tness which will now be removed."[17] He
disapproved of the system of boards and committees instituted during the
Commonwealth, as giving too much power to the parliament, and regarded the
administration by the great officers of state, to the exclusion of pure
men of business, as the only method compatible with the dignity and
security of the monarchy. The lowering of the prestige of the privy
council, and its subordination first to the parliament and afterwards to
the military faction, he considered as one of the chief causes of the fall
of Charles I. He aroused a strong feeling of hostility in the Commons by
his opposition to the appropriation of supplies in 1665, and to the audit
of the war accounts in 1666, as "an introduction to a commonwealth" and as
"a new encroachment," and by his high tone of prerogative and authority,
while by his advice to Charles to prorogue parliament he incurred their
resentment and gave colour to the accusation that he had advised the king
to govern without parliaments. He was unpopular among all classes, among
the royalists on account of the Act of Indemnity, among the Presbyterians
because of the Act of Uniformity. It was said that he had invented the
maxim "that the king should buy and reward his enemies and do little for
his friends, because they are his already."[18] Every kind of
maladministration was currently ascribed to him, of designs to govern by a
standing army, and of corruption. He was credited with having married
Charles purposely to a barren queen in order to raise his own
grandchildren to the throne, with having sold Dunkirk to France, and his
magnificent house in St James's was nicknamed "Dunkirk House," while on
the day of the Dutch attack on Chatham the mob set up a gibbet at his gate
and broke his windows. He had always been exceedingly unpopular at court,
and kept severely aloof from the revels and licence which reigned there.
Evelyn names "the buffoons and the misses to whom he was an eyesore."[19]
He was intensely disliked by the royal mistresses, whose favour he did not
condescend to seek, and whose presence and influence were often the
subject of his reproaches.[20] A party of younger men of the king's own
age, more congenial to his temperament, and eager to drive the old
chancellor from power and to succeed him in office, had for some time been
endeavouring to undermine his influence by ridicule and intrigue.
Surrounded by such general and violent animosity, Claren