county of Carnarvon, where he remained till his death. In this retreat he still anxiously listened to the news brought him of public affairs; and if his loyalty had suffered a short eclipse, it now shone out with fresh lustre. When told that the King, pressed by the forces under Fairfax, had, by the advice of Monsieur Montreville, secretly fled from Oxford, and repaired to the Scottish army before Newark, he wrung his hands, saying, "What! be advised by a stranger, and trust the Scots! then all is lost." He was more and more afflicted as he successively heard of his fears being verified by the treacherous act of the Scotch army, in delivering up their confiding countryman to the parliament,-of his being seized by Joyce and the Independents, of his flight to the Isle of Wight,—of the disastrous issue of his negotiations at Newport, -of his being made a close prisoner in London, and of the preparations for the unprecedented proceeding of bringing him to an open trial. But when the news arrived, that after being browbeaten by Bradshaw, "the rider on the red horse who had power to take peace from the earth that men should kill one another, and to whom was given a great sword to cut off the Lord's anointed,” Charles had been found guilty, and doomed to die,—and that the sentence had actually been carried into execution by striking off his head on a scaffold erected in front of his own palace at midday, before hundreds of thousands of his objects, the aged Archbishop fainted away, and vowed that he never would take comfort more.

He survived rather more than a year, remaining constantly in bed, except that every night, as the hall clock struck twelve, he rose, and having nothing but his shirt and waistcoat upon him, he knelt on his bare knees and prayed earnestly a quarter of an hour before he retired to his rest again-observing the season of midnight, because the Scriptures speak of Christ's coming to judge the quick and the dead at midnight, and the bur[A. D. 1650.] then of his prayer being, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, and put an end to these days of sin and misery." He longed for his own deliverance, say, "I am ready for the Lord.”

At last, when his strength was much reduced, he was seized with a sharp attack of fever, which carried him off in a few hours. When the pangs of death were upon him, after the Visitation of the Sick had been twice read over to him, and he had received absolution, these words being repeated by the priest in his hearing, the Lord be merciful to thee, the Lord receive thy soul,- at that instant he first closed his own eyes with one hand, and then lifting up the other, his lips moved, and, recommending his spirit to his Redeemer, he expired. His death happened on the 25th of March, [MARCH 25, 1650.] his 68th year. the day of his birth, when he completed

Without any very high mental endowments, his extreme industry and energy, and a combination of fortuitous circumstances, against the occurrence of which the probabilities were incalcu

lable,—raised him to great distinction, and mingled his name with transactions of permanent public interest. He will always be memorable in English history as the last of long line of eminent ecclesiastics, who, with rare intervals, held for many centuries the highest judicial office in the kingdom, and exercised a powerful influence over the destinies of the nation.*

All accounts represent him as very fiery in his temper, by which he was betrayed into rash measures, and gave great offence to those with whom he came into contact, some, with Lord Clarendon at their head, ascribing this to systematic arrogance and imperiousness, while his good-natured secretary explains away his "choler and high stomach" by his Welsh blood, asserting that he was speedily appeased, and that "there did not live that Christian that hated revenge more than he, or that would forgive an injury sooner."

Though grasping wealth with eagerness, he spent it most munificently. While he held the Great Seal he was too much devoted to the duties of his office to be much given to hospitality; but when he retired, one of his detractors says, "he lived at Buckden the most episcopal of any of his predecessors.Ӡ His house was open to all his neighbours of all degrees, lay and spiritual, and when persons of distinction were travelling that way he sumptuously entertained them and their retinues. He was likewise very charitable to the poor, and liberally assisted scholars of merit who were labouring under pecuniary difficulties, till he could permanently provide for them.

Although supposed to favour the Puritans, he incurred great scandal with that sect by encouraging stage plays. He used to have the players down from London to Buckden,-when the hall of the episcopal palace was converted into a theatre, where comedies were performed-even on a Sunday. Collier, in his "Annals of the Stage," asserts that "The Midsummer Night's Dream” was exhibited there on Sunday the 27th of September, 1631; and others add, that on that very day he had held an episcopal ordination, so that the play was for the amusement of the young priests. It is difficult to get at the truth in such an age of faction; and, at any rate, we must not judge of an individual who lived two centuries ago by our own notions of propriety. It was long after the Reformation, before there was any essential change in manners and customs, and Hacket,-himself a Bishop, and a very grave and decent divine,-without making any admission, or entering into any specific denial respecting these charges, asserts "that Archbishop Williams did no more in recreating himself with such diversions at Buckden than he himself had seen that grave

* Humanly speaking, lucky chances must be considered as having chiefly contributed to his extraordinary elevation, notwithstanding the application to him of the quotation, “Cujus ea vis fuisse ingenii atque animi cernitur ut quocunque loco natus esset, in quodcunque tempus incidisset, fortunam ipse sibi facturus videatur." † Sanderson's King James, part ii. p. 507. ‡ Vol. ii. 27.

prelate, Archbishop Bancroft, do at Lambeth." We must remember that King James's "Book of Sports," commanding all good Christians and churchmen to play at football and other such games every Sunday afternoon, after having been present at Divine worship, was read during the morning service in every church and chapel in the kingdom.

Williams had such a sincere love for the Liturgy of the Church of England, that he caused it to be translated into Spanish and other foreign languages. He regularly kept up religions observances in his family, and at dinner a chapter was read in the English Bible daily by one of the choristers, and at supper another, in Latin, by one of his gentlemen.

Some accused him of licentiousness, and it was loudly whispered that about the time he was made Lord Keeper he had an intrigue with the Countess of Buckingham.* Others would have it that he had promised to marry her,—that having got the Great Seal as her dowry, he refused to perform his promise,-and that he was displaced because, now being come to the height of his preferment, hee did estrange himselfe from the old Countesse."+

Wilson, in his History of King James, seeks to refute all these stories, by asserting that Williams was enuchus ab utero. This is de nied by Bishop Hacket, who, however, relates what would equally answer the purpose-that while a little boy in petticoats, he, along with his playmates, jumped from the walls of Conway in a widy day, expecting the wind to inflate their clothes, and make a parachute for them; but that, while the rest safely reached the ground, he fell precipitately upon a ragged stone, by which he was so mutilated that he could never have thought of marriage, and a want of chastity could not be imputed to him.‡

This statement is, in all probability, correct; but Willams, to avoid the contempt or ridicule which might have fallen upon him if it had been known that he had suffered such mutilation, carefully concealed it during his lifetime, and talked and wrote as if he had been a man of perfect integrity both in body and mind.§ However, being unmarried,-to avoid scandal, he kept only men servants in his house. To this circumstance his biographers ascribe its dirtiness and its disorders, which, they say, are best prevented by female superintendence.||

He was a remarkably handsome man ;-" his person proper, his

*This story even reached Scotland, "It was rumored every quher that hes too grate familiaritie with Buckinghame's mother procured him thesse grate favours and preferments one a suddaine."-Balfour, ii. 93.

† Weldon.

Hacket, p. 8.

E. g in his letter to Buckingham begging the deanery of Westminster, he says, "being unmarried, and inclining so to continue;"-and his conversation with Prince Charles about the courtesan with whom he was in correspondence, rather indicates a desire that he should be considered potentially a libertine.-Ante, pp. 389, 390.

Hacket. Phillips.

countenance comely, his complexion fair and lovely*, his gait so stately that most people mistook it for pride.†

Till he heard of Charles's execution he was merry and facetious in adverse as well as in prosperous fortune; but after that event, if he would converse with any one, it was only respecting the enormous crime of Cromwell, Bradshaw, and the other regicides, and inquiring whether the Divine vengeance had not yet overtaken them.?

Like his great predecessors, Morton and Wolsey, he had the sons of the principal nobility-of the Marquess of Hertford, and the Earls of Pembroke, Salisbury, and Leicester and many other young gentlemen-reared in his family before they went to the University. They were taught the classics by his chaplains; they had proper instruction in all manly exercises from the officers of his household; and he himself read them lectures on logic, and catechised them in religion during Lent.

He affected to rival Wolsey in his princely expenditure on public buildings. He repaired and beautified Westminster Abbey at his own expense. He rebuilt Lincoln College, Oxford, merely because it had been founded by one of his predecessors; and he was a splendid benefactor to St John's College, Cambridge, the place of his education.

While Lord Keeper he embraced an opportunity of 1e-purchasing his family estate, which he left, though considerably burdened with debt, to his nephew and heir, Sir Griffith Williams.

His writings, which are entirely theological, I do not presume to criticise. They had long fallen into oblivion, but I should think they might now be read with advantage in the Tractarian controversy. He was superior in learning and acuteness to Laud, whose reputation is owing to the illegal, barbarous, unprovoked sentence passed upon him,-as little to be palliated as defended, -and the calm, dignified, and courageous manner in which he met it, whereby all his faults, and follies, and cruelties were forgotten, and he, who if he had been let alone would have sunk into oblivion, or remembered only for his bigotry and intemperance, is now regarded as a martyr and a saint.*

Williams's printed speeches which have come down to us show a vile taste in oratory and composition. They are most pedantic, quibbling, and illogical.

He might have played a great part, first in opposing the arbitrary measures of the Court on his dismissal from office, and afterwards in checking the excesses of the parliamentary party when he was released from the Tower at the meeting of the Long Parliament; but he wanted moderation and firmness of purpose; he

* This corresponds with his portraits, all of which that I have seen represent him wearing a broad-brimmed hat, such as that in which Bradshaw bullied."

† Phillips.

Nothing in his life

Became him like the leaving it."

could not command the support of his own friends, and he was constantly laying himself open to the assaults of his antagonists. There is no sufficient ground for Clarendon's censure, that he was a man of a very corrupt nature, whose passions transported him into the most unjustifiable actions;" but still less can he be taken for the immaculate character represented by Bishop Hacket, although it speaks loudly for his good qualities, that he so powerfully attached to him a man of learning and discernment, who had known him most intimately for many years, and who continued warmly to defend him after his disgrace, and after his death.*

Williams was buried in a little Welsh church near Penrhyn, where a monument was some years after erected to his memory, for which an epitaph was written by the faithful Hacket,—recording at great length his origin, his accomplishments†, and his services, and thus concluding:

66

Postquam inter tempora luctuosissima

Satur esset omnium quæ videret et audiret,

Nec Regi aut Patriæ per rabiem perduellium amplius servire potuit.
Anno Aetatis 68° expleto Martis 25° qui fuit ei natalis
Summa fide in Christum, inconcussâ erga Regem fidelitate
Animam angina extinctus piissime Deo reddidit.

Nec refert quod tantillum monumentum in occulto angulo positnm
Tanti viri memoriam servat,

Cujus virtutes omnium ætatum tempora celebrabrunt,”

CHAPTER LXI.

LILE OF LORD KEEPER COVENTRY FROM HIS BIRTH TILL THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PROCEEDINGS RESPECTING SHIP MONEY.

We now come to the life of a steady lawyer,-regularly bred to the bar,-by a mixture of good and evil arts" advancing to the highest honours of his profession,--of powerful though not bril

* Hacket's "Scrinia Reserata, a memorial offered to the great deservings of John Williams, D.D." is one of the most curious pieces of biography in our language, and should be studied by all who would thoroughly understand the history of the reigns of James I. and Charles I. Consisting of two folio volumes, generally bound up together,-what it contains of Williams is like two grains of wheat in two bushel-(not of chaff)-of various other sorts of grain;-but it is full of most rare quotations, and of quaint illustrations. The author must have been a man of extensive learning and most agreeable conversation: he makes us always highly pleased with himself, if not with his hero. Dr. Johnson says, rather harshly, "This book is written with such depravity of genius, and such mixture of the fop and the pedant, as has not often appeared." Phillip's "Life of Williams," written in the beginning of the last century, contains little additional information, and is a work of very inferior merit,

† (Inter alia) "Novem Linguarum Thesaurus." He was not like the polyglot Sir William Jones, ignorant of his mother tongue (Welsh.)