prisons.

This punishment of declared enemies interrupted not the rejoicings of the court: but the death of the duke of Gloucester, a young prince of promising hopes, threw a great cloud upon them. The king, by no incident in his life, was ever so deeply affected. Gloucester was observed to possess united the good qualities of both his brothers: the clear judgment and penetration of the king; the industry and application of the duke of York. He was also believed to be affectionate to the religion and constitution of his country. He was but twenty years of age, when the small-pox put an end to his life.

The princess of Orange, having come to England in order to partake of the joy attending the restoration of her family, with whom she lived in great friendship, soon after sickened and died. The queen mother paid a visit to her son; and obtained his consent to the marriage of the princess Henrietta with the duke of Orleans, brother to the French king.

After a recess of near two months, the parliament met, and proceeded in the great work of the national settlement. They established the post-office, wine-licenses, and some articles of the revenue. They granted more assessments, and some arrears for paying and disbanding the army. Business, being carried on with great unanimity, was soon despatched; and after they had sitten near two months, the king, in a speech full of the most gracious expressions, thought proper to dissolve them.

This house of commons had been chosen during the reign of the old parliamentary party; and though many royalists had crept in amongst them, yet did it chiefly consist of Presbyterians, who had not yet entirely laid aside their old jealousies and principles. Lenthal, a member, having said, that those who first took arms against the king were as guilty as those who afterwards brought him to the scaffold, was severely reprimanded by order of the house; and the most violent efforts of the long parliament, to secure the constitution, and bring delinquents to justice, were in effect vindicated and applauded.[*] The claim of the two houses to the militia, the first ground of the quarrel, however exorbitant a usurpation, was never expressly resigned by this parliament. They made all grants of money with a very sparing hand. Great arrears being due, by the protectors, to the fleet, the army, the navy office, and every branch of service, this whole debt they threw upon the crown, without establishing funds sufficient for its payment. Yet, notwithstanding this jealous care expressed by the parliament, there prevails a story, that Popham, having sounded the disposition of the members, undertook to the earl of Southampton to procure, during the king's life, a grant of two millions a year, land tax; a sum which, added to the customs and excise, would forever have rendered this prince independent of his people.

Southampton, it is said, merely from his affection to the king, had unwarily embraced the offer; and it was not till he communicated the matter to the chancellor, that he was made sensible of its pernicious tendency. It is nor improbable, that such an offer might have been made, and been hearkened to; but it is nowise probable, that all the interest of the court would ever with this house of commons, have been able to make it effectual. Clarendon showed his prudence, no less than his integrity, in entirely rejecting it.

The chancellor, from the same principles of conduct, hastened to disband the army. When the king reviewed these veteran troops, he was struck with their beauty, order, discipline, and martial appearance; and being sensible, that regular forces are most necessary implements of royalty, he expressed a desire of finding expedients still to retain them.

But his wise minister set before him the dangerous spirit by which these troops were actuated, their enthusiastic genius, their habits of rebellion and mutiny; and he convinced the king, that, till they were disbanded, he never could esteem himself securely established on his throne. No more troops were retained than a few guards and garrisons, about one thousand horse and four thousand foot. This was the first appearance, under the monarchy, of a regular standing army in this island. Lord Mordaunt said, that the king, being possessed of that force, might now look upon himself as the most considerable gentleman in England.[*] The fortifications of Gloucester, Taunton, and other towns, which had made resistance to the king during the civil wars, were demolished.

Clarendon not only behaved with wisdom and justice in the office of chancellor; all the counsels which he gave the king tended equally to promote the interest of prince and people. Charles, accustomed in his exile to pay entire deference to the judgment of this faithful servant, continued still to submit to his direction; and for some time no minister was ever possessed of more absolute authority. He moderated the forward zeal of the royalists, and tempered their appetite for revenge. With the opposite party, he endeavored to preserve inviolate all the king's engagements: he kept an exact register of the promises which had been made for any service, he employed all his industry to fulfil them. This good minister was now nearly allied to the royal family. His daughter, Ann Hyde, a woman of spirit and fine accomplishments, had hearkened, while abroad, to the addresses of the duke of York, and under promise of marriage, had secretly admitted him to her bed. Her pregnancy appeared soon after the restoration; and though many endeavored to dissuade the king from consenting to so unequal an alliance, Charles, in pity to his friend and minister, who had been ignorant of these engagements, permitted his brother to marry her.[*] Clarendon expressed great uneasiness at the honor which he had obtained; and said that, by being elevated so much above his rank, he thence dreaded a more sudden downfall.

Most circumstances of Clarendon's administration have met with applause: his maxims alone in the conduct of ecclesiastical politics have by many been deemed the effect of prejudices narrow and bigoted. Had the jealousy of royal power prevailed so far with the convention parliament as to make them restore the king with strict limitations, there is no question but the establishment of Presbyterian discipline had been one of the conditions most rigidly insisted on. Not only that form of ecclesiastical government is more favorable to liberty than to royal power; it was likewise, on its own account, agreeable to the majority of the house of commons, and suited their religious principles. But as the impatience of the people, the danger of delay, the general disgust towards faction, and the authority of Monk, had prevailed over that jealous project of limitations, the full settlement of the hierarchy, together with the monarchy, was a necessary and infallible consequence. All the royalists were zealous for that mode of religion; the merits of the Episcopal clergy towards the king, as well as their sufferings on that account, had been great; the laws which established bishops and the liturgy, were as yet unrepealed by legal authority; and any attempt of the parliament, by new acts, to give the superiority to Presbyterianism, had been sufficient to involve the nation again in blood and confusion. Moved by these views, the commons had wisely postponed the examination of all religious controversy, and had left the settlement of the church to the king and to the ancient laws.

The king at first used great moderation in the execution of the laws. Nine bishops still remained