DIGBY, George (1612-77)

Early life and politics

Bristol’s father was a younger son of a leading Warwickshire family who became a prominent politician and diplomat at the court of James I and was rewarded with an estate at Sherborne and an earldom. As a diplomat he was closely associated with Spain and his advocacy of the Spanish match brought him into conflict with George Villiers^†, duke of Buckingham. His family’s opposition credentials were further underlined in 1632 when the young Lord Digby married Lady Anne Russell, daughter of the influential Francis Russell^†, 4th earl of Bedford. Digby’s hostility to the king’s policies was evident both during the personal rule of Charles I and after his election to the Commons in 1640. At this stage in his career he was a committed Protestant and in 1638-9 he engaged in a vigorous theological defence of the Church of England with his Catholic cousin, Sir Kenelm Digby (son of Sir Everard Digby, the Gunpowder plotter) in a series of letters that were published in 1651. Letters between the Lord George Digby and Sir Kenelm Digby (1651). In 1640-1 Digby began to back away from his opposition stance. His defence of Thomas Wentworth^†, earl of Strafford, earned him the enmity of the Commons. The decision to summon him to the Lords on a writ in acceleration amounted to a public statement of the king’s confidence that Digby had now relinquished opposition to the court. Now one of the king’s closest supporters and urging him to even greater intransigence, Digby was suspected of promoting a royalist military coup and fled abroad rather than obey an order of the House of Lords, made on 12 Jan. 1642, to attend for questioning. Before he left Digby took steps to protect his estates by putting them into trust for his three sons. HMC Portland, i. 32. It proved to be a wise move. The Commons voted articles of impeachment against him on 25 Feb. 1642 and on 14 Mar. 1649 included him in the list of 12 individuals to be proscribed and to have their estates confiscated.

Digby succeeded to the earldom in 1653, but even after that date his contemporaries sometimes referred to him as Lord Digby or earl of Digby, thus creating occasional confusion between Bristol and another branch of the family who held the barony of Digby of Gleashill in the Irish peerage (but who were English and resident in England). Bristol was a prominent member of the court in exile and equally prominent in the factional rivalries that beset it. He was particularly blamed for the conflict between the king and James, duke of York. Life of James II, i. 283-93, 331; HMC 8th Rep. i. 218b. Given his earlier defence of the Church of England, Bristol’s conversion to Catholicism early in 1659 was a matter of astonishment and dismay that embarrassed the king and forced him to remove Bristol from the post of secretary of state. POAS, i, 1660-78, p. 206, n. 42; HMC Egmont, i. 602-3.

The Convention 1660

As the events of the Restoration unfolded, Bristol, involved in negotiations in Spain, found himself left behind by the pace of developments. Nevertheless, he not unnaturally expected to reap the rewards of loyalty including compensation for his losses in the king’s service, the restitution of his estates and payment of the arrears of his salary as secretary of state, which he estimated at £8,500. Digby mss, vol. ii. f. 205. Initially fearful that Monck would insist on some form of conditional restoration, Lady Bristol soon began to press the king for what she perceived as Bristol’s well-earned reward, apparently afraid that her husband’s absence would lead to him being overlooked. Bristol was far more confident of the king’s favour and feared only that his wife’s importunities might backfire to his discredit. Bodl. Carte 214, ff. 107, 235; Bodl. Clarendon 71 f. 336; CCSP, iv. 680. He counselled discretion, assuring her that,

I cannot fail to succeed in all that we reasonably propose to our selves for my person, fortune and family; so certain am I of his Majesty’s favourable kindness, unalterable, by any thing but by your letting him see, that we precipitating prefer the satisfying our own vanity and ambition, the consideration of drawing inconveniences upon by pressing to be near him, before he is master enough of his affairs to be able to admit it without ill consequence unto them. Bodl. Carte 30 f. 691.

He did not doubt that there might be obstacles to his advancement. These included his Catholicism but, more importantly, the rivalry of those who were jealous of his credit with the king and of his ‘parts and ambitions’. He suggested that an emphasis on a desire to live quietly at Sherborne rather than to pursue places at court would persuade even his enemies ‘to be forwardest as a matter of justice, to counsel his majesty to repair my losses liberally.’ He was also convinced that Edward Hyde, the future earl of Clarendon, and James Butler, duke of Ormond in the Irish peerage and subsequently also in the English peerage, would support his pretensions. Bodl. Carte 214, f. 235; Carte 30 ff. 691-2. His expectations were considerable. Whilst in exile, he had been granted the wardship of his wife’s nephew, Francis Greville^†, 3rd Baron Brooke of Beauchamps Court. This, ‘the only thing he relied upon to repair the losses of his family in his service, and to pay his debts, without being burdensome to the crown’, was valued at some £30,000. Bristol also had a claim to the arrears of a pension of £2,000 a year that had been granted to his father and which at the time of the Restoration amounted to £36,000. Over and above these amounts he alleged that he and his family had lost £16,000 as the price of their loyalty to the crown during the Civil Wars and Interregnum. Eg. 3352, ff. 49-50. The gap between these expectations and what he actually received would soon engender an implacable hostility to Edward Hyde.

Bristol returned to England in time to take his seat in the Lords on 16 June 1660. His ability and willingness to attend Parliament coupled with his access to the king and his Catholicism led the Abbé Montagu (the Catholic brother of Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester and high in the esteem of the queen mother) to tell Cardinal Mazarin that Bristol ‘could be useful to cultivate, even if he does not realize it’; Mazarin welcomed the abbé’s offer to influence and manage Bristol. TNA, PRO 31/3/107, pp. 128, 141. Bristol attended 72 per cent of the remaining sittings in the Lords that session, becoming an active and significant member of the House involved in discussion and debate on controversial and crucial post-restoration issues; over the course of the session he was named to 23 committees. On 19 June 1660 he was named to the committee for privileges and the subcommittee for the Journal as well as to the committee to examine the acts and ordinances of the Interregnum. On 4 July he was named to the committee to confirm the privileges of Parliament and the fundamental laws of the kingdom; he also obtained an order of the House for the restoration of goods that he had lost during the ‘late wars’. Bristol’s hard-line attitude to the king’s former enemies and inability to understand or accept the case for moderation was soon apparent. On 7, 11 and 14 July he reported from the committee for privileges on the executions of James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton [S], Henry Rich^†, earl of Holland, and James Stanley^†, 7th earl of Derby, as a result of which the House ordered those responsible to be secured.

On 20 July 1660 during the debate on the bill of indemnity he told the House of his rage, ‘That many of the wickedest and meanest of the people should remain, as it were, rewarded for their treasons, rich and triumphant in the spoils of the most eminent in virtue and loyalty, of all the nobility and gentry of the kingdom’. Although he himself would be ‘irreparably ruined’ in his fortune by the bill, the public interest nevertheless called for it to be passed quickly. He argued, successfully, that the murder of the late king had to be washed away by the ‘blood of the guilty’ and should be dealt with as a particular issue in a separate bill. George Digby, Earle of Bristoll his Speech in the House of Lords … upon the Bill of Indempnity, (1660); also published in Cobbett, Parl. Hist. iv. 84-87.

Contrary to his statements to Lady Bristol about sublimating his private interests to the wider public good, Bristol was determined to extract revenge and reparation from his own old enemies. He also put considerable effort into securing the rewards to which he believed himself entitled. He obtained a grant in reversion of the office of writer of the tallies (auditor of the receipt of the exchequer) for his younger son, Francis Digby. His countess petitioned for a lease of Theobald’s Park as compensation for giving up her jointure to raise the £30,000 demanded after the Civil Wars for the ‘redemption’ of her son John Digby, later 3rd earl of Bristol. CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 209, 289; HMC Lindsey supp. 181. On 2 Aug. 1660 Bristol introduced a bill to recover £6,500 given ‘by the late pretended Parliament’ to Carew Ralegh (Raleigh)^‡; it received its third reading on 22 Aug. but failed to pass the Commons. Bristol also, on 11 Aug, obtained an order of the House putting him into possession of all lands formerly belonging either to himself or his father and which had been confiscated and sold for delinquency.

The question of reparations and how far they could or should be pursued was a sensitive one. On 6 Aug. in the course of debates on private provisos in the act of indemnity, Bristol’s support of the merits and sufferings of William Cavendish, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle over and above those of George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, caused an open quarrel in the House and fears of a duel, forcing the king to order the two men to confine themselves to their lodgings. HMC 4th Rep. 155, 177. They appear to have been reconciled by the end of the month.

On 10 Sept. Bristol reported from the committee for the potentially controversial bill to restore Sir George Lane (Ormond’s secretary) to possession of Rathclyne, Lisduff and other lands in Ireland. The following day he was named to the committee to amend the contentious bill for restoring ministers, apparently as part of an alliance with York and Clarendon that aimed to conciliate the Presbyterians and offer the hope that a more general toleration would follow. Rawdon pprs. 137. He was also named to the committees for the annexation of Dunkirk, Mardyke and Jamaica to the crown and, after reporting from the committee for the bill for disbanding the army, was named to assist Hyde in managing the consequent conference on the subject.

The Abbé Montagu’s hopes for securing Bristol’s support for France seemed to have been borne out, for by late September at the latest Bristol was in regular communication with the French court, telling Mazarin that his desire to serve him was second only to his desire to serve the king. TNA, PRO 31/3/107, p. 185. Bristol was active in court life, entertaining the king of Spain’s representative, Claude Lamoral, Prince de Ligne, accompanying Charles II on state occasions and welcoming the royal household to his London house. He is known to have been present at at least one gathering of Catholic nobility and gentry, in November 1660; this may have been the meeting called to discuss a general toleration described by William Howard, Viscount Stafford, in his ‘confession’ of December 1680, although on this occasion the presence of Ormond suggests that Irish interests rather than purely Catholic ones may have provided the focus of the meeting. HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 529; Staffs RO, D641/3/P/4/13/4; HMC Kenyon, 122-3; TNA, PRO 31/3/107, pp. 74-78, 135-9, 193, 108; Add. 61483, ff. 229-31. On 6 Dec. he sought further direction from the House for the benefit of the committee considering the bill to vacate Sir Edward Powell’s fines and reported the bill itself as fit to pass on 8 December. On 12 Dec. after a debate in a committee of the whole he was named to the subcommittee to consider provisos to the bill against the regicides.

Given that the most substantial part of Bristol’s claims related to his father’s unpaid pension and the wardship of Lord Brooke, he was naturally extremely concerned about the prospect of the formal abolition of the court of wards. The Commons passed a bill to this effect in December 1660 and backdated it to the last sitting of the court in February 1646. Bristol prepared a petition against the bill, asking that it be revised either to secure his claim to the wardship of Lord Brooke or to provide him with compensation, but when he told Clarendon of his intention he was persuaded to take no action on the grounds ‘that it might be of great ill consequence to his majesty’s service to set on foot, in the House of Commons, a claim to such a compensation, since it might be of example to divers others to do the like’. Bristol’s compliance was secured by a promise from Clarendon, given in the king’s name, that he would be provided for in other ways. Eg. 3352, ff. 49-50. Clarendon’s failure to keep his promise, aggravated by subsequent political and factional differences, led to a rapid deterioration in the relationship between the two men. The passage of the bill to abolish the court of wards was speedy – it was brought up from the Commons on 17 Dec. and received the royal assent on 24 Dec. – but Clarendon was probably correct in thinking that Bristol had raised a potentially controversial issue that could have delayed it. The House received a petition against it from the dowager duchess of Somerset as well as two provisos on 18 Dec. and a petition from the officers of the court the following day. The alterations made in the Lords became the subject of a conference with the Commons on 21 December.

The Cavalier Parliament, 1661-3

In January 1661, Bristol together with York joined Albemarle in the suppression of Venner’s uprising. He also emphatically restated his willingness to serve the interests of the French at the English court. TNA, PRO 31/3/109, pp. 21-22, 37-38. Despite his professions of poverty and ruin, he was able to buy a magnificent house in Wimbledon, which he described as the ‘noblest place in England’, from the queen mother for £4,000. He later sent her a diamond valued at £500 by way of thanks. Evelyn Diary, iii. 315-6. Early in February 1661 it was reported that Bristol was to make a visit to Flanders and Germany. The purpose of the visit was variously given out as personal business relating to his daughter’s marriage or to the ‘unhandsome disbanding of British regiments’ by the king of Spain, but it was widely suspected to relate to the choice of a bride for the king, particularly the need to provide convincing proof that serious consideration had been given to finding a suitable Protestant bride. According to the French ambassador there was yet another reason: Clarendon’s desire to get Bristol out of the way so that he would increase his own influence over the king. HMC Hastings, iv. 102; TNA, PRO 31/3/109 pp. 50, 54-55, 99, 102. Despite his earlier protestations of support for the French, Bristol, who had been born and brought up in Spain, advocated a Spanish match for the king. Clarendon and Ormond had also initially favoured this, but by the time Bristol returned to England (in or about early May) Clarendon had switched his support to securing an alliance with Portugal, a policy that Bristol vehemently opposed. Bodl. Clarendon 74, f. 355. Differences between Clarendon and Bristol were also a reflection of larger rivalries at court. Bristol enjoyed the friendship of the king’s powerful mistress, Lady Castlemaine, as well as of his mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, who were both ranged against Clarendon.

Bristol again took his seat in the House on 10 May 1661, two days after the opening of the new session. He was present on 75 per cent of sitting days and was named to numerous committees. Once again these included some of the most significant issues of the day: the reversal of the attainder of Thomas Wentworth^†, earl of Strafford, on 14 May, the security of the king’s person and government on 24 May, the regulation of corporations on 18 July and the restoration of ecclesiastical jurisdiction on 19 July. In July it was thought that he would support the attempt of Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, to secure the great chamberlaincy. He also had interests of his own to pursue. In a petition that seems to belong to March 1661 he requested a grant of letters patent for authority to make the rivers Salwerpe (Salwarpe) and Stower (Stour) in Worcestershire navigable and then to have a monopoly of trade on those rivers. Ibid. 76, f. 84. The ulterior motive was to improve the access to (and profitability of) the salt works at Droitwich. No grant was made; instead a bill to attain the same end and granting rights to Bristol and Thomas Windsor, 7th Baron Windsor, was introduced to the House on 11 May 1661 and, after a prolonged delay in the Commons, finally received the royal assent on 19 May 1662. The part played by Bristol and Windsor in securing the passage of the bill is unclear; neither were named to the committee to consider the bill on 15 May 1661, although both were probably present; Bristol’s name is given in the attendance list and Windsor may have been the individual incorrectly named in the list of barons as Winton. The projected profits never materialized and the provisions of the bill had still not been carried out some 30 years later. HMC Lords, iv. 389.

Differences with Clarendon were now becoming more obvious. In June 1661 the House debated Catholic demands for inclusion in the benefits of the Declaration of Breda, a modification of the oath of allegiance and the removal of the penal laws. Such demands faced considerable opposition especially as it was widely believed that Catholics did not consider themselves bound by oaths that conflicted with their obedience to the pope. As Bristol himself admitted during the course of the debates, ‘there is little hopes for us to obtain any ease from penalties till your lordships be satisfied what security we will give by oath of our duty and allegiance to his majesty.’ Harl. 1579, ff. 114-20. The debates did produce a committee to draft a bill to repeal the sanguinary laws against Catholics on 28 June to which Bristol was named. The resultant proposals would have reduced rather than abolish the various restrictions on Catholics but were never introduced. Just who was responsible for the failure to do so remains unclear. Clarendon blamed divisions amongst the Catholics. The Catholics, including Bristol, blamed Clarendon. In July Samuel Pepys^‡ noted that Bristol and Buckingham endeavoured to undermine Clarendon at court. In the same month the French ambassador told Louis XIV that Clarendon had openly declared that Bristol was his enemy and that Clarendon had opposed concessions to Catholics solely in pursuit of his feud with Bristol. Pepys Diary, ii. 142; TNA, PRO 31/3/109, pp. 99, 102. He later went on to suggest that Clarendon had been organizing opposition to Catholic demands by underhand methods.

The king’s known sympathy to some form of toleration for Catholics coupled with his open humiliation of the chancellor in August 1661 when he gave the post of keeper of the privy purse to Bristol’s ally Henry Bennet, the future earl of Arlington, encouraged Clarendon’s ‘enemies and enviers’ to believe that the time was right for an attack. Emboldened, Bristol and Bennet spoke openly to the king, only to find that he ‘took it very ill that they should conspire to decry the conduct of a man who served him well’. Bristol and Clarendon were summoned before the king who ‘told both of them to forget the past and in future to live in harmony together’. TNA, PRO 31/3/109, pp. 144-6. Perhaps it was this attempt at reconciliation that prompted a grant that month to Bristol of the Broyle and Ashdown Forest in Sussex, for which he had petitioned the crown nearly a year earlier in December 1660. Clarendon may have thought this went a long way towards fulfilling his promise but the grant proved to be a source of litigation and very little profit. It also soured relations with Richard Sackville, 5th earl of Dorset, who had previously received a grant of the same properties for his own and his son’s lives. CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 401; 1661-2, pp. 78, 559-60; Eg. 2543, ff. 119-20; Kent HLC (CKS), Sackville mss, U269/C96. Further evidence of some sort of reconciliation at court was provided in September when a Privy Seal passed for the payment of £6,000 to Bristol in consideration of his father’s pension on the court of wards; of this £2,000 was actually paid the following February. CTB, 1669-67, p. 370.

Bristol continued to be an important member of the Lords. On 7 Dec. 1661 he was deputed to be one of the managers of the conference concerning the swearing of witnesses to be examined in the Commons regarding Sir Edward Powell’s fines, on 14 Dec. of that concerning legislation to confirm private acts and on 4 Feb. 1662 on the bill for the execution of attainted persons. On 6 Feb. 1662 he protested against the bill to restore the estates of Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby.

One doubts that Bristol’s reconciliation with Clarendon was genuine; it was in any case short-lived. In March 1662 a furious row broke out between the two men during the debates over the bill of uniformity. On the first day of the debate, 18 Mar., Clarendon proposed a proviso which he claimed to be at Charles II’s instigation which granted the king a power of dispensation over the wearing of the surplice and making the sign of the cross. CSP Dom, 1661-2, pp. 324. Bristol declared that a proviso proposed by the king amounted to a breach of privilege, that it was improper and that he knew that the king opposed it. He drew some support from John Cosin, of Durham, who denied that the king had any power of dispensation in such matters. The next day Bristol spoke at length against it, then interrupted Clarendon’s response, claiming that Clarendon’s references to Cosin’s speech amounted to a transgression of the rules of the House as well as a denial of free speech. At the end of the debate, which lasted several hours, Bristol put in his own proviso – to enable the king to give liberty to all. Clarendon, appalled, pointed out that this would admit popery, insisted on a division and threatened to enter a protest. Bristol’s proviso was rejected. Clarendon’s was accepted, but perhaps ominously for Clarendon, on the following day (20 Mar.), Bristol was added to the committee for the bill. Chatsworth, Cork mss Misc. Box 1, Burlington Diary, 18 and 19 Mar. 1662; Add. 22919 f. 203; HMC Hastings, iv. 129-30. On 8 Apr. he was named to the committee to draw up a different kind of proviso, one that would enable the king to offer some form of compensation to those clergymen who would be deprived under the Act of Uniformity.

Bristol remained an active and powerful member of the House. On 25 Apr. 1662 he was named to the committee for the bill for loyal and indigent officers. On 10 May when the bill was returned by message from Commons with further amendments, the House decided that the proper method of proceeding would have been for the Commons to have requested a conference rather than simply return the bill. Bristol was named to a small committee to draw up an appropriate response. That day he was also named as one of the managers of the first conference on the militia bill (settling the forces). On 13 and 16 May he was named as a manager for the second and third conferences on the bill. Despite the setbacks over the Act of Uniformity he was still a significant political figure at a court beset by faction and in command, so it was said, of ‘a powerful cabal’. CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 371.

One of Bristol’s identifiable allies at this time was another member of the committee of 8 Apr. 1662, the moderate episcopalian John Gauden, of Exeter, who wrote in glowing terms of Bristol who ‘takes nothing upon trust, but brings all to the test of reason and religion, justice and honour.’ Over the next few months Gauden corresponded with Bristol, sought his ‘potent interception’ with the king on behalf of one of his clients and stayed at his house in Wimbledon. Yet he seems to have had no inkling of the news that would astonish the political world early in June: that Bristol had turned Protestant. In July he wrote again to Bristol asking for more information about his decision to change ecclesiastical communion. Bodl. Clarendon 77, ff. 50-52. Sir Henry Yelverton (who had always believed Bristol to be ‘too learned for a papist’) concluded that the conversion reflected a belief that rewards were more easily available to Protestants than to Catholics and, much as he deplored the possibility of Bristol’s advancement, he was glad to learn that ‘interest runs against popery’. HMC Gawdy, 196; Bodl. Eng. lett. c. 210, f. 73.

Late in July 1662 it was reported that the rift between Clarendon and Bristol had been repaired and ‘that the king is the master and the chancellor has all the credit’. TNA, PRO 31/3/110, pp. 207-8. It did not last. In August the ejection of nonconformist ministers on ‘Black Bartholomew’s day’ brought about an alliance between Bristol and Anthony Ashley Cooper, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), and John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor) in favour of toleration; then in October Sir Edward Nicholas was replaced as secretary of state by Bennet at the behest of Bristol and other members of the anti-Clarendon faction at court. Bodl. Carte 47, f. 371. The king was still trying to ensure a permanent reconciliation between his warring courtiers. In order to do so he promoted the possibility of a marriage between Bristol’s daughter, Anne, and Clarendon’s son, Henry Hyde, then styled Lord Cornbury, later 2nd earl of Clarendon. It is unlikely that the marriage alliance was taken very seriously for only a few months later arrangements were being made for the marriage of Anne Digby to Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland. TNA, PRO 31/3/110, p. 557; CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 8; Bodl. Carte 32, f. 625.

In December 1662, whilst Clarendon was incapacitated by illness, the king agreed to a declaration of indulgence. Although Bristol’s involvement was obvious, he was, according to the French ambassador, ‘very prudently’ holding himself at a distance from it. The declaration, published on 26 Dec. 1662, promised to seek an act of Parliament to enshrine the king’s claim to a dispensing power in matters of religion, but to Clarendon’s horror the draft bill that emerged for presentation to Parliament when it met again on 18 Feb. 1663 was altogether more radical. Its chances of success, like the possibility of a reconciliation of factions at court, were not improved by news that Bristol had returned to the Catholic church. TNA, PRO 31/3/110 pp. 487-90, 557. Bristol, however, seems to have been confident of his position and on 14 Feb. had renewed his request for payment of the arrears of his salary as secretary of state. CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 49. Bristol attended the 1663 session for 63 per cent of sitting days and was named to 13 committees. The early weeks of the session were dominated by controversies over the declaration and opposition to the bill that it had spawned. By mid-March the bill was dead but factional discord at court continued. ‘They are so bent on destroying themselves that the sky might fall without them noticing’, wrote the French ambassador in April 1663, ‘the king could not occupy himself with anything of greater importance than reconciling them … [but] to achieve this would require more resolve, firmness, involvement and even authority than he has’. TNA, PRO 31/3/111 p. 114-16. He was not the only observer to believe that Bristol would win out in the end. Pepys Diary, iv. 115, 137. Bristol, Ashley and Robartes, together with the two secretaries of state, often (or so it was said) transacted business in which Clarendon played ‘only a small part’, whilst in the Commons Bristol’s allies including Sir Richard Temple^‡ led an oblique attack on Clarendon by seeking an enquiry into the sale of public offices. TNA, PRO 31/3/111 pp. 90-91; Seaward, Cavalier Parlt. 223.

That Bristol remained in favour was demonstrated in May by the king’s decision to order payment of £10,000 for his arrears as secretary of state. CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 136. Bristol and his allies, wrote Samuel Pepys, ‘have cast my lord chancellor upon his back, past ever getting up again; there now being little for him to do, and waits at court attending to speak to the king as others do’. Pepys Diary, iv. 137. Yet more attempts to promote a reconciliation with Clarendon followed but Bristol now began to overplay his hand. On 12 June 1663 Bristol’s Commons ally Sir Richard Temple opposed the court on a vital supply motion. Clarendon’s ally Henry Coventry^‡ then created a furore in the Commons when he delivered a message from the king denouncing Temple as an ‘undertaker’ who had offered, via a ‘person of quality’, to manage the Commons in order to secure supply. Bennet deserted to the chancellor and Bristol was left dangerously exposed, his situation made all the worse by a temporary deterioration in the king’s relationship with Lady Castlemaine resulting from his infatuation with Frances Stuart and her alleged affair with Henry Jermyn, Baron Jermyn.

By 15 June 1663 the king had formed an inner group of advisers from which Bristol and his allies were pointedly excluded. The king even took steps to avoid meeting Bristol socially. Bristol made matters worse by threatening to ruin the king’s business unless Ashley and Robartes were made part of the new group of advisors. On 20 June the Commons formally demanded the name of the person of quality who had acted as go-between. On 21 June Bristol was forbidden the court; he also found himself barred from Lady Castlemaine’s. TNA, PRO 31/3/112 pp. 22, 26, 29-32, 55; HMC Portland, iii. 274. Such was his disgrace that Sunderland broke off his engagement to Bristol’s daughter on the eve of their wedding. Bodl. Carte 32, f. 625; TNA, PRO 31/3/112 pp. 69-70. On 22 June, judging by the heavily altered surviving draft, Bristol expended considerable effort on composing a letter to the king agreeing that his name be revealed and declaring that he was ready to vindicate his actions to the Commons. Digby mss, vol. ii. Bristol to the king (draft), 22 June 1663. According to Gilbert Burnet, later bishop of Salisbury, the king desperately tried to dissuade Bristol from addressing the Commons. Burnet’s suggestion that this was because Bristol ‘knew the secret of the king’s religion’ needs to be treated with some caution since although Burnet was in London between February and June 1663, it is unlikely that he was moving in circles that would have given him access to that sort of information. Burnet, i, 329. In the meantime, either convinced that he could retrieve his situation or desperate to do so, Bristol continued his search for information with which to discredit Clarendon. Bodl. Clarendon 79, f. 287. His speech to the Commons on 1 July was a magnificent performance, in which he stressed his own loyalty and service to the crown contrasting it with pointed references, easily interpreted as allusions to Clarendon, to those who negotiated for cardinals’ caps and who amassed and sold offices for their own profit. Bristol won over Members of the Commons who, impressed by Bristol’s eloquence, cleared Temple from all charges. CJ, viii. 515. Members of the Lords, however, were upset at his decision to address the Commons without the leave of the House, although they were forced to accept that there was a precedent for his conduct. TNA, PRO 31/3/112, pp. 69-70. The king, to whom Bristol repeated his speech, was furious. Ruvigny, Louis XIV’s envoy, told his master that Charles II considered it,

the most seditious speech there could be in an assembly, that he now thought that everything he had been told about his ambition, that being Catholic and being unable to enter offices because of his religion, he had resolved to turn everything upside down so as to find a place in the disorder and confusion. The earl of Bristol’s reply was bold; his master told him quite mildly that he would be a poor king if he could not manage an earl of Bristol. God preserve your majesty from such subjects and so little power.

Ruvigny went on to report that Bristol had asked the king for permission to accuse Clarendon in Parliament and that although the king had specifically forbidden this, Bristol was ‘in the depth of despair’ and intent on revenging himself on king and chancellor. Ibid. 78-79. Comminges, the French ambassador, concluded that,

The earl, full of vanity and feeling triumphant at the victory that he imagined he had carried off in the lower chamber, and thinking that he had a fair wind, he could undertake anything, and that the fall of the chancellor hung only on his pressing his point, misinterpreted the king’s kindness and flattered himself at the mildness of his behaviour. Ibid. 97-100.

On 10 July 1663 in the House of Lords, Bristol accused Clarendon of high treason. The charges included taking money from the Dutch to make peace and from the Portuguese to secure the marriage of Catherine of Braganza to Charles II, selling offices and tricking York into marrying his daughter, Anne Hyde. The House ordered that a copy of Bristol’s accusations be delivered to Clarendon and the king and that the judges be asked to report ‘whether the said charge hath been brought in regularly and legally? and whether it may be proceeded in? and how? and whether there be any treason in it, or no?’

On 13 July 1663 the judges gave their opinion, declaring that it was not regular or legal for one peer to bring charges of treason against another in the House of Lords and that, even if Clarendon were guilty of all the charges brought by Bristol, they did not amount to high treason. The king’s attitude was made abundantly clear in his message of thanks to the House in which he could not but ‘take notice of the many scandalous reflections in that paper upon himself and his relations’ and which he considered as a ‘libel against his person and government’. On 14 July the House voted unanimously to concur with the judges.

Bristol’s accusations bewildered many of his contemporaries. Many of the Lords concluded that the affair had no other foundation than the ‘spleen of an enraged and disappointed enemy’. Timberland, i. 55-59, 69. Samuel Pepys was not the only one to be puzzled that the accusations against Clarendon included helping Catholics. Pepys Diary, iv. 224. Ormond sarcastically remarked that, ‘My lord of Bristol’s care of the protestant religion, and against the pope’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England is very admirable and deserves commendation if it be the motive of his zeal against my lord chancellor.’ HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 62. The potential for exacerbating strife at court worried Roger Pepys^‡ who wrote ‘What this will come to God only knows. The one hath great friends the other a great and high spirit.’ The public airing that the affair gave to the weaknesses at the centre of government appalled even French observers who noted that Bristol’s accusations had ‘caused a great commotion here, and will do so no less abroad, where they will be astonished that a minister of state can be accused of things which the king declares to be for the most part false’. TNA, PRO 31/3/112, p. 104.

With the recess imminent the court wanted the matter over and done with, but Clarendon, ‘full of confidence’ and perhaps feeling obliged to make a show of magnanimity, advised the House to give Bristol until the first week of the next session to produce witnesses to substantiate his lesser charges, particularly Ormond and John Maitland, duke of Lauderdale [S]. Ibid. 104, 106-109. He even told Bristol ‘that notwithstanding he had been more injured than ever any man was by a private subject, yet he would be ready to do him all the service in the world.’ NLW, Wynn of Gwydir, 2378. Whether he actually meant these public protestations to be taken seriously is a matter for conjecture; he later indicated the opposite. TNA, PRO 31/3/112 pp. 112-13. That the king wanted Bristol arrested was, however, widely known and questions about whether this could or could not be achieved without a breach of parliamentary privilege were already being asked. Conscious of the danger in which he stood, Bristol refused to request the protection of the House in the interval between sessions, ‘as being to doubt his majesty’s justice, and to no purpose, for that if they denied him he was undone, but if granted it would give no more security than their order to proceed, which is an implicit protection, and his restraint will do the other person more injury than it can do him’. With the assistance of Buckingham and Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, he was, nevertheless, lobbying behind the scenes in an attempt to secure a resolution ‘that no member ought to be questioned elsewhere, for what passes within those walls’. HMC Hastings, ii. 142; Bodl. Carte 36, f. 69; Carte 33, f. 34. He also made a determined effort to secure wider support, presumably aiming at influencing opinion in the Commons. From 9 July,

and some days after, he quitted his ordinary way of going to the Lords house, and came through the great hall and exchequer chamber with his hat in his hand saluting with a sad and humble countenance all the crowd that followed, wishing him all success, he showed himself several days upon the exchange and told many considerable merchants his story, which is but too well received and credited. Bodl. Carte 33, f. 34.

For the rest of the session Bristol continued to parade himself in public, ‘playing on the bowling green every day’. He was also paying attention to his own personal affairs. Comminges, the French ambassador, wrote that,

the very day that he caused all this uproar he married his elder son, a man of less than mediocre talent, to an advocate’s daughter, a great friend of the late Cromwell, who is giving him ten thousand jacobus in cash, ten thousand at the birth of the first child and ten thousand after his death, which is a fine marriage, especially only having one son who might die. TNA, PRO 31/3/112 pp. 106-109, 116.

The session ended on 27 July 1663. Attempts were then made to arrest Bristol ‘for attempts of a high nature by him committed against our person and government and to the end he might be brought to answer, and to a legal trial’. Proclamation, 25 Aug. 1663. No specific crime was imputed, but according to Secretary Morrice Bristol’s offence was to have told the king in July 1663 that ‘if he suffered his enemies to have such an access to and credit with his majesty, he would raise such a storm as he should feel the effects thereof.’ HMC Finch, i. 302-3. Bristol vanished. A proclamation for his apprehension was issued on 25 Aug. and, balked of its prey, the Privy Council also ordered that Bristol be prosecuted in his absence for recusancy. Bodl. Clarendon 80, f. 155. According to the French ambassador, this was yet another sign of the government’s weakness that ‘will assuredly serve only to undermine royal power and blame the conduct of his ministers.’ TNA, PRO 31/3/112, p. 141. For his part Bristol had not given up attempts to find evidence against Clarendon; it was reported in September that he had sent an agent to Holland, looking for a financial connection between de Witt and Clarendon. TNA, SP 84/167, f. 290. He was also preparing his defence. His papers include an undated fragment in which he wrote:

In case an imaginary charge of treason should be brought in to the House against the earl of Bristol to keep him from coming to the Parliament as was done heretofore to his father. It is hoped the lords will do him the same justice they did to the lord chancellor that it may be put to the judges to know whether his charge amount to treason or no before their lordships proceed to remove him from his place in the house. If he be charged of any lesser crime it is hoped he shall according to the constant practice of the peers be heard speak for himself in his place, before there be any proceeding against him. Digby mss, vol. ii. f. 259.

At the Old Bailey in late August or early September 1663 Bristol and John Digby, son of Sir Kenelm Digby, were indicted for recusancy. CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 264. John Digby’s estate was sequestered, more as an affront to Bristol than as a punishment for Digby. Bristol’s own estates were safe, for Bristol had once more protected his property by transferring it to his son. He also reconverted to the Anglican church. Rumours of his conversion surfaced in November when he was said to be in London ‘and bottoms himself mostly on the Presbyterian interest being now turned Protestant again’. At first the accuracy of the story seemed doubtful for, as one observer remarked, no two versions agreed ‘in the circumstances of time, place, or accidents contributory to the publication of his conversion.’ TNA, PRO 31/3/112, p. 141; Bodl. Carte 222, ff. 36-37; HMC Finch, i. 298; Verney ms mic. M636/19, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 19 Nov. 1663; CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 353. The rumours were confirmed in January 1664 when Bristol presented himself at the parish church in Wimbledon. TNA, PRO 31/3/113, p. 24. The following month the minister and three of Bristol’s servants were arrested and imprisoned for failing to obey the king’s proclamation, as were the churchwardens and parish constable, but Bristol’s recusancy was discharged. HMC Heathcote, p. 144-6; Bodl. Tanner 47, ff. 68-69, 72-3; Bodl. Carte 222, ff. 54-55; Pepys Diary, v. 58-59.

Rumours that the king still had a fondness for Bristol and that the attack on Clarendon would be renewed continued to circulate. As the new session of Parliament approached there were reports that Bristol’s agent was preparing ‘very rich liveries coaches and other equipage’ so that his master could make a magnificent entrance. Bodl. Clarendon 81, f. 59. Bristol, apparently unrepentant, was making ‘great brags’ about what he would do in the new session leading Clarendon to insist that the session open on 16 Mar. as originally planned rather than be postponed as might have been more appropriate. Bodl. Carte 47, ff. 83-84; Clarendon 107, f. 92. The king attempted to dispel any belief that he still had a lingering regard for Bristol by declaring,

that if any of his privy council abet my Lord Bristol he will remove him from the council, if any of his servants he will dismiss them his service, if any other person he will forbid them his presence: and take such farther course against my lord and all that appear for him as the indignities offered to his person and government deserve. Bodl. Carte 46, f. 162.

The king’s fickle nature left at least some of his courtiers convinced that, for all his protestations, Bristol’s disgrace might not be a lasting one. In March 1664 even as the king fulminated against Bristol, Thomas Killigrew made him and the rest of the court laugh as he waved two sixpences and demanded to know what the king would give him ‘for this money, when you believe him again?’ Ibid. 44, f. 513.

Almost simultaneously Bristol wrote letters to several of the king’s ministers. In his letter to Secretary Morrice he explained that his actions in the previous session had been prompted ‘by an excess of zeal … beyond the bounds of that great reverence with which subjects ought to tender even their best and most affectionate advices to their sovereign’ and that having been forbidden the court he naturally withdrew to a ‘strict retirement’ which meant that he was entirely ignorant of the proclamation for his apprehension. Determined to appear immediately before the Privy Council, he had been prevented from doing so by illness and with the approach of the session was now in a quandary knowing,

not which way to govern my self betwixt the duty which I owe unto his majesty’s proclamation, obliging me to appear before the honourable board, and that regard which at the same time I owe to the high and important privilege of the house of peers; It is that wherein I humbly desire the direction of the honourable board; how a person so resigned as I am to duty and obedience in all kinds ought to behave himself . Bodl. Clarendon 81, ff. 141-2.

Morrice appears to have given his letter to Clarendon. A letter directed to Albemarle is also amongst Clarendon’s papers. Ibid. ff. 155. Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey, left his sick bed and took his straight to the king. HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 152. In a letter addressed to the king, Bristol requested a private audience to reveal a ‘great secret’ that had been kept from him by Clarendon; he threatened that the king would be ‘lost’ if the matter were revealed in Parliament and offered to surrender to Albemarle or Oxford. Bodl. Clarendon 81, f. 151-2. Comminges reported that behind the scenes first d’Aubigny and then Henry Jermyn, earl of St Albans, and Sir John Berkeley had attempted to act as mediators. The king and York were prepared to settle for a recantation in Parliament but Clarendon considered that this would reduce the king’s authority and strengthen that of Parliament. An offer from Bristol to apologize verbally or in writing to the king and volunteer to stay away from court until permitted to return was also refused by Clarendon. For his part Bristol volunteered to go into exile but only if he could have some sort of act of indemnity so that he could eventually return to England without fear of further proceedings. This, too, was refused by Clarendon who considered it ‘prejudicial to royal authority and shameful to his dignity.’ Bristol had not abandoned his attempts at intimidation for he maintained that he had evidence against Clarendon ‘but that he would never make use of it out of the respect he had for his majesty’. TNA, PRO 31/3/113 pp. 79-82.

With Bristol threatening to attend the new session, its opening was delayed as troops laid in wait to arrest him as he arrived at the House; when he did not, they went to search his house in Wimbledon but he escaped through a back door. Chatsworth, Cork mss Misc. Box 1, Burlington Diary, 16 Mar. 1664. Bristol wrote a further letter to his ally James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton. During the ensuing debate on 22 Mar. Northampton, with the backing of John Lucas, Baron Lucas of Shenfield, spoke of Bristol’s rights and privileges as a peer, but the House decided to deliver the letters unopened to the king. Bodl. Tanner 47, ff. 99-100; Arlington Letters, ii. 19. The following day Lady Bristol approached several peers in the lobby in an attempt to deliver a petition; all refused to accept it. Chatsworth, Cork mss Misc. Box 1, Burlington diary, 23 Mar. 1664. The king declared that ‘no age had produced so false and shameless a person’ and rumours began to circulate that Bristol would be impeached. Bodl. Carte 44, f. 513; Verney ms mic. M636/19, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 25 Mar. 1663. Bristol was now ‘flying on only one wing’; in a last desperate attempt to justify himself he circulated copies of his letters, but the failure of the House to defend his claim to privilege had handed victory to the king and Clarendon. TNA, PRO 31/3/113, pp. 111-12, 117-19.

Rehabilitation, 1664-70

Further searches were made for him but Bristol had fled and was, wrote Sir Thomas Brathwaite, ‘looked upon as a lost man’. HMC Le Fleming, 33. Payment of the £10,000 that had been ordered towards his arrears as secretary of state was suspended. His health broke down and in October 1664 he petitioned the king for readmission to his presence or for the right to return to his own house. Bodl. Clarendon 82, f. 197. Lady Bristol presented a further petition in November asking for her husband to be allowed to return home for health reasons. The queen mother supported the request and Bristol was allowed to return to Sherborne. TNA, PRO 31/3/113, p. 422. Slowly Killigrew’s prediction about Bristol’s rehabilitation proved to be correct. By January 1665 Lady Bristol was being ‘graciously received at court’. By February the king would once again allow Bristol’s name to be mentioned in his presence, although those who visited him still took care to let it be known that it was Lady Bristol who was the object of their attentions. Bristol stayed away from Parliament but his allies Lauderdale and Ashley were increasingly in favour. HMC Hastings ii. 148; TNA, PRO 31/3/114, p. 141. A further sign of Bristol’s restoration to favour came with Sunderland’s marriage to Anne Digby in June 1665. HMC 6th Rep. p. 364; Kenyon, Sunderland, 7. In August 1666 Pepys reported that ‘Bristol’s faction is getting ground apace against my lord chancellor.’ Pepys Diary, vii. 260-1. In January 1667 when the Commons’ decision to investigate three chancery decrees signalled that Clarendon’s position was once more under threat, there were some who believed that despite his absence from Parliament, Bristol’s hand was again at work. Bodl. Carte 35, f. 240. Military reverses over the summer of 1667 also strengthened Bristol’s position by discrediting the ministry in which Clarendon had played so important a part.

Bristol took his seat again on 29 June 1667 for the prorogation. He and Clarendon saluted each other but Bristol did not wear his robes and carefully absented himself from the chamber whilst the king was present. Bodl. Carte 215, f. 359; Pepys Diary, viii. 361-2; Add. 75355, Clifford to Burlington, 30 July 1667. Ominously for Clarendon, Bristol returned to the House on 16 Oct. 1667, a few days after the opening of the 1667-9 session. He was then present for just over 82 per cent of sitting days and was named to 16 committees. His return took place amidst reports that he was rising in the king’s favour. By mid-November 1667 Pepys wrote that Bristol and Buckingham provided ‘the only counsel the king follows’. Bodl. Carte 68, ff. 634-5; Pepys Diary, viii. 530. Bristol was also reported to have encouraged Lady Dacres to petition for a private bill which suggests that his intention to return to public life was well known. Eg. 2539, f. 135.

The business of the House for the remainder of 1667 was dominated by the attack on Clarendon. Bristol was named as one of the managers of the conferences with the Commons concerning Clarendon’s impeachment that were held on 15, 19, 25, 28 Nov. and 4, 6 and 14 Dec. 1667. He was not present for the conference on 21 November. On 22 Nov. he was appointed to the committee to draw up reasons for a conference about procedural issues relating to conferences but did not attend the House on 23 Nov. when the conference was actually held. His involvement in the attack on Clarendon was underlined by his signature to the protest of 20 Nov. against the resolution not to commit Clarendon without a specific charge. During a debate in the House on 27 Nov. about the conference to be held the following day, he repeated his belief that the House should reverse its vote and commit Clarendon, ‘but the generality of the House disliked that and it was ordered without a question that we should give them a free conference’. Chatsworth, Cork mss Misc. Box 1, Burlington diary, 27 Nov. 1667.

In February 1668 Edward Conway, Viscount (later earl of) Conway remarked of the uncertainties and chaos afflicting government policy that ‘Lord Bristol thinks himself in as good favour as ever, but Lord A[rlington], says he is not, and never will be employed. The king gives good words and good countenance to friends and foes alike, without any distinction’. Bristol was influential enough, though, to be credited with the reconciliation between the king and his namesake Charles Stuart, 3rd duke of Richmond. CSP Dom. 1667-8, pp. 258-9; Verney ms mic. M636/22, M. Elmes to Sir R. Verney, 27 Feb. 1668. In April Bristol was granted the superintendence of banks and monts de piété (a form of pawnbroker) in London, Westminster and other cities. CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 367. In Parliament that same month he was named as one of the managers of the conference on the impeachment of William Penn. On 8 May during the debate relating to the conference over the dispute arising from Skinner’s case Bristol was said to have spoken ‘excellently well, and in favour of the Commons’ which probably explains why his name was deleted from the list of managers in the manuscript minutes. Leics. RO, DG 7, Box 4956 P.P. 18 (i) pp. 33-36; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/15, 8 May 1668.

That Bristol was now in favour with the king is confirmed by a warrant for the payment of £1,000 issued to him in June 1668. The following month a further £200 was granted and there was a report that he was to go ambassador to Spain. CTB, 1667-8, pp. 359, 394; Add 36916, f. 107. Although he and Buckingham had taken opposite sides during Skinner’s case, Bristol was still reckoned to be one of Buckingham’s followers in January 1669. That same month his growing confidence in the king’s goodwill led him to draw up a petition to the crown for recompense in which he pointedly referred both to his own merits and to his frustrations at Clarendon’s hands. His claims were referred to a small committee consisting of Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Anglesey and the two secretaries of state. They reported in his favour recommending that his £10,000 grant should be renewed and that he should be given a pension of £2,000 ‘so that after his eminent services, he may be comfortable the remainder of his life.’ CSP Dom. 1668-9, p. 166, 382, 411. The king subsequently turned this into a grant of a pension of £2,000 plus a second pension to Lady Bristol of £1,000 with a reversion after her death to their younger son, Francis, until he in turn succeeded to his own reversion of a place as auditor of the receipt. CSP Dom. 1670, pp. 258, 504-5.

During the short 1669 session Bristol was present on just under 64 per cent of sitting days. Although still considered an ally of Buckingham, in November 1669 the two peers were again at odds over the bill spawned in the Commons as a result of Skinner’s case and designed to prevent the House of Lords from hearing original causes. Bristol and George Berkeley, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley were said to be the only peers who voted in its favour. Harris, Sandwich, ii. 307-9, 311-17.

Final years, 1670-3

Bristol’s attendance over the 1670-1 session plummeted to just under 27 per cent of sitting days. His absences were concentrated in the autumn of 1670 and winter of 1670-1. He may have stayed away because the task of toppling Clarendon had been achieved or because the business under consideration had little interest for him, but there may have been a more obvious explanation for in a letter dated 30 Oct. 1670 he referred to being unwell. CSP Dom. 1670, p. 504-5. His attendances were at their highest in the spring of 1670 when the question of a divorce for John Manners, then styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), was under consideration. Bristol opposed the bill, citing scriptural authorities to justify Catholic and Anglican traditions against divorce, the practical inconveniences of encouraging domestic strife if ‘a way should be opened to be unmarried again’ and the need to protect the rights of the Anglican church to determine matters ecclesiastical. Harris, ii. 318-33. On 17 and 28 Mar. 1670 he entered dissents to its passage.

Bristol’s financial needs were, in his own view at least, still acute. In June 1670 he was trying to borrow £200 to meet ‘a pressing present occasion’. Digby mss, ii. f. 298. His professed poverty did not prevent him from buying the governorship of Deal Castle for his son Francis. CSP Dom. 1670, pp. 421, 426, 448. However, practical procedural difficulties had hampered the payment of the pensions awarded the previous year and he approached Arlington for a Privy Seal to secure the arrears,

which amount to £2,250 by which means I should be able to redeem my plate and best furniture, now engaged, and satisfy some of my pressing creditors who, before the grant of these pensions, were apt rather to pity than to press, but have now grown insupportable, believing that the king has given me the means to satisfy them. Ibid. 504-5.

On 1 Dec. 1670 the House ruled on an appeal in the case of Lady Anne Fry v. George Porter. In the course of the debate Bristol argued in favour of the appellant and of a liberal interpretation of the House’s judicial powers, stating ‘that this case was an appeal from chancery equity to the superior equity of this house, which is not bound by rules and forms (as the chancery is)’, but the House did not follow his lead and the appeal was dismissed. Mapperton, Sandwich mss, Journal vol. x, pp. 314-16.

In May 1672 Bristol’s son, Francis Digby, was killed at the battle of Sole Bay. By his own account Bristol had long tried to secure an alteration to the grant of a reversion to the auditor of the receipt. Fearing that his son might die he had secured a promise from the king that the reversion be extended for another life, ‘it being the only foundation of credit remaining to the said earl after his great losses for his loyalty.’ Bristol believed that he deserved the fresh grant for ‘though he were destitute himself of all pretence of merit in his majesty’s service … it is a justice ever observed of course by generous princes towards the heirs of those who die conspicuously in their service.’ HMC Lindsey supp. 181. Bristol believed he had support from York for the new grant but in March 1673 the reversion was issued to Sir Robert Howard^‡ instead. TNA, C 66/3153.

Bristol was present on 69 per cent of sitting days during the first session of 1673, with most of his absences concentrated in February 1673. He was named to ten committees. In March during the debates on the Test Act he insisted that Catholics ought to speak ‘not as Roman Catholics but as faithful members of a protestant Parliament’. He praised ‘this incomparable House of Commons’ that had produced, ‘A bill, in my opinion, as full of moderation towards Catholic, as of prudence and security towards the religion of the state’. Whilst he intended to vote against it ‘yet as a member of the protestant Parliament, my advice prudentially cannot but go along with the main scope of it, the present circumstances of time, and affairs considered, and the necessity of composing the disturbed minds of the people’. Timberland, i, 119-21. His conciliatory attitude may in part have been influenced by the need to secure special treatment. The subcommittee to consider the bill was given a series of points to embody as amendments, one of which was to ensure that, if passed, it include a proviso to protect the payment of the pensions to Bristol and his countess. Bristol drafted the proviso himself and it duly became section 14 of the act. HMC 9th Rep. pt. ii. 29b. The pensions were crucial to Bristol’s finances; during the recess, in May 1673, he paid his draper by an assignment on the arrears. Sherborne Castle, FAM/C18. In June 1673 he received a free gift from the crown of £2,120. CSP Dom. 1673, p 358.

Parliament reassembled in October 1673 and met for just four days; Bristol attended for two of them. A reference in November 1673 to Bristol’s ‘ill legs’ suggests that his health may have been in decline but he was still an influential figure at court. HMC Finch, ii. 13. In December it was reported that he was visited every day by the principal courtiers and parliamentary figures. He encouraged the French to believe that Parliament would become more favourable to France but only if it were possible to remove suspicions of the existence of the secret treaty of Dover and Louis XIV’s obligation to offer Charles II military assistance ‘to establish the Catholic religion and arbitrary power’. TNA, PRO 31/3/130, pp. 5-7.

Bristol was present for 68 per cent of the sitting days during the 1674 session. In December 1673 the French ambassador had reported that Buckingham and Thomas Osborne, later earl of Danby, were confident of their ability to control Parliament and that they expected to have Bristol’s support, but when the session opened on 7 Jan. 1674 Bristol and Ormond indicated their opposition to Buckingham by speaking in favour of the petition presented by the trustees of the young Charles Talbot, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, complaining of Buckingham’s affair with Lady Shrewsbury. Later that month, despite still being reputed to be a Catholic himself, he spoke in support of Shaftesbury’s attack on Catholics and suggested removing them from a ten mile radius of London. Ibid. 16-17, 31-36.

Money, as ever, was a matter of major concern to Bristol. The stray survival of a letter in March 1675 suggests that the ability to expedite or delay payment of his pension provided Danby with a useful weapon with which to secure Bristol’s gratitude. When the new session opened on 13 April 1675 Bristol joined the opponents of Danby’s attempt to secure the non-resisting test, entering formal protests against it on 15, 21 and 26 April. Eg. 3351, f. 148; Timberland, i. 137-52. He was present for the initial stages of the dispute over the House’s jurisdiction in the case of Sherley v. Fagg and entered a protest on 6 May at the message that was to be sent to the Commons, arguing that ‘it may seem in some measure to acknowledge that the House of Commons have a claim to some privilege in judicature’. He attended the House on the following day but then absented himself.

Parliament adjourned on 9 June 1675; Bristol was present when it resumed on 13 Oct. at which time it was already clear that renewed clashes over Sherley v. Fagg were likely to disrupt business. On 10 Nov. Bristol was named as one of the managers of the conference on the address to the king for recalling soldiers. That same day when the House ordered an investigation of the publication of A letter to a Person of Quality with a view to having it burned as a seditious libel, Bristol defended it saying that, ‘he knew no reason why it should be so treated, for he did not see one lie in it, and only told the matter of fact.’ NLS, ms 7007, ff. 160. Perhaps his pension was paid, for within days he had abandoned any pretence of support for Shaftesbury, Buckingham and rest of the opposition peers. On 20 Nov. during the course of the debate over the Commons reaction to Sherley v. Fagg, he denounced the proponents of confrontation as having premeditated their actions, saying that,

it was not in the nature of man to have such a faculty of speaking to a point of so great concern, as he found they did, without a long and serious consultation and consideration beforehand, and that it was designed for a surprise &c upon which my Lord Shaftesbury and he grew hot with one another, that my Lord Bristol told him he would have articles of treason against him and the other said he would have articles of conspiracy against him and much more & for which they both were forced to ask the pardon of the House. Verney ms mic. M636/29, W. Fall to Sir R. Verney, 22 Nov. 1675.

The House was then moved for an address for a dissolution; Bristol voted with the court lords against it. The relationship between Bristol and Shaftesbury was further soured by events at the by-election for Dorset held in October 1675. Bristol’s son, John Digby, then styled Lord Digby (later 3rd earl of Bristol), was returned as one of the Members for Dorset in a contest that pitted the Digbys against a candidate sponsored by Shaftesbury. As a result of insults traded during the campaign Shaftesbury prosecuted Digby for scandalum magnatum, winning damages of £1,000. Ibid. Sir R. to E. Verney, 28 Apr. 1676.

After the prorogation of November 1675, Parliament did not meet until February 1677. Bristol attended the first six days of the session but was then absent for a week before making his final appearance there on 1 March. At a call of the House on 9 Mar. 1677 he was excused. He died at his home in Chelsea on 20 Mar. 1677. In his will Bristol left his remaining property and possessions to his wife during her lifetime. Having already transferred most of his lands in Somerset and Dorset to his sons, there remained a mansion in Wimbledon, a house in Chelsea and the family seat at Sherborne Castle. Bristol made particular mention of his debts and the money to which he had a right. In July 1677 the countess of Bristol sold their house in Chelsea, Surrey, to Danby for £11-12,000. Verney ms mic. M636/30, J. to E. Verney, 26 July 1677; Bodl. Carte 79, f. 114. Bristol’s extensive library was auctioned in London in April 1680 and the catalogue gives some indication of the scope of the earl’s interests and influences. Works of philosophy, astrology, theology and literature abound. Bibliotheca Digbeiana(1680).

Accounts of the infamous earl of Bristol continued to emerge in the decades that followed. Roger Morrice recorded a conversation between Bristol and the king about ways of getting Parliament to vote a supply. Bristol was alleged to have said that a ‘sure and easy way’ was to ‘let a priest be tried, condemned and executed’, and to have offered a likely candidate. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 380. Burnet described Bristol as having ‘courage and learning, bold temper and lively wit, but no judgment or steadiness’, a description that certainly reflects Bristol’s religious inconstancy but which does but partial justice to a man whose life seems to have been governed by a single-minded pursuit of the rewards, financial and personal, that he believed his devotion to his monarch deserved. Burnet, i. 161-2.