him sometimes too far into raillery, in which he sometimes shewed more wit than discretion.  He went over to the court party when the war was like to break out, and was much in the late king’s councils and confidence during the war, though he was always of the party that pressed the king to treat, and so was not in good terms with the queen.  The late king recommended him to this king as the person on whose advices he wished him to rely most, and he was about the king all the while that he was beyond sea, except a little that he was ambassador in Spain; he managed all the king’s correspondences in England, both in the little designs that the cavaliers were sometimes engaged in, and chiefly in procuring money for the king’s subsistence, in which Dr. Sheldon was very active; he had nothing so much before his eyes as the king’s service and doated on him beyond expression:  he had been a sort of governor to him and had given him many lectures on the politics and was thought to assume and dictate too much ...  But to pursue Clarendon’s character:  he was a man that knew England well, and was lawyer good enough to be an able chancellor, and was certainly a very incorrupt man.  In all the king’s foreign negotiations he meddled too much, for I have been told that he had not a right notion of foreign matters, but he could not be gained to serve the interests of other princes.  Mr. Fouquet sent him over a present of 10,000 pounds after the king’s restoration and assured him he would renew that every year, but though both the king and the duke advised him to take it he very worthily refused it.  He took too much upon him and meddled in everything, which was his greatest error.  He fell under the hatred of most of the cavaliers upon two accounts.  The one was the act of indemnity which cut off all their hopes of repairing themselves of the estates of those that had been in the rebellion, but he said it was the offer of the indemnity that brought in the king and it was the observing of it that must keep him in, so he would never let that be touched, and many that had been deeply engaged in the late times having expiated it by their zeal of bringing home the king were promoted by his means, such as Manchester, Anglesey, Orrery, Ashley, Holles, and several others.  The other thing was that, there being an infinite number of pretenders to employments and rewards for their services and sufferings, so that the king could only satisfy some few of them, he upon that, to stand between the king and the displeasure which those disappointments had given, spoke slightly of many of them and took it upon him that their petitions were not granted; and some of them having procured several warrants from the secretaries for the same thing (the secretaries considering nothing but their fees), he who knew on whom the king intended that the grant should fall, took all upon him, so that those who were disappointed laid the blame chiefly if not wholly upon him.  He was apt to talk very imperiously and unmercifully, so that his manner of dealing with people was as provoking as the hard things themselves were; but upon the whole matter he was a true Englishman and a sincere protestant, and what has passed at court since his disgrace has sufficiently vindicated him from all ill designs’ (Supplement, ed.  Foxcroft, pp. 53-6).