The highest honours of the State were now within Temple’s reach.  After the retirement of Clifford, the white staff had been delivered to Thomas Osborne, soon after created Earl of Danby, who was related to Lady Temple, and had, many years earlier, travelled and played tennis with Sir William.  Danby was an interested and dishonest man, but by no means destitute of abilities or of judgment.  He was, indeed, a far better adviser than any in whom Charles had hitherto reposed confidence.  Clarendon was a man of another generation, and did not in the least understand the society which he had to govern.  The members of the Cabal were ministers of a foreign power, and enemies of the Established Church; and had in consequence raised against themselves and their master an irresistible storm of national and religious hatred.  Danby wished to strengthen and extend the prerogative; but he had the sense to see that this could be done only by a complete change of system.  He knew the English people and the House of Commons; and he knew that the course which Charles had recently taken, if obstinately pursued, might well end before the windows of the Banqueting-House.  He saw that the true policy of the Crown was to ally itself, not with the feeble, the hated, the downtrodden Catholics, but with the powerful, the wealthy, the popular, the dominant Church of England; to trust for aid not to a foreign Prince whose name was hateful to the British nation, and whose succours could be obtained only on terms of vassalage, but to the old Cavalier party, to the landed gentry, the clergy, and the universities.  By rallying round the throne the whole strength of the Royalists and High Churchmen, and by using without stint all the resources of corruption, he flattered himself that he could manage the Parliament.  That he failed is to be attributed less to himself than to his master.  Of the disgraceful dealings which were still kept up with the French Court, Danby deserved little or none of the blame, though he suffered the whole punishment.

Danby, with great parliamentary talents, had paid little attention to European politics, and wished for the help of some person on whom he could rely in the foreign department.  A plan was accordingly arranged for making Temple Secretary of State.  Arlington was the only member of the Cabal who still held office in England.  The temper of the House of Commons made it necessary to remove him, or rather to require him to sell out; for at that time the great offices of State were bought and sold as commissions in the army now are.  Temple was informed that he should have the Seals if he would pay Arlington six thousand pounds.  The transaction had nothing in it discreditable, according to the notions of that age, and the investment would have been a good one; for we imagine that at that time the gains which a Secretary of State might make, without doing any thing considered as improper, were very considerable.  Temple’s friends offered to lend him the money; but lie was fully determined not to take a post of so much responsibility in times so agitated, and under a Prince on whom so little reliance could be placed, and accepted the embassy to the Hague, leaving Arlington to find another purchaser.