Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury PC (22 July 1621 – 21 January 1683), known as Anthony Ashley Cooper from 1621 to 1631, as Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 2nd Baronet from 1631 to 1661, and as The Lord Ashley from 1661 to 1672, was a prominent English politician during the Interregnum and during the reign of King Charles II. A founder of the Whig party, he is probably best known as the patron of John Locke.
Anthony Ashley Cooper was born in 1621 and had lost both of his parents by age 8. He was raised by guardians named in his father's will, before attending Exeter College, Oxford and Lincoln's Inn. After he married the daughter of Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry in 1639, Coventry's patronage secured Cooper a seat in the Short Parliament, though Cooper lost a disputed election to a seat in the Long Parliament. During the English Civil War, Cooper initially fought as a Royalist, before departing for the Parliamentary side in 1644. During the English Interregnum, he served on the English Council of State under Oliver Cromwell, although he opposed Cromwell's attempt to rule without parliament during the Rule of the Major-Generals. He also opposed the religious extremism of the Fifth Monarchists during Barebone's Parliament.
As a member of the Council of State, Cooper opposed the New Model Army's attempts to rule the country following the downfall of Richard Cromwell, and he encouraged Sir George Monck's march on London. Cooper served as a member of the Convention Parliament of 1660, which determined to restore the English monarchy, and Cooper was one of 12 MPs who traveled to the Dutch Republic to invite Charles II to return to England. Shortly before his coronation, Charles II created Cooper Lord Ashley, so he moved from the House of Commons to the House of Lords when the Cavalier Parliament assembled in 1661. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1661-1672. During the ministry of Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, Shaftesbury opposed the imposition of the Clarendon Code and supported Charles II's Declaration of Indulgence (1662), which the king was ultimately forced to withdraw. After the fall of Clarendon, Ashley was one of the members of the so-called Cabal Ministry, serving as Lord Chancellor 1672-1673. He was created Earl of Shaftesbury in 1672. During this period, John Locke entered Ashley's household. Ashley took an interest in colonial ventures, and was one of the Lords Proprietor of the Province of Carolina; in 1669, Ashley and Locke collaborated in writing the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. By 1673, Ashley was worried that the heir to the throne, James, Duke of York, was secretly a Roman Catholic.
After the Cabal Ministry ended, Shaftesbury became a leader of opposition to the policies pursued by Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby. Danby favored strict interpretation of the penal laws, enforcing mandatory membership in the Church of England. Shaftesbury, who sympathized with the Protestant Non-Conformists, briefly agreed to work with the Duke of York, who opposed enforcing the penal laws against Catholic recusants. By 1675, however, Shaftesbury was convinced that Danby, assisted by the bishops of the Church of England, was determined to transform England into an absolute monarchy, and he soon came to see the Duke of York's Catholicism as linked to this issue. Opposed to the growth of "popery and arbitrary government", throughout the latter half of the 1670s, Shaftesbury argued in favor of frequent parliaments (spending time in the Tower of London, 1677-1678 for espousing this view) and argued that the nation needed protection from a potential Catholic successor to Charles II. During the Exclusion Crisis, Shaftesbury was an outspoken supporter of the Exclusion Bill, although he also endorsed other proposals that would have prevented the duke of York from becoming king, such as Charles II's remarrying a Protestant princess and producing a Protestant heir to the throne, or legitimizing Charles II's illegitimate Protestant son, James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth. The Whig party was born during the Exclusion Crisis, and Shaftesbury was one of the party's most prominent leaders.
During the Tory Reaction that followed the failure of the Exclusion Bill, Shaftesbury was arrested for high treason in 1681, although the prosecution was dropped several months later. In 1682, after Tories gained the ability to pack London juries with their supporters, Shaftesbury, fearing a second prosecution, fled the country. Upon arriving in Amsterdam, he fell ill, and soon died, in January 1683.
In May 1668, Ashley became ill, apparently with a hydatid cyst.[1] His secretary, John Locke, recommended an operation that almost certainly saved Ashley's life.[1] Ashley was grateful to Locke for the rest of his life.[1] As part of the operation, a tube was inserted to drain fluid from the abscess, and after the operation, the physician left the tube in the body, and installed a copper tap to allow for possible future drainage.[1] In later years, this would be the occasion for his Tory enemies to dub him "Tapski", with the Polish ending because Tories accused him of wanting to make England an elective monarchy like the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[1]
In 1669, Ashley supported Arlington and Buckingham's proposal for a political union of England with the Kingdom of Scotland, although this proposal floundered when the Scottish insisted on equal representation with the English in parliament.[1] Ashley likely did not support the Conventicles Act of 1670, but he did not sign the formal protest against the passage of the act either.[1]
Ashley, in his role as one of the eight Lords Proprietor of the Province of Carolina, along with his secretary, John Locke, drafted the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which were adopted by the eight Lords Proprietor in March 1669.[1]
By this point, it had become obvious that the queen, Catherine of Braganza, was barren and would never produce an heir, making the king's brother, James, Duke of York heir to the throne, which worried Ashley because he suspected that James was a Roman Catholic.[1] Ashley, Buckingham, and Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle urged Charles to declare his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, legitimate.[1] When it became clear that Charles would not do so, they urged Charles to divorce Catherine and remarry.[1] This was the background to the famous Roos debate case: John Manners, Lord Roos had obtained a separation from bed and board from his wife in 1663, after he discovered she was committing adultery, and he had also been granted a divorce by an ecclesiastical court and had Lady Roos' children declared illegitimate. In March 1670, Lord Roos asked Parliament to allow him to remarry. The debate on the Roos divorce bill became politically charged because it impacted whether Parliament could legally allow Charles to remarry.[1] During the debate, Ashley spoke out strongly in favor of the Ross divorce bill, arguing that marriage was a civil contract, not a sacrament.[1] Parliament ultimately gave Lord Roos permission to remarry, but Charles II never attempted to divorce his wife.
Ashley did not know about the Secret Treaty of Dover, arranged by Charles II's sister Henrietta Anne Stuart and signed May 22, 1670, whereby Charles II concluded an alliance with Louis XIV of France against the Dutch Republic. Under the terms of the Secret Treaty of Dover, Charles would receive an annual subsidy from France (to enable him to govern without calling a parliament) in exchange for a promise that he would convert to Catholicism and re-Catholicize England at an unspecified future date.[1] Of the members of the Cabal, only Arlington and Clifford were aware of the Catholic Clauses contained in the Secret Treaty of Dover.[1] For the benefit of Ashley, Buckingham, and Lauderdale, Charles II arranged a mock treaty (traité simulé) concluding an alliance with France. Although he was suspicious of France, Ashley was also wary of Dutch commercial competition, and he therefore signed the mock Treaty of Dover on December 21, 1670.[1]
Throughout 1671, Ashley argued in favor of reducing the duty on sugar imports, arguing that the duty would have an adverse effect on colonial sugar planters.[1]
In September 1671, Ashley and Clifford oversaw a massive reform of England's customs system, whereby customs farmers were replaced with royal commissioners responsible for collecting customs.[1] This change was ultimately to the benefit of the crown, but it caused a short-term loss of revenues that led to the Great Stop of the Exchequer.[1] Ashley was widely blamed for the Great Stop of the Exchequer, although Clifford was the chief advocate of stopping the exchequer and Ashley in fact opposed the move.[1]
In early 1672, with the Third Anglo–Dutch War looming, many in the government feared that Protestant dissenters in England would form a fifth column and support their Dutch co-religionists against England.[1] In an attempt to conciliate the nonconformists, on March 15, 1672, Charles II issued his Royal Declaration of Indulgence, suspending the penal laws that punished non-attendance at Church of England services. Ashley strongly supported this Declaration.[1]
According to the terms of the Treaty of Dover, England declared war on the Dutch Republic on April 7, 1672, thus launching the Third Anglo-Dutch War.[1] To accompany the commencement of the war, Charles issued a new round of honours, as part of which Ashley was named Earl of Shaftesbury and Baron Cooper of Paulet on April 23, 1672.[1]
In autumn 1672, Shaftesbury played a key role in setting up the Bahamas Adventurers' Company.[1]
[edit] Lord Chancellor, 1672-1673
On November 17, 1672, the king named Shaftesbury Lord Chancellor of England[1], with Sir John Duncombe replacing Shaftesbury as Chancellor of the Exchequer. As Lord Chancellor, he addressed the opening of a new session of the Cavalier Parliament on February 4, 1673, calling on parliament to vote funds sufficient to carry out the war, arguing that the Dutch were the enemy of monarchy and England's only major trade rival, and therefore had to be destroyed (at one point he exclaimed "Delenda est Carthago"); defending the Great Stop of the Exchequer; and arguing in support of the Royal Declaration of Indulgence.[1]
Shaftesbury was not, however, well received by the House of Commons. One of Shaftesbury's old Dorset rivals, Colonel Giles Strangways, led an attack on writs of election that Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury had issued to fill 36 vacant seats in the House of Commons; Strangways argued that Shaftesbury was attempting to pack the Commons with his supporters and that only the Speaker of the House could issue writs to fill the vacant seats.[1] The House of Commons agreed with Strangways and declared the elections void and the seats vacant.[1] Furthermore, the Commons attacked the Declaration of Indulgence and demanded its withdrawal.[1] Charles ultimately withdrew the address and canceled the Declaration of Indulgence.[1]
The Commons then proceeded to pass an address condemning the growth of popery in England.[1] To shore up the Protestantism of the nation, Parliament passed the Test Act of 1673, which became law on March 20, 1673.[1] The Test Act required all holders of civil and military office in England to take communion in the Church of England at least once a year and to make a declaration renouncing the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.[1] Shaftesbury supported the Test Act, and, alongside James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, received the sacrament at St Clement Danes, with John Locke serving as the legal witness for each man's conformity with the Test Act.[1] In March 1673, Shaftesbury supported a bill for easing the plight of the Protestant dissenters in England, but nothing came of this bill.[1]
Following the failure of the Declaration of Indulgence and the passage of the Test Act, it was obvious to all that the Cabal Ministry's days were numbered.[1] Shaftesbury moved closer to the parliamentary opposition during this period, and became a supporter of ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War.[1]
The Duke of York failed to take the Anglican sacrament at Easter 1673, further heightening Shaftesbury's concern that he was secretly a Catholic.[1] Shaftesbury was initially mollified by the fact that both of the Duke of York's daughters, Mary and Anne, were committed Protestants.[1] However, in autumn 1673, the Duke of York married the Catholic Mary of Modena by proxy, thus raising the specter that James might have a son who would succeed to the throne ahead of Mary and Anne and thus give rise to a never-ending succession of Catholic monarchs.[1] York urged the king to prorogue parliament before it could vote on a motion condemning his marriage to Mary of Modena, but Shaftesbury used procedural techniques in the House of Lords to ensure that parliament continued sitting long enough to allow the House of Commons to pass a motion condemning the match.[1] Shaftesbury, Arlington, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, and Henry Coventry all urged Charles II to divorce Catherine of Braganza and re-marry a Protestant princess.[1] York began denouncing Shaftesbury to Charles II, and Charles II decided to remove Shaftesbury from his post as Lord Chancellor.[1] On November 9, 1673, Henry Coventry traveled to Exeter House to inform Shaftesbury that he was relieved of his post as Lord Chancellor, but also issuing him a royal pardon for all crimes committed before November 5, 1673.[1]
[edit] Opposition to Catholicism and break with Charles II, 1673-1674
Following Shaftesbury's fall from royal favour, Arlington attempted to effect a reconciliation, in November 1673 convincing the French ambassador to offer Shaftesbury a bribe in exchange for supporting the French party at court.[1] Shaftesbury refused this offer, saying he could never support "an interest that was so apparently destructive to [England's] religion and trade."[1] Instead, he allied himself with the Spanish party at court, and urged peace with the Netherlands.[1] He also continued to urge the king to divorce and re-marry.[1]
In the session of the Cavalier Parliament that began on January 7, 1674, Shaftesbury led the charge to keep England free from popery.[1] He coordinated his efforts with a group of other peers who were displeased with the possibility of a Catholic succession; this group met at the home of Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles, and included Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle, Thomas Belasyse, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, James Cecil, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and George Savile, 1st Viscount Halifax.[1] On January 8, 1674, Shaftesbury gave a speech in the House of Lords warning that the 16,000 Catholics living in London were on the verge of rebellion, which caused the Lords to pass an address expelling all Catholics from within 10 miles of London.[1] On January 12, he introduced a measure that would require every peer, including the Duke of York, to take the Oath of Allegiance renouncing the pope and recognizing the royal supremacy in the church (the oath was first required by the Popish Recusants Act of 1605).[1] On January 24, the Earl of Salisbury introduced a bill requiring that any children of the duke of York should be raised Protestants.[1] His proposed legislation further provided that neither the king nor any prince of the blood could marry a Catholic without parliamentary consent, on pain of being excluded from the royal succession.[1] Shaftesbury spoke forcefully in favour of Salisbury's proposal; he was opposed by the bishops and Lord Finch.[1] By February, the opposition lords were considering accusing the duke of York of high treason, which resulted in the king proroguing parliament on February 24 in order to protect his brother.[1]
Shaftesbury's actions in the 1674 session further angered Charles II, so on May 19, 1674, Shaftesbury was expelled from the privy council, and subsequently sacked as Lord Lieutenant of Dorset and ordered to leave London.[1]
[edit] Leader of Opposition to Danby, 1674-1678
Charles II now turned to Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby. Danby proceeded to freeze out peers who had collaborated during the Cromwellian regime and promoted former royalists.[1] Danby was a champion of the Church of England who favored strict interpretation of the penal laws against both Catholics and Protestant Non-Conformists.[1]
On February 3, 1675, Shaftesbury wrote a letter to Carlisle in which he argued that the king needed to dissolve the Cavalier Parliament, which had been elected in early 1661, and call fresh elections.[1] He argued that frequent parliamentary elections were in the best interest of both the crown and the people of England.[1] This letter circulated widely in manuscript form.[1]
The Duke of York was opposed to Danby's strict enforcement of the penal laws against Catholics, and by April 1675, he had reached out to Shaftesbury to effectuate a truce between them whereby they would be united in opposition to Danby's brand of Anglican royalism.[1] In late April 1675, Danby introduced a Test Oath by which all holding office or seats in either House of Parliament were to declare resistance to the royal power a crime, and promise to abstain from all attempts to alter the government of either church or state.[1] Shaftesbury led the parliamentary opposition to Danby's Test Bill, arguing that, under certain circumstances, it was lawful to resist the king's ministers, and that, as in the case of the Protestant Reformation, it was sometimes necessary to alter the church so as to restore it.[1]
In spite of Shaftesbury's eloquence, his view remained the minority view in the parliament, forcing the king to prorogue parliament on June 9, 1675 in order to avoid the passage of the bill.[1] The Duke of York, grateful for Shaftesbury's assistance in the debate against Danby's bill, now attempted to effectuate a reconciliation of Shaftesbury with the king, and Shaftesbury was admitted to kiss the king's hand on June 13, 1675.[1] This, however, angered Danby, who intervened with the king, and on June 24, the king again ordered Shaftesbury to leave court.[1]
In 1675, following the death of Sir Giles Strangways, MP for Dorset, Shaftesbury initially endorsed Lord Digby, son of George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol for the seat, but, upon learning that Digby was a strong supporter of the court, he decided to back Thomas Moore, who was the chief supporter of conventicles in the county.[1] This led to Shaftesbury making an enemy of both Digby and Bristol, who accused him of supporting sedition and faction and wanting a return of the English Commonwealth.[1]
In summer 1675, Shaftesbury wrote a 15,000-word pamphlet entitled A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country denouncing Danby's Test Bill.[1] (Shaftesbury's secretary, John Locke, appears to have played a role in drafting the Letter, although whether solely as amanuensis or in a more active role, perhaps even as ghostwriter, remains unclear.)[1] The Letter argued that since the time of the Restoration, "the High Episcopal Man, and the Old Cavalier" (now led by Danby) had conspired to make "the Government absolute and arbitrary."[1] According to the Letter, this party was attempting to establish divine right monarchy and divine right episcopacy, meaning that neither the king nor the bishops could be constrained by the rule of law.[1] Danby's Test Oath proposal was merely the latest, most nefarious attempt to introduce divine right monarchy and episcopacy on the country. The Letter went on to describe the debates of the House of Lords during the last session, setting forth the arguments that Shaftesbury and other lords used in opposition to Danby and the bishops. This letter was published anonymously in November 1675, and quickly became a bestseller, in no small part because it was one of the first books ever to inform the public about the debates that occurred within the House of Lords.[1]
Shaftesbury repeated the accusations of the Letter from a Person of Quality on the floor of the House of Lords during the parliamentary session of October-November 1675.[1] During the debate on the case of Shirley v. Fagg, a jurisdictional dispute about whether the House of Lords could hear appeals from lower courts when the case involved members of the House of Commons, Shaftesbury gave a celebrated speech on October 20, 1675.[1] He argued that Danby and the bishops were attempting to neuter the power of the House of Lords.[1] Shaftesbury argued that every king could only rule either through the nobility or through a standing army; thus, this attempt to restrict the power of the nobility was part of a plot to rule the country through a standing army.[1] He argued that the bishops believed that the king was king by divine right, not by law and that, if the bishops' propositions were taken to their logical conclusion, "our Magna Charta is of no force, our Laws are but Rules amongst our selves during the Kings pleasure" and "All the Properties and Liberties of the People, are to give away, not onely to the interest, but the will and pleasure of the Crown."[1]
On November 20, 1675, Shaftesbury seconded a motion by Charles Mohun, 3rd Baron Mohun of Okehampton calling on the king to end the dispute of Shirley v. Fagg by dissolving parliament.[1] This motion, which was supported by the Duke of York and the Catholic peers, was defeated by a vote of 50-48, prompting Shaftesbury and 21 other peers to enter a protest on the grounds that "according to the ancient Lawes and Statutes of this Realm ... there should be frequent and new Parliaments" and that the House of Commons was being unnecessarily obstructionist.[1] Parliament was prorogued on November 22, 1675, with the prorogation saying that parliament would not sit again until February 15, 1677.[1] Shortly thereafter, there appeared a pamphlet entitled Two Seasonable Discourses Concerning the Present Parliament, that argued that the king should call a new parliament because a new parliament would vote the king money, preserve the Church of England, introduce religious toleration for the Non-Conformists, and deliver Catholics from the penal laws in an exchange for Catholics being deprived of access to court, holding office, and the right to bear arms.[1]
In mid-February 1676, Charles sent his Secretary of State for the Southern Department, Sir Joseph Williamson to tell Shaftesbury to leave town.[1] Shaftesbury refused and continued to receive visits at Exeter House from opposition MPs and other discontented elements.[1] Danby argued that Charles should order Shaftesbury arrested and sent to the Tower of London, but Sir Joseph Williamson refused to sign the warrant.[1] In this period, Shaftesbury relocated from Exeter House to the less expensive Thanet House.[1]
On June 24, 1676, during the election of the Sheriffs of the City of London at the Guildhall, linen draper Francis Jenks gave a sensational speech arguing that two statutes from the reign of Edward III required that parliament sit every year, and that by proroguing the Cavalier Parliament until February 15, 1677 (meaning no session would be held in 1676 at all), the king had inadvertently dissolved parliament and that the Cavalier Parliament was now legally dissolved.[1] Although Buckingham, not Shaftesbury, was behind Jenks' speech, many suspected Shaftesbury's involvement; after Jenks' speech, Shaftesbury decided to take full advantage of the argument, arranging with his allies for a number of pamphlets arguing the case.[1] One of these pamphlets, Some considerations upon the question, whether the parliament is dissolved, by its prorogation for 15 months? argued that parliament had the authority to restrict the royal prerogative and could even "bind, limit, restrain and govern the Descent and Inheritance of the Crown it self."[1] The Duke of York was furious at the inclusion of this argument; Buckingham told York that Shaftesbury had drafted the controversial passage, but Shaftesbury claimed that the passage was inserted in the pamphlet without his knowledge.[1]
When parliament finally met on February 15, 1677, Buckingham, backed by Shaftesbury, Salisbury, and Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, introduced a motion declaring that, because of the 15-month prorogation, on the basis of the statutes from the reign of Edward III, no parliament was legally in existence.[1] Parliament not only rejected this argument, but also resolved that the four peers had committed Contempt of Parliament and should apologize.[1] When the four refused, they were committed to the Tower of London.[1] Shaftesbury petitioned for his release, and in June 1677, brought a writ of habeas corpus before the Court of King's Bench.[1] The court, however, determined that it lacked jurisdiction because Parliament, a superior court, was currently in session.[1] Charles ordered Buckingham, Salisbury, and Wharton released from the Tower shortly thereafter, but Shaftesbury continued to refuse to apologize.[1] Shaftesbury had grown increasingly suspicious of Charles II.[1] Charles had begun raising an army, ostensibly for war with France, but Shaftesbury worried that Charles was really preparing to abolish parliament and rule the country with a standing army on the model of Louis XIV of France.[1] It was not until February 25, 1678 that Shaftesbury finally apologized to the king and to parliament for his support of the motion in the House of Lords and for bringing a writ of habeas corpus against Parliament.[1]
With war with France looming, in March 1678, Shaftesbury, Buckingham, Holles, and Halifax spoke out in favor of immediately declaring war on France.[1] Charles delayed declaring war, however, leading Shaftesbury to support a resolution of the House of Commons providing for immediately disbanding the army that Charles was raising.[1] Charles prorogued parliament on June 25, but the army was not disbanded, which worried Shaftesbury.[1]
In August and September 1678, Titus Oates made accusations that there was a Popish Plot to assassinate the king, overthrow the government, and massacre English Protestants.[1] It was later revealed that Oates had simply made up most of the details of the plot, and that there was no elaborate Popish Plot. However, when Parliament re-convened on October 21, 1678, Oates had not yet been discredited and the Popish Plot was the major topic of concern. Shaftesbury was a member of all the important committees of the House of Lords designed to combat the Popish Plot.[1] On November 2, 1678, he introduced a motion demanding that the Duke of York be removed from the king's presence, although this motion was never voted on.[1] He supported the Test Act of 1678, which required that all peers and members of the House of Commons should make a declaration against transubstantiation, invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass, effectively excluding all Catholics from Parliament.[1] Oates had accused the queen, Mary of Modena, of involvement in the Popish Plot, leading the House of Commons to pass a resolution calling for the queen and her retinue to be removed from court; when the House of Lords rejected this resolution, Shaftesbury entered a formal protest.[1] Shaftesbury was now gaining a great reputation amongst the common people as a Protestant hero.[1] On November 9, 1678, Charles promised that he would sign any bill that would make them safe during the reign of his successor, so long as they did not impeach the right of his successor; this speech was widely misreported as Charles' having agreed to name the Duke of Monmouth as his successor, leading to celebratory bonfires throughout London, with crowds drinking the health of "the King, the Duke of Monmouth, and Earl of Shaftesbury, as the only three pillars of all safety."[1] The citizens of London, fearing a Catholic plot on Shaftesbury's life, paid for a special guard to protect him.[1]
In December 1678, discussion turned to impeaching the Earl of Danby, and, in order to protect his minister, Charles II prorogued parliament on December 30, 1678.[1] On January 24, 1679, Charles II finally dissolved the Cavalier Parliament, which had sat for 18 years.[1]
[edit] The Exclusion Crisis and the birth of the Whig Party, 1679-1683
[edit] The Habeas Corpus Parliament, 1679In February 1679, elections were held for a new parliament, known to history as the Habeas Corpus Parliament.[1] In preparation for this parliament, Shaftesbury drew up a list of members of the House of Commons in which he estimated that 32% of the members were friends of the court, 61% favored the opposition, and 7% could go either way.[1] He also drafted a pamphlet that was never published, entitled "The Present State of the Kingdom": in this pamphlet, Shaftesbury expressed concern about the power of France, the Popish Plot, and the bad influence exerted on the king by Danby, the royal mistress Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth (a Catholic), and the Duke of York, who, according to Shaftesbury was now attempting "to introduce a military and arbitrary government in his brother's time."[1]
The new parliament met on March 6, 1679, and on March 25, Shaftesbury delivered a dramatic address in the House of Lords in which he warned of the threat of popery and arbitrary government; denounced the royal administration in Scotland under John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale and Ireland under James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde; and loudly denounced the policies of Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby in England.[1] Shaftesbury supported the House of Commons when they introduced a Bill of Attainder against Danby, and voted in favor of the bill in the House of Lords on April 14, 1679.[1] Shaftesbury attempted to neutralize the influence of the episcopal bench in favor of Danby by introducing a bill moving that the bishops should not be able to sit in the House of Lords during capital trials.[1]
[edit] Lord President of the Council, 1679Charles II thought that Shaftesbury was mainly angry because he had been out of royal favor for long, and hoped that he could rein Shaftesbury in by naming him Lord President of the Council on April 21, 1679, with a salary of ₤4,000 a year.[1] Soon, however, Shaftesbury made it clear that he could not be bought off. During meetings of the now reconstituted privy council, Shaftesbury repeatedly argued that the Duke of York must be excluded from the line of succession.[1] He also continued to argue that Charles should re-marry a Protestant princess, or legitimize James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth.[1] During these meetings, Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex and George Savile, 1st Earl of Halifax argued that the powers of a Catholic successor could be limited, but Shaftesbury argued that that would change "the whole government, and set up a democracy instead of a monarchy."[1]
On May 11, 1679, Shaftesbury's close political ally, William Russell, Lord Russell, introduced an Exclusion Bill in the House of Commons, which would have excluded the Duke of York from the succession.[1] This bill passed first and second reading on May 21, 1679.[1] In order to stop the Exclusion Bill and the Bill of Attainder directed at Danby, Charles II prorogued the parliament on May 27, 1679 and dissolved it on July 3, 1679, both of which moves infuriated Shaftesbury.[1] As its name implies, the only achievement of the Habeas Corpus Parliament was the passage of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679.[1]
For the time being, Shaftesbury retained his position on the privy council, and he and the duke of Monmouth formed an alliance on the council designed to be obstructionist.[1] There were some disagreements between Shaftesbury and Monmouth: for example, Shaftesbury was critical of Monmouth's decision to quickly crush a rebellion by Scottish Covenanters at the Battle of Bothwell Brig in June 1679, arguing that the rebellion should have been drawn out to force Charles II to recall parliament.[1]
On August 21, 1679, the king fell ill, leading Essex and Halifax (who feared Monmouth was about to launch a coup) to ask the duke of York, who Charles had sent to Brussels in late 1678, to return to England.[1] Charles soon recovered and then ordered both York and Monmouth into exile.[1] When Charles agreed to allow his brother to move from Flanders to Scotland in October 1679, Shaftesbury summoned an extraordinary meeting of the privy council to discuss the duke's move, acting on his own authority as Lord President of the Council because the king was at Newmarket at the time.[1] Angered by this insubordination, Charles removed Shaftesbury from the privy council on October 14, 1679.[1]
[edit] The Exclusion Bill Parliament, 1679-1680
Elections for a new parliament, which would ultimately come to be known as the Exclusion Bill Parliament, were held in summer 1679, but they went badly for the court, so, with parliament scheduled to meet in October 1679, Charles prorogued the parliament until January 26, 1680.[1] Shaftesbury worried that the king might be intending to simply not meet this new parliament, so he launched a massive petitioning campaign to pressure the king to meet parliament.[1] He wrote to the duke of Monmouth, telling him that he should return from exile, and on November 27, 1679 Monmouth rode back into London amidst scenes of widespread celebration.[1] On December 7, 1679, a petition signed by Shaftesbury and fifteen other Whig peers calling on Charles to meet parliament, followed up with a 20,000-name petition on January 13, 1680.[1] However, instead of meeting parliament, Charles further prorogued parliament and recalled his brother from Scotland. Shaftesbury now urged his friends on the privy council to resign and four did so.[1]
On March 24, 1680, Shaftesbury told the privy council of information he had received that the Irish Catholics were about to launch a rebellion, backed by the French.[1] Several privy councillors, especially Henry Coventry, thought that Shaftesbury was making the entire story up in order to inflame public opinion, but an investigation was launched.[1] This investigation ultimately resulted in the execution of Oliver Plunkett, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, on trumped-up charges.[1]
On June 26, 1680, Shaftesbury led a group of fifteen peers and commoners who presented an indictment to the Middlesex grand jury in Westminster Hall, charging the Duke of York with being a popish recusant in violation of the penal laws.[1] Before the grand jury could act, they were dismissed for interfering in matters of state.[1] The next week, Shaftesbury again tried to indict the Duke of York, but again the grand jury was dismissed before it could take any action.[1]
The parliament finally met on October 21, 1680, and on October 23, Shaftesbury called for a committee to be set up to investigate the Popish Plot.[1] When the Exclusion Bill again came before the House of Lords, Shaftesbury gave an impassioned pro-Exclusion speech on November 15.[1] The Lords, however, rejected the Exclusion Bill by a vote of 63-30.[1] The Lords now explored alternative ways of limiting the powers of a Catholic successor, but Shaftesbury argued that the only viable alternative to exclusion was calling on the king to remarry.[1] On December 23, 1680, Shaftesbury gave another fiery pro-Exclusion speech in the Lords, in the course of which he attacked the Duke of York, expressed mistrust of Charles II, and urged the parliament to not approve any taxes until "the King shall satisfie the People, that what we give is not to make us Slaves and Papists."[1] With parliament pursuing the Irish investigation vigorously, and threatening to impeach some of Charles II's judges, Charles prorogued parliament on January 10, 1681, and then dissolved it on January 18, calling for fresh elections for a new parliament, to meet at Oxford on March 21, 1681.[1] On January 25, 1681, Shaftesbury, Essex, and Salisbury presented the king a petition signed by sixteen peers asking that parliament should be held at Westminster Hall rather than Oxford, but the king remained committed to Oxford.[1]
[edit] The Oxford Parliament, 1681In February 1681, Shaftesbury and his supporters brought another indictment against York, this time at the Old Bailey, with the grand jury this time finding the bill true, although York's counsel were able to pursue procedural delays until the prosecution lapsed.[1]
At the Oxford Parliament, Charles insisted he would listen to any reasonable expedient short of changing the line of succession that would assuage the nation's concerns about a Catholic successor.[1] On March 24, 1681, Shaftesbury announced in the House of Lords that he had received an anonymous letter suggesting that the king's condition could be met if he were to declare the Duke of Monmouth legitimate.[1] Charles was furious. On March 26, 1681, an Exclusion Bill was introduced in the Oxford Parliament and Charles dissolved parliament.[1] The only issue the Oxford Parliament had resolved had been the case of Edward Fitzharris, who was to be left to the common law, although Shaftesbury and 19 other peers signed a formal protest of this result.[1]
[edit] Prosecution for high treason, 1681-1682The end of the Oxford Parliament marked the beginning of the so-called Tory Reaction.[1] On July 2, 1681, Shaftesbury was arrested on suspicion of high treason and committed to the Tower of London. He immediately petitioned the Old Bailey on a writ of habeas corpus, but the Old Bailey said it did not have jurisdiction over prisoners in the Tower of London, so Shaftesbury had to wait for the next session of the Court of King's Bench.[1] Shaftesbury moved for a writ of habeas corpus on October 24, 1681, and his case finally came before a grand jury on November 24, 1681.[1]
The government's case against Shaftesbury was particularly weak - most of the witnesses brought forth against Shaftesbury were witnesses who the government admitted had already perjured themselves, and the documentary evidence was inconclusive.[1] This, combined with the fact that the jury was handpicked by the Whig Sheriff of London, meant the government had little chance of securing a conviction and on February 13, 1682, the case against Shaftesbury was dropped.[1] The announcement prompted great celebrations in London, with crowds yelling "No Popish Successor, No York, A Monmouth" and "God bless the Earl of Shaftesbury".[1]
[edit] Attempts at an uprising, 1682In May 1682, Charles II fell ill, and Shaftesbury convened a group including the Monmouth, Russell, Ford Grey, 3rd Baron Grey of Werke, and Sir Thomas Armstrong to determine what to do if the king died.[1] They determined they would launch a rebellion demanding a parliament to settle the succession.[1] The king recovered, however, and this was not necessary.[1]
At the election of the Sheriffs of London in July 1682, the Tory candidates prevailed.[1] Shaftesbury was worried that these Sheriffs would be able to fill juries with Tory supporters and he was desperately afraid of another prosecution for high treason.[1] Shaftesbury, therefore began discussions with Monmouth, Russell, and Grey to launch co-ordinated rebellions in different parts of the country.[1] Shaftesbury was much more eager for a rebellion than the other three, and the uprising was postponed several times, to Shaftesbury's chagrin.[1]
Following the installation of the new Tory sheriffs on September 28, 1682, Shaftesbury grew desperate.[1] He continued to urge an immediate uprising, and also opened discussions with John Wildman about the possibility of assassinating the king and the duke of York.[1]
[edit] Flight from England and death, 1682-1683With his plots having proved unsuccessful, Shaftesbury determined to flee the country.[1] He landed at Brielle sometime between November 20 and November 26, 1672, reached Rotterdam on November 28, and finally, arrived in Amsterdam on December 2, 1682.[1]
Shaftesbury's health had deteriorated markedly during this voyage. In Amsterdam, he fell ill, and by the end of December he found it difficult to keep down any food.[1] He drew up a will on January 17, 1683.[1] On January 20, in a conversation with Robert Ferguson, who had accompanied him to Amsterdam, he professed himself an Arian.[1] He died the next day, on January 21, 1683.[1]
According to the provisions of his will, Shaftesbury's body was shipped back to Dorset on February 13, 1683, and he was buried at Wimborne St Giles on February 26, 1683.[1] Shaftesbury's son, Lord Ashley, succeeded him as Earl of Shaftesbury.
[edit] Legacy
Back in North America, both the Ashley River and the Cooper River in South Carolina were eventually named in his honor.
Annotations
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Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, later the first Earl of Shaftsbury, was a highly prominent politician (later he would found the Whig party). In American history he is probably best known as one of the Lords Proprietors of the Carolina colonies. (Some Charlestonians like to say they live where
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Cooper in February 1660
“Despite the fact that he had been pursued ardently by the Royalists in tempting correspondence, Ashley Cooper had continued to reject their overtures. He appeared deaf to the personal appeals of the King. He had been elected to the Council of State by the Rump, although he was of the majority of the Council who refused to accept the additional clause renouncing Charles Stuart, proposed by Desborough. But it was not until February 1660 that he allowed himself to be drawn into correspondence with the exiled court, as we know from Hyde’s complaint on the subject.
“When on 24 February Lady Willoughby de Broke told [Charles’s adviser and later Earl of Clarendon, Edward] Hyde that Ashley Cooper was ‘his Majesty’s fast friend’, Hyde replied tartly that this was the first he had heard of it.”
— Antonia Fraser, “Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration,” 1979, pp 170-1
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Character assassination by Bishop Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715).
A man of popular eloquence, who could mix the facetious and the furious way of arguing very agreeably, and who had got the art of governing parties, and making himself the head of them, just as he pleased. His religion was that of a deist at the best; he had the dotage of astrology in him to a great degree, and fancied that our souls, after death, lived in the stars. His learning was superficial. He understood little to the bottom; but his vanity in setting himself out was ridiculous and disgusting. His reasoning was loose, his discourse rambling, and he had a better way of bantering or bearing down an argument than he had in supporting it. After all, his chief strength lay in knowing mankind, their understandings and tempers, and applying himself to them so dexterously that though, by his changing sides so often, it was visible he was not to be depended on, nay, though he himself was not ashamed to recount the many turns he had made, and to value himself upon them, yet he still could create a dependence, and make himself the centre of any discontented party.
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From Tomalin.
“Another boy that grew up to influence Sam’s life, Anthony Ashley Cooper, was also living off Fleet Street, in Three Cranes Court, from 1631 to 1635…He lived as an orphan with his guardian, Sir Daniel Norton, who was in London during the law terms, from 1631,when he was 10 until he was 14 years old.
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As Lord Ashley, he became a member of the famous Cabal. He held the office of Lord High Chancellor from 1672 until 1673.
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Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Ashley-Cooper,_1st_Earl_of_Shaftesbury
References in the diary