By such an extraordinary exhibition of courage, to which he was driven by the instinct of self-preservation, he escaped the peril which Jeffreys had planned for him, and he retained the Great Seal till the King's death.

In the morning of Monday, the 2d of February, 1685, he was sent for to Whitehall, by a messenger announcing that his Majesty had had an apoplectic seizure. According to the ancient custom and supposed law when the sovereign is dangerously distempered, the Privy Council was immediately assembled; and the Lord Keeper examined the King's physicians.*"Their discourse ran upon indefinites-what they observed, their method intended, and success hoped. He said to them, that these matters were little satisfactory to the Council, unless they would declare, in the main, what they judged of the King's [A. D. 1685.] case; whether his Majesty was like to recover or not? would never be brought to that; all lay in hopes."

But they

With short intervals the Council continued to sit day and night. After a time, the physicians came into the council chamber, smiling, and saying they had good news, for the King had a fever.— Lord Keeper. "Gentlemen, what do you mean? Can any thing be worse?"-First Physician. "Now we know what to do."Lord Keeper. "What is that?"-Second Physician. "To give him the cortex." The exhibition of Jesuits' bark was sanctioned by the Council, but proved fatal,-and being continued while the poor King grew weaker and weaker, at the [FEB. 6.] end of four days he expired. The Lord Keeper and the Council were kept in ignorance of the fact, that Chiffinch (accustomed to be employed on royal errands of a different sort) had been sent for a Roman Catholic priest to receive his confession and administer the sacraments to him, when he had declined the spiritual assistance of a Bishop of the Church of England.

* Lord Coke lays down, that upon such an occasion there ought to be a warrant by advice of the Privy Council, as in 32 H. 8., to certain physicians and surgeons named, authorising them to administer to the royal patient "potiones, syrupos, confectioes, laxitivas medicines, clysteria, suppositoria, capitis purgea, capitis rasuram, fomentationes, embrocationes, emplastra," &c. still that no medicine should be given to the King but by the advice of his Council; that no physic should be administered except that which is set down in writing, and that it is not to be prepared by any apothecary, but by the surgeons named in the warrant.-4 Inst. 251. These were the precautions of times when no eminent person died suddenly without suspicion of poison. Even Charles II, was at first said to have been cut off to make way for a Popish successor, although, when the truth came out, it appeared that he had himself been reconciled to the Roman Catholic church.

† Life, ii. 184.

CHAPTER XCVII.

CONCLUSION OF THE LIFE OF LORD GUILFORD.

THE Council was still sitting when the news was brought that Charles was no more. After a short interval, James, who, leav[FEB. 6. 1685.] ing the death-bed of his brother, had decently engaged in a devotional exercise in his own closet, entered the apartment in which the Councillors were assembled, and all kneeling down, they saluted him as their Sovereign. When he had seated himself in the chair of state, and delivered his declaration, which, with very gracious expressions, smacked of the arbitrary principles so soon acted upon, Lord Guilford surrendered the Great Seal into his hands, and again received it from him with the former title of Lord Keeper.* James would, no doubt, have been much better pleased to have transferred it to Jeffreys; but it was his policy, at the commencement of his reign, to make no change in the administration, and he desired all present to retain the several charges which they held under his deceased brother,―assuring them that he earnestly wished to imitate the good and gracious sovereign whose loss they deplored.

Jeffreys, though continued a Member of the Cabinet, was probably a good deal disappointed, and he resolved to leave nothing undone to mortify the man who stood between him and his object, and to strike him down as soon as possible.

The first question upon which James consulted the Council was respecting the levying of the duties of Customs and Excise, which had been granted by parliament only during the life of the late King. The Lord Keeper intimating a clear conviction that parliament would continue the grant as from the demise of the Crown, recommended a Proclamation requiring that the duties should be collected and paid into the Exchequer, and that the officers should keep the product separate from other revenues till the next session of parliament, in order to be disposed of as his Majesty and the two Houses should think fit. But the Lord Chief Justice represented this advice as low and trimming, and he moved that "his Majesty should cause his royal proclamation to issue, commanding all officers to collect, and the subjects to pay, these duties for his Majesty's use, as part of the royal revenue." The Lord Keeper ventured humbly to ask his Majesty to consider whether such a proclamation would be for his service, as it might give a handle to his Majesty's enemies to say that his Majesty, at the very entrance upon his government, levied money of the subject

* On the 10th of Feb., before procceding to business, he took the oaths, standing in his place in the Court of Chancery, the Master of the Rolls holding the book.– Cr. Off. Min. fol. 117.

without the authority of parliament. The Chief Justice's advice was for more palatable. The proclamation which he recommended was therefore ordered to be drawn up, and was immediately issued. The Lord Keeper had the baseness to affix the Great Seal to this proclamation, thinking as he did of its expediency and legality. But rather than resign or be turned out of his office, he was ready to concur in any outrage on the constitution, or to submit to any personal indignity.

A parliament was found indispensable; and, counting on the very loyal disposition manifested by the nation, writs for calling one were issued, returnable the 19th of May.

[MARCH.]

As that day approached, the Lord Keeper began to write the speech which he expected to deliver in the presence of the King to the two Houses on their assembling. He was much pleased with this performance, on which he had taken uncommon pains, and when finished, he read it to his brother and his officers, who highly applauded it.* But what was his consternation when he was told that he was not to be allowed to open his mouth upon the occasion!†

Parliament meeting, the course was adopted which has been followed ever since. Instead of having on the first day of

the session, before the choice of a Speaker by the Com- [MAY 19.] mons, one speech from the King, and another from the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, to explain the causes of the summons,—the Commons being sent for by the Black Rod, the Lord Keeper merely desired them to retire to their own Chamber and choose a Speaker, and to present him at an hour which was named, for his Majesty's approbation.. The Speaker being chosen and approved of, and having demanded and obtained a recognition of the privileges of the Commons,-on the following day the King himself made a speech from the throne, and immediately withdrew.‡

But this speech was not in modern fashion settled at the Cabinet; ror was it read the evening before at the Cockpit, or to the chief supporters of the government in both Houses at the dinnertable of the two leaders respectively; nor was it to be treated as the speech of the minister. "At least the Lord Keeper had no hand in it; for he was not so much as consulted about either the matter or expressions the King intended to use, as one might well judge by the unguarded tenor of it."

Yet he still was mean enough to cling to office, and to do what he could for a government impatient to get rid of him. He had been very active in the elections; and by his influence had procured the return of a good many zealous Church-and-King members. And to make the attendance easy to these gentlemen, whose concerns were in the country, he took divers of them to

See the speech at full length. Life, ii. 192. There is nothing in it very good or very bad.

+ Life, ii. 120.

VOL. III.

rack and manger in his family, where they were entertained while the parliament sat."* But nothing which he could do would mitigate the hostility of those who had vowed his destruction.

At the meeting of parliament, Jeffreys was made a Peer,† that he might have the better opportunity to thwart and insult the Lord Keeper; although there had been no previous instance of raising a common-law judge to the peerage.

He

There were several appeals from decrees of the Lord Keeper speedily brought to a hearing. "Jeffreys affected to let fly at them, to have it thought that he was fitter to be Chancellor." attended, neglecting all other business; and during the argument, and in giving his opinion, took every opportunity of disparaging the Lord Keeper's law, preparatory to moving reversals. He was particularly outrageous in the case of Howard v. the Duke of Norfolk, being emboldened to talk confidently on matters with which he was not much acquainted, by having to rest on the reputation of Lord Nottingham. That great equity lawyer, contrary to the opinion of the two Chief Justices and the Chief Baron, whom he had called in to assist him, had held that an equitable estate tail might be created in a term of years; but his successor had reversed his decree, and the decree of reversal was now under appeal. "Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, by means of some encouragement he had met with, took upon him the part of slighting and insulting his Lordship on all occasions that proffered. And here he had a rare opportunity; for, in his rude way of talking, and others of a party after him, he battered the poor decree; not without the most indecent affronts to his Lordship that in such an assembly ever were heard." The courtesy now prevailing between law Lords of opposite political parties was not then known between colleagues sitting in the same cabinet; and the poor Lord Keeper was assailed by the coarsest vituperation, and the most cutting ridicule. The second Earl of Nottingham, son of the Chancellor, "who hated him because he had endeavoured to detract from his father's memory," likewise took this opportunity to attack him, and got together many instances of his ill-administration of justice, and greatly exposed him. He was not roused into retaliation or resistance; and he contented himself with a dry legal argument. The decree was reversed; and when he announced that the contents had it, he must have felt as if he had been sounding his own death-knell. The lay lords who voted could have known nothing of the merits of such a nice question; and must have been guided by favour or enmity to the Lord Keeper or the Lord Chief Justice. What rendered the defeat and contemptuous usage the

* 4 Parl. Hist. 1349.

† May 15, 1685.

Burnet, ii. 357. It was believed that this reversal " gave the crisis to the uneasiness and distraction of mind he was labouring under."

§ It is insinuated, that some, to please the King, were influenced by the consideration that the appellant was a Roman Catholic, while the respondent was a Protestant.-See 1 Vernon, 162. Life, ii. 93,

more galling was the presence of the King; for James, like his brother, attended in the House of Lords when any thing interesting was coming on; and walked about the House, or stood by the fire, or sat in his chair of state or on the woolsack, as suited his fancy.*

Having opened this scene," says Roger, "we are not to expect other than opposition, contempt, and brutal usage, of that Chief towards his Lordship while he lived."

There were few debates in the House of Lords during this short session; but, even in going through the common forms of the House, Jeffreys found opportunities publicly to testify his contempt. for the Lord Keeper; and in the Cabinet, in discussing the dispensation to be granted to Catholic officers to serve in the army, and other subjects, he constantly laid traps for him, with a view of either making him obnoxious to the King, or odious to the public, -who considered him the author of every declaration or dispensation which passed the Great Seal.

Sunderland and other members of the cabinet openly joined in this persecution, and "he was little less than derided by them. Being soon to be laid aside, he was not relied upon in any thing, but was truly a seal-keeper rather than a minister of state, and kept on for despatch of the formularies, rather than for advice or trust." Why did he not resign? It is difficult to understand the reasoning of his brother, who thus accounts for his continuing to bear such insults:-" His Lordship was so ill used at Court by the Earl of Sunderland, Jeffreys, and their sub-sycophants, that I am persuaded if he had had less pride of heart, he had been tempted to have delivered up the Seal in full health. But he cared not to gratify, by that, such disingenuous enemies. He cared not to humour these barkers, or to quit his place before he might do it with safety to his dignity. He intended to stay till the King would bear him no longer, and then make it his Majesty's own act to remove him."‡

He felt keenly a sense of the insignificance and disfavour into which he had fallen; and the anticipation of "the worse remaining behind," when he was to be finally kicked out, preyed upon his spirits. No longer was he ear-wigged by the Lord Cravens, who worship a favourite; no more did the foreign ambassadors bow low when they thought that he observed them: his levee was now deserted; he seemed to himself to discover a sneer on every countenance at Whitehall; and he suspected that the bar, the officers of

* By a reference to the Journals of the House of Lords, it appears that the King attended almost every day during the whole of this session. The argument of Howard v. Duke of Norfolk occupied two days. It was decided, June 19, 1685, by a very full house, there being present, besides the King, eighteen bishops, and sixty-seven temporal peers, although there was no other business to be done. There was no division on the motion to reverse, so that the Lord Keeper must have been almost entirely without support. ‡ Ibid. ii. 222. 239.

+ Life, ii. 132.