his opponents in parliament, who caused him to be committed to the Tower for eight days, for protesting against their violent proceedings.

The King, sensible of the high integrity and talents of this faithful patriot, urged him to accept of high employment in his service, which he steadily refused, declaring he should render more service to him in parliament, as a private member, though he confidentially afforded him his advice and counsel, in frequent conferences with the virtuous Lord Falkland and Sir John Culpepper, a zealous royalist, who were then charged with the management of the government. He had long prognosticated the ruin of the King's affairs, and saw that, between the fury of his enemies, and the imprudence of his own councils, the republican party must ultimately prevail. When at length the King was compelled to withdraw from London, and appeal from the illegal acts of the Parliament to the sense of the nation, Hyde followed him to York, and openly engaged in his Majesty's service. In March, 1643, he received the honour of knighthood, and with it the confidential office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. A letter which Charles wrote soon after to his Queen, in Holland, contains the following expression:-"I must make Ned Hyde Secretary of State, for, the truth is, I can trust nobody else." This letter being intercepted and published, brought his name into great abuse by the republican party, and excited the jealousy of many of the royalists.

The King at this time was not only beset by powerful enemies, who were plotting his destruction, but he was cruelly harassed by the importunities of his rapacious courtiers, who were intriguing for favours at a time when they should have been solely engaged in maintaining his cause. The ministers of a court, in those days, did not blush at conduct which would disgrace the meanest clerk under our present government. The menial offices of the household were solicited by persons of rank and station, for no other object than to participate of the revenues which then were at the disposal of the crown; and though the virtue of King

Charles prevented him from applying any sums of money to his personal advantage, he found it impracticable to stem the tide of corruption by which he was overwhelmed.

The battle of Naseby, in 1645, extinguished every hope of the royalists, and reduced the King's affairs to irretrievable ruin. He foresaw the utmost danger to his family; and, having already sent his Queen into security on the Continent, he placed the Prince of Wales under the charge of Sir Edward Hyde, and three others of the Council, with instructions to proceed to the Isles of Scilly, and afterwards to Jersey, to be beyond the reach of his enemies. Hyde, considering that all the King's misfortunes had arisen from the intriguing spirit of his Queen, Henrietta Maria, who, as a Princess of France, had ever thwarted his better councils, urgently opposed her repeated demands that the Prince, who was then fifteen years old, should be consigned to her care; but, being unable to controul the other commissioners, who had been won over by the Queen, he was at length compelled to yield to her wishes, and in July 1646, the Prince joined his mother at Paris.

Thus abandoned to the reflections of his own mind, and unable any longer to assist his beloved master by personal service, Hyde, with the dignity of a philosopher, reconciled himself to his condition, and lived in perfect seclusion, upwards of two years, at Jersey. It was in this island he composed the history of that fatal rebellion, which, with so much zeal and ability, he had laboured to avert. He erected for his own use an apartment in the Castle, over the door of which he placed an inscription,* signifying, "that life is well spent in virtuous retirement ;" and in bestowing on his countrymen a work so valuable, he fully justified this appropriate motto. The Prince of Wales having made an ineffectual attempt to recover the authority of his Royal father, who was then confined as a prisoner in the Isle of Wight, summoned Sir E. Hyde to attend him * Bene vixit qui bene latuit.

in Holland, upon his return to the Hague; where he found those who still adhered to the king's party, involved in personal rivalry and disputes. These were fomented by the Queen, his mother, who kept him bare of money to preserve her controul over his conduct, and which tended but to alienate his affections. The fatal news of King Charles's execution, though it threw a temporary gloom over the Prince's court, did not suppress those jealousies; while Hyde, who was retained as Chancellor of the Exchequer to the young King, was hated by the Queen for his attachment to the Church, and for the resistance he had formerly offered to her ruinous counsels to his late master.

Disgusted with these incessant bickerings, and hopeless of checking them, Sir Edward Hyde solicited permission to proceed to Spain, with the endeavour to procure the aid of that kingdom to restore Charles to the throne of his father. During two years, thus employed by himself and the Lord Cottington, who was joined with him in this commission, they suffered the severest privations from want of money, and were at length dismissed from Madrid in the rudest manner, on the arrival of tidings of Charles's defeat at Worcester, from whence with difficulty he had reached the coast of France in an open boat. Here, notwithstanding the general failure of his affairs, Charles found a firm and faithful friend in his Chancellor of the Exchequer, to whom he now entrusted his most confidential affairs; and this exasperated the Queen, his mother, to the highest degree. The condition to which the whole court was now reduced is truly deplorable to read, even at this time. A letter from Hyde to Sir Edward Nicholas, written from Paris at this time, gives the following touching picture of his extreme wretchedness, in the depth of winter:-" I have not been master of a crown these many months. I am cold for want of clothes and fire; and owe for all the meat which I have eaten these three months, and to a poor woman who is no longer able to trust. And my poor family at Antwerp (which breaks my heart) is in as sad a state as I am-and the King as either of us."

Amidst these severe trials, the example of this great man affords a delightful evidence of the power of religion, over a mind which habitually obeyed its dictates, and rested all its hopes on the support and protection of Providence. In another letter to Sir Edward, he says,-" Keep up your spirits, and take heed of sinking under a burden which you never kneeled to take up; our innocence begets our cheerfulness, and that again will be a means to secure the other. Whoever grows too weary and impatient of the condition he is in, will too impatiently project to get out of it; and that by degrees will shake, or baffle, or delude his innocence. We have no reason to blush for the poverty which is not brought on by our own faults. As long as it pleases God to give me health, I shall think he intends I should outlive these sufferings; and when he sends sickness, I shall (I hope with submission) believe that he intends to remove me from greater calamities." The French King, who had never been sincere in his assurances of support to Charles, at length treated him with such entire neglect, that he was compelled to seek an asylum elsewhere, during which he wandered from place to place through the Low Countries without a home. When Cromwell's unexpected death, in 1658, revived the hopes of the royalists, the Court of France was the first to go into public mourning for him, and recognized his son Richard, without hesitation, as successor to the protectorate. It had been the earnest and unceasing prayer of Hyde, throughout all the vicissitudes of his long exile, that the restoration of Charles to the throne of England might be accomplished without bloodshed; and so great was his dependence on divine protection, that he never anticipated success from any attempts at invasion, after the commonwealth was quietly established.

No sooner was Cromwell dead, than the enemies of the Rump Parliament assembled, with a purpose of resuming their authority, to the exclusion of Cromwell's successor. But Lambert, who commanded the army, immediately dissolved their meeting. When these proceedings were reported in Scotland, General Monk,

who commaded the forces there, marched immediately for London, avowing his determination to support the authority of the parliament. On his approach, Lambert's troops deserted him, and thus left Monk master of the metropolis. It is now difficult, perhaps impossible, to learn the real motives which determined Monk's conduct. He had been a royalist, but had long gone over to the interests of the usurper, by whom he was promoted to stations of the highest confidence. When he met the parliament, he repeated to them his abhorrence of any attempt to meddle with their authority; and though he secretly tampered with the friends of the King's party, he severely chastised those who espoused that side. By his advice, the expelled members of the parliament were restored to their seats, and soon after they dissolved themselves, after issuing writs for a new parliament.

It was now that the general feeling of the country was shown in favour of the Sovereign. The great majority of the members who were returned at the general election, proved to be persons decidedly attached to the throne; and Monk being now in direct correspondence with the King, and secure of the consent of his army, had no difficulty in persuading the House to pass a vote, inviting the return of Charles to the throne. The conduct of General Monk, on this critical occasion, has been the subject of great speculation. He seems to have wavered greatly in his determination, and at last to have taken the side of the King, solely from motives of personal interest. Clarendon favours this opinion in his History of the Rebellion, wherein he says," The disposition which finally grew in him towards the royal cause, did arise from divers accidents which fell out in the course of affairs, and seemed even to oblige him to undertake that, which, in the end, conduced so, much to his greatness."* There is an apparent heartlessness, a sordid, avaricious spirit, in the character of Monk, which renders this highly probable. A man of this disposition habitually prac

Hist. Reb. vol. iii, p. 548,