Privy Seal; the Earl of Pembroke, then Lord Chamberlain; and the Earls of Holland +, Hertford ‡, and Essex. Sir Thomas Wentman || and Sidney Godolphin were two of his favoured associates; but the man with whom he tells us he had the most entire friendship, and of whom he speaks in terms of the highest admiration and regard, was Lucius Carey, afterwards Lord Falkland.** He was also fortunate in the friendship of many eminent and rising men, his superiors in age and experience, among the members of his own profession. Among these were Lane, then Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Chief Baron of the

Philip Earl of Pembroke. His violent temper and uncourtly habits are said to have rendered him very ill qualified for the office of lord chamberlain. He became a staunch adherent of the parliament; and on the House of Lords being closed, sat in the House of Commons, in 1649, as M. P. for Berkshire. Died Jan. 23. 1650.

+ Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, was beheaded on the 9th of March, 1649.

William Seymour, created Marquis of Hertford June 3. 1640, had been imprisoned in the reign of James I., for marrying Arabella Stuart; fought for the king in the civil war; died Oct. 24. 1660, having become Duke of Somerset in the preceding month.

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, son of the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, was commander of the parliamentary forces at the commencement of the civil war. Died Sept. 14. 1646.

Of Sir Francis Wenman, Lord Clarendon says, "He was of a "noble extraction, and of an ancient family in Oxfordshire, where he was "possessed of a competent estate. His ratiocination was above his learning, and the sharpness of his wit incomparable. He was equal to the greatest trust and employment, if he had been ambitious of it, or solicitous for it; but his want of health produced a kind of lazi"ness of mind, which disinclined him to business; and he died a little "before the general troubles of the kingdom, which he foresaw with "wonderful concern." Life of Clarendon, i. 51.

Sidney Godolphin was killed at Chayford in Devonshire, fighting on the side of the King, in 1643. See his character in the Life of Clarendon, p. 51. to 53.

** Lucius Carey, Viscount Falkland, son of Henry Carey, who was created Viscount Falkland, Nov. 10. 1620, comptroller of the household to James I., and who died September, 1633. Lucius Lord Falkland was killed at the battle of Newbury, Sept. 20. 1643.

18

I.

CHAP. Exchequer, and lastly Lord Keeper of the Seal; Palmer, afterwards Attorney-General; John Maynard *; and Bulstrode Whitelocke. †

Masque given by

Court.,

Whitelocke, in his "Memorials of English Afthe Inns of fairs," (one of the most complete and faithful records of one of the most interesting periods of our history,) describes at much length an event in which Hyde bore a prominent part; yet to which, in his autobiography, he makes no allusion. The circumstance recorded is curiously illustrative of the manners of that time. In 1632, Prynne published his Histriomastix, a fierce and bigoted invective against plays, containing words of coarse

* Maynard witnessed the accession of William III., and, when that king remarked to him that he must have outlived most of lawyers of his standing, made the courtier-like reply-" I should have outlived the "law too, had it not been for the arrival of your Majesty."

+ Whitelocke, who, under the Commonwealth, filled successively the high offices of ambassador to Sweden, commissioner of the great seal and of the treasury, speaker of Cromwell's third parliament, keeper of the seals under Richard Cromwell, and president of the council of state, appears to have been much attached to Hyde, and proud of his friendship. To no other cause can we attribute his having inserted in a grave history of public events, matters so merely private and so irrelevant as the following:-" I received from my friend Mr. Edward Hide, "a letter from London, directed to me at Fawley Court, wherein he "drolls and says, 'Our best news is, that we have good wine abundantly 66 6 come over; and the worst, that the plague is in town, and no judges "die. He also inserts two letters in no respects valuable except as evidence of familiar friendship. The shortest may serve as a specimen. "To my most honoured Friend Bulstrode Whitelocke, Esq., at his "House at Fawley Court.

"MY DEAR,

"I am glad you prosper so happily in issue male. God send the good "woman well again; which my wife prays for as an encouragement for "her journey, which she shall be shortly ready for. You may depend on a doe on Monday, God willing, although this weather forbids you "to look for a fat one. My pen is deep in a Starchamber bill, and "therefore I have only the leisure and the manners to tell you I am “very proud that you are a friend to

"Your most affectionate servant,
"Edward Hide."

reflection upon the character of such women as took any part in scenic representations. Six weeks afterwards, the Queen acted at court in a pastoral; and thus placed herself within the range of Prynne's censures. By a gross perversion of the plainest principles of sense and justice, Prynne's previous remarks were charged with disloyalty, in consequence of this subsequent act; and ostensibly for this offence, Archbishop Laud, whom Prynne had irritated by other of his writings, caused him to be prosecuted in the Starchamber. It was decreed by this Court, that Prynne's book should be burnt by the common hangman; and that the author should be expelled from Lincoln's Inn, deprived of his degree at the University, be set on the pillory at Westminster and Cheapside, that his ears should be cut off, that he should be fined 5000l., and be imprisoned for life. That such severities should have failed to excite indignation and pity, in those who, afterwards, stood forward the advocates of liberty, may at this day seem strange; stranger still, that men like Hyde, Whitelocke, and Selden, should have made common cause with the persecuting party, and have testified practically their approbation of these atrocities. But it was even so; and some explanation may be found. They saw in Prynne a morose supporter of the bigotry of the Puritans-an illiberal assailant of intellectual pleasures -a defamer of the stage which Ben Jonson was still adorning, and on which Shakspeare had lately shed such glory a foe to amusement, and one who had recently published

CHAP.

I.

I.

CHAP. expressions coarsely offensive to a woman and a Queen. These circumstances will diminish our wonder that, in a society of young men, hatred of austerity, combined with chivalrous feelings of gallantry and loyalty, should have been sufficient to counteract whatever faint abstract attachment to liberality and justice the institutions of that age had permitted them to entertain.

The lawyers of four of the principal Inns of Feb. 1634. Court determined to perform a masque, as an

expression of their love and duty to their Majesties;" and "because this action would manifest "the difference of their opinion from Mr. Prynne's "new learning, and serve to confute his Histrio"mastix against interludes." This practical confutation (as it was strangely termed) was conducted by eight members of the four principal Inns of Court; and among these eight select managers were Hyde, Whitelocke, Selden, the Attorney-General Noy †, Sir Edward Herbert ‡, and Sir John Finch. § To

*Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 19.

+ William Noy, Attorney-General to Charles I. Died Aug. 9. 1634. He disgraced his great legal acquirements by rendering them subservient to the designs of the court, "thinking," said Lord Clarendon, "that he could not give a clearer testimony that his knowledge of law was greater than all other men's, than by making that law, which all "other men believed not to be so. So he moulded, framed, and pur“sued the odious and crying project of soap; and with his own hand "drew and prepared the writ for ship-money."

Sir Edward Herbert became Solicitor-General and afterwards Attorney-General to Charles I., accompanied Charles II. in exile, and was for a time the keeper of the great seal.

§ Sir John Finch, created Lord Finch Jan. 23. 1640, and made Lord Keeper. Lord Clarendon says, "He took up ship-money where "Mr. Noy left it; and being a judge, carried it up to that pinnacle from "whence be almost broke his own neck." He was impeached by the long parliament, fled to Holland, and died in exile. Lord Clarendon adds, that, when Lord Keeper, he declared, " upon a demurrer put in "to a bill before him, which had no other equity in it than an order of

I.

Hyde and to Whitelocke was allotted the task of CHAP. conferring with the Lord Chamberlain and the Comptroller of the Household, and taking order about the scenery and preparations in the Banqueting House.

The masque is minutely described by Whitelocke, who seems to dwell, with pride and pleasure, on the part he bore in this pageant. It is related by him, how sixteen " grand masquers were to lead the revels, being "four gentlemen of "each Inn of Court most suitable for their persons, "dancing, and garb for that business;" how each party of four was to be drawn in a chariot with six horses; how difficult it was to settle the precedence of the chariots, which respectively represented the dignity of each Inn of Court, till that thorny point was decided by lot; how impossible to decide where each individual, of the parties of four, was to sit in his chariot, till the committee conceived the happy thought of having them made, like the Roman triumphal chariots, "of an oval form, so that there was "no precedence in them!" Next are celebrated the glories of the procession, which went forth from Ely-house in Holborn, down Chancery Lane, to Whitehall. First was the Marshal and his men; after him one hundred gentlemen of the Inns of Court, mounted on horseback, "in very rich clothes, scarce anything but gold and silver lace to be seen "of them," with a page and two lacqueys to each.

66

"the lords to the council, that whilst he was keeper, no man should "be so saucy as to dispute these orders, but that the wisdom of that "Board should be always ground enough for him to make a decree in Chancery.'" Clar. Hist. Reb. i. 131.

1634.