being of the same creed. But however that may have been, the treasury had never been so much enriched by fines from catholic recusants as during the administration of Weston. This patriotic statesman was created Earl of Portland in 1632, and died in 1634.

In Sir Thomas Coventry, the lord keeper, we find a much better man. He was the son of a lawyer, and a person of unusual parts and industry. Before his fortieth year, he had filled the office of recorder of London, and became solicitor and attorney-general. The great seal was committed to him in 1626, and was retained by him to the time of his death in 1642. Clarendon states that no man brought to this last office a greater fitness for its duties. At the council-table he was qualified beyond any other person to offer advice on matters connected with foreign policy, or with the civil and ecclesiastical constitution. But the manner in which affairs were conducted by his colleagues, was so little accordant with his views, that he despaired at length of doing any good by meddling with public questions; and could rarely be induced to speak on any subject not connected immediately with the administration of justice as pertaining to his office. He was a person of grave aspect and manners; but was distinguished by a simple, natural urbanity, which gave him the reputation of being an accomplished courtier. His speaking, which never rose to brilliancy of any kind, was always effective from the force of his views, and the confidence placed in the honesty of his intentions. But if without violent enemies, he had few powerful friends. Coventry never obtained much credit with the king, and we may judge of the materials of which the court of Charles I. was composed, from the fact, that the lord keeper could not look, according to Clarendon, to a single person in it as possessing the

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power and inclination" to prevent or divert any disadvantage" to which he might be exposed. His policy, accordingly, was to stand on the defensive, and his part, in that respect, was so well performed, that he maintained his position, notwithstanding the vigorous efforts made to dislodge him by such men as Weston, and by the Marquis of Hamilton, the kinsman of the sovereign. We must not suppose that he retained his place during a period when law was so often violated by the government, without becoming liable to censure in the esteem of truly patriotic men. But it is something to know, that his inconvenient objections in point of law, often proved a formidable impediment in the path of those arbitrary measures to which the king and his ministers were so much inclined. On such occasions, a collision generally occurred between the lord keeper and Manchester, lord privy seal.

The Earl of Manchester was a much older man than Sir Thomas Coventry, and of longer standing in the practice of his profession; but a person who had found it less difficult to gratify his love of business than his love of money. Buckingham, in consideration of a large bribe, not less than 20,000l., had raised this man to the office of lord treasurer; but, on some pretext, deprived him after awhile of his staff; and again, as a sort of recompence for the exemplary patience with which he had submitted to this treatment, conferred on him the titles of Viscount Manderville and Earl of Manchester, and raised him from the office of president of the council to that of lord privy seal. When appealed to, in opposition to Coventry, Manchester generally discovered sufficient willingness to place all the weight of his authority on the side of the court. Among the people he had the reputation of being a sound protestant, a circumstance which, together with the gravity and caution of his manners, pro

cured him some credit at a distance. But among those who knew him best, his venality deprived his opinions of the respect to which they would otherwise have been entitled. Manchester held the office of privy seal to his death, which happened on the eve of the civil war.

The Earl of Arundel took precedence in council of all who were not there as officers of state. This nobleman was a collector of all things deemed valuable by the virtuoso. He affected not only the costume and manners, but the high feudal notions of remote times, and his character, as given by Clarendon, embraces as great a number of bad points as could well meet in the same person. In the country, his unsocial temper made him at all times unpopular; and at court, his pride bowed to no superiority beneath the throne, and with difficulty acknowledged it even there. Hence his complaints sometimes extended to the conduct of the king himself; and he, in fact, seemed to live for the purpose of making himself enemies, to whom he gave no small advantage by deeming their hostility a matter too mean for his thoughts. Arundel was placed at the head of the army raised to suppress the rebellion in Scotland; but on the approach of the civil war, embarked for Italy, where he ended his days.

Next to Arundel stood the Earl of Pembroke, his opposite in nearly all respects. Pembroke was a nobleman of ample fortune, and generous temperament, and of good average ability. With the credit of good capacity, he possessed the higher reputation of being governed by unbiassed purposes; and in consequence often attracted to himself the confidence both of the court and country parties in the disputes which arose between them. Soon after Charles came to the throne, Pembroke had his disagreements with Buckingham, and would probably have done much more towards

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curbing the insufferable arrogance of the favourite, had not the dagger of Felton interposed. Pembroke did not survive Buckingham more than two years.

The Earl of Pembroke, of whom we find such frequent mention in the history of the civil war, was brother of the above nobleman. He had been a sort of favourite with James I. soon after his accession, who created him Earl of Montgomery. James on his death-bed commended him to the favour of Charles, as a person of tried fidelity; and he was appointed about that time to the office of lord chamberlain. During the late reign, he had never affected much of the statesman, aspiring to little more than to make himself an agreeable companion to the king, particularly in the sports of the field. On becoming Earl of Pembroke in 1630, he obtained a place in the council, and had more to do with public affairs, but not in such a shape as to attract observation, until the commencement of the troubles in Scotland. From that time, his sympathy with the popular party, which he was never at much pains to conceal, exposed him to disfavour at court, and led to his being deprived of his office as chamberlain after retaining it sixteen years. He was no doubt a man of more passion than judgment, and wanting in that dignity and decision of conduct which his station demanded. But he appears to have chosen the side of the parliament sincerely, and to have been willing to suffer in its cause, though he would probably have deplored the fate that should have obliged him to become conspicuous in any cause at the hazard of his high rank and large wealth. So long as there was a house of peers Pembroke continued to fill his place there.

With Arundel and Pembroke, as leading men in the council, mention should be made of the Earls of Dorset, Carlisle, and Holland. The Earl of Dorset was a noble

man eminently endowed both in mind and person, but destitute of the moral firmness necessary to protect him against the stream of corruption which had set in upon everything within the verge of the court during the last reign. His life, accordingly, was much more that of the man of pleasure than of the statesman, disgraced to the end by excess and consequent embarrassment, and exhibiting the wreck of capacities that might have been employed with effect in the service of his country.

The Earl of Carlisle was a native of Scotland, and a person always acceptable to the late king. His attainments as a scholar were considerable; his understanding unusually comprehensive; and his accomplishments as a courtier were supposed to be equal or superior to those of any man in England or elsewhere. His property, by his marriage, and by grants from the crown the latter amounting in all to not less than 400,000l. was sufficient to have placed him among the richest men in the kingdom. But his passion for expense in dress, equipage, and feasting, was such as had never been witnessed in England; and not only served to exhaust his resources, but to corrupt the times in which he lived. His principal official employment was in negotiating the marriage between Charles and Henrietta. His habits, to the time of his death, which was just before the outbreak of the civil war, were, from his deliberate choice, those of the man of pleasure, rather than the man of business. He was wont to argue, that the statesman must be a more immoral man than the voluptuary, and much less happy.

The Earl of Holland bore too near a resemblance to the Earl of Carlisle, with whom he always lived on terms of the strictest intimacy. He was younger brother to the Earl of Warwick, and senior brother to the Earl of New