existing administration.*

The proximate cause of his removal was his refusal, when sitting as a Judge in the Court of Chancery, to grant injunctions which were applied for in consequence of the most fraudulent and foolish act that any government ever resorted to. The object was to enable the King to carry on a war against Holland, in violation of the Triple Alliance, and in conjunction with Louis XIV., to crush the liberties of the United Provinces, preparatory to the introduction of absolutism and Romanism into England. Large sums had been advanced by the bankers of London, for the repayment of which orders on the Exchequer had been issued, and the King having solemnly promised "that he would not, on any occasion whatever, suffer any interruption of payment of these orders of the Exchequer,"t-the honest men and profound political economists now at the head of affairs, resolved that the Exchequer should be suddenly shut, and that no payment should be made to any public creditor for a twelvemonth. The aproach of the Dutch fleet to Gravesend, on the breaking out of the Great Plague, hardly produced a greater sensation in the city. An unexampled shock was given to commercial credit; trade was paralysed; many mercantile houses became bankrupt; numbers of annuitants, widows, and orphans, were reduced to a state of the lowest distress,—and though, by this contrivance, a sum of 1,300,000Z was, in the first instance, placed at the disposal of the ministers, the regular revenue failed, and the finances were in a state of greater disorder than ever.

The bankers, to whom the large payments were due, were the first victims. The money which they had advanced to the government at eight or ten per cent., they had borrowed at six or seven from their customers, who, not receiving principal or interest, brought actions against them, and threatened them with statutes of bankruptcy. When they stated the hardship of their case to Shaftesbury, who had the chief management of affairs at the Treasury board, he, vaguely recollecting something he had heard or read when a student in the Inns of Court about Injunctions, said, "Why do you not apply to the Lord Keeper for an injunction against all such proceedings, to which you must be clearly

* Burnet and others have said that the Lord Keeper refused to affix the Great Seal to the Declaration, and was for that reason dismissed from his office; whereas the Declaration issued in March, and he held the Great Seal till November. A curious account of this transaction is to be found in "a Letter from a person of quality to his friend in the country," which was written by Locke under the directions of Shaftesbury, and in which it is said that it was "the vanity of the Lord Keeper" which caused the Catholics to be named in the Declaration.--See 4 Parl. Hist. App. No. v. p. xxxviii.

† 14 St. Tr. 1.

entitled, as your inability to pay your customers proceeds entirely from an act of the King, resorted to for the safety of the state?" They communicated this advice to their solicitors and counsel, who never had dreamed of such an expedient. But bills were imme

[OCTOBER.]

diately filed, and injunctions were moved for. The Lord Keeper was prepared for these motions by an intimation from Shaftesbury and his other colleagues, that it was indispensably necessary that all actions and proceedings against the bankers in consequence of the shutting of the Exchequer, should be stopped. Nay, a message was brought to the perplexed Bridgeman from the King himself, that he deemed himself bound in honour to shelter the bankers whose money he had had locked up in the Exchequer from the pursuit of their creditors."

But when the application was made in open Court, no principle or precedent could be cited to support it, although a feeble attempt was made on the ground that the fulfilment of the contract had been prevented by vis major or casus fortuitus,—while the opposite counsel argued conclusively that the debt being admitted, and there being no legal defence, the inability of the debtor to pay could constitute no equity in his favour; that the rights of the creditor could not be prejudiced by the fraud or force of a third party; and that the shutting up of the Exchequer, whatever might be its character, was entirely res inter alios acta.

The case was so clear to the bar and the bystanders, as well as to the Lord Keeper himself, that he durst not grant the injunction; but in hopes to find out some by-point upon which he might intimate an opinion for the bankers, and so soften their disappointment, he said he should take the papers home with him, and pronounce judgment another day.

Shaftesbury, who was the rcal actor, was not a man so to be dealt with. He resolved that he would grasp the Great Seal, and grant the injunctions himself. He posted off to the King, swore that Bridgeman was an old dotard, quite unequal to his situation; declared that he (Shaftesbury) was himself much fitter for it; pointed out how the recent example proved the little use of black letter learning in teaching what is just and equitable; and vowed that if he were made Chancellor the appointment would greatly redound to the King's ease and the public welfare. Charles, at first, thought that Shaftesbury was in jest, and received the proposal with a laugh; but Buckingham, Arlington, and Clifford were brought to support it,-probably from the hope that a colleague, whom they began to find very troublesome, might ruin his credit by such a freak, and at any rate would find plenty to occupy him without interfering with their departments. The King acquiesced, and Secretary Coventry, without any thing having been done to prepare the Lord Keeper for such a blow, was sent for the Great Seal, and demanded it from him,-while he was thinking of the

* See Reports in Chancery, i. 24,

least unpalatable terms in which he might refuse the injunction, and was hesitating whether he could with any decency refuse to punish the bankers with the costs of the application. Charles kept the Great Seal in his own custody one night, [Nov. 17, 1672.] and next morning it was delivered to Shaftesbury with the title of Lord Chancellor.

Burnet, in relating this event, says that Lord Keeper Bridgeman "had lost all credit at Court, with the reputation he had formerly acquired, and that they had some time been seeking an occasion to get rid of him."*

In addition to the refusal of the injunctions, Roger North assigns another direct cause of his removal, of which I no where else find any trace,-his refusal to seal "a commission for martial law," observing, "he was pressed, but proved restive on both points. For the sake of his family, that gathered like a snow-ball while he had the Scal, he would not have formalised with any tolerable compliances: but these impositions were too rank for him to comport with."+ After his fall he lived in entire scclusion at his

[A. D. 1674.] villa at Teddington, and died there, 25th June,

1674.

Lord Chancellor Nottingham, referring to one of his decisions, said, "It is due to the memory of so great a man, whenever we speak of him, to mention him with reverence and with veneration for his learning and integrity;" and Lord Ellenborough pronounces him "a most eminent Judge, distinguished by the profundity of his learning and the extent of his industry." But greatness will only be attributed to him by lawyers: he knew nothing beyond. his own art; in only one department of that was he distinguished, and such distinction, with opportunity, may be attained by any man of ordinary intellect and extraordinary industry. He is very much to be honoured for his steady and consistent adherence to his royalist principles, but he has received unmerited praise for having denied the dispensing power, and for having favoured toleration,-secing that rather than give up his office he put the Great Seal to the Declaration suspending the penal laws when he had got the Catholics excluded from it,—and that he fully partook of the horror felt by Clarendon his patron, against all who were not high Protestant Episcopalians.

He is said to have favoured men of learning. Bishop Cumberland, author of the De Legibus Nature, was his chaplain, and received from him the living of All-hallows, Stamford.

He was twice married,-first, to Judith, daughter and heiress of John Kynaston, Esq., of Morton, in the county of Salop; and, secondly, to Dorothy, daughter to Dr. Saunders, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, by both of whom he left issue. Sir Henry Bridgeman, the fifth Baronet, (whose mother was the daughter

* Own Times, i, 198. 535.

† Examen, 38.

and heiress of Thomas the last Earl of Bradford, of the family of Newport,) was created Baron Bradford by George III. in the year 1794; and in 1815 his son was raised to the Earldom of Bradford, now enjoyed by the lineal representative in the male line of the Lord Keeper.*

CHAPTER LXXXV.

LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY FROM HIS BIRTH TILL THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES II.

We pass at once from a merc lawyer,-leguleius quidam cautus
et acutus, præco actionum, cantor formularum,
[A. D. .1672.]
auceps syllabarum,"-to a Chancellor who did not
affect to have even a smattering of law, but who possessed
brilliant accomplishments as well as talents, and who, as a states-
man, is one of the most extraordinary characters in English
history:

"For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfix'd in principles and place;
In power unpleas'd impatient of disgrace:

A daring pilot in extremity,

Pleased with the danger when the waves ran high,

He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit.

Would steer too near the sands to boast his wit.

In friendship false, implacable in hate,

Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state.

Then seiz'd with fear, yet still affecting fame,
Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name."

From the birth and boyish position of ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, SO cnterprising, so energetic, so aspiring, so reckless, it might have been expected that he would have quietly devoted himself to dogs and horses, and that if his breast was ever fired by ambition, it would only have been to be High Sheriff of the county or Chairman of Quarter Sessions. While a schoolboy he was a Baronet in possession of large landed estates, yielding him a revenue of 8000l. a year.

The subject of this memoir was the son of Sir John Cooper of Rockborne, in Hampshire, who was created a baronet by James I., and Anne Ashley, only daughter and heiress of Sir Anthony Ashley, of Wimborne St. Giles, in the county of Dorset, who had been Clerk of the Council in the reign of Elizabeth, and had acted as secretary to the council of war in the expedition against Cadiz, in 1596.† He was born at Wimborne St. Giles, July 22, 1621. His grandfather died in 1627, and his father in 1631, when * Grandeur of the Law, 97.

† Arch. xxii. 172.