The Turbulent Careers of the Earls of Danby and Shaftesbury Synopsis Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and later 1st Duke of Leeds, and Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, were two of the most significant political figures in post-restoration England. They had radically different political outlooks, but above all else, each craved power and their rivalry in the 1670s left its mark on history. Their efforts to build support led directly to the emergence of the first political parties; a government or Court block of support, was built up by Osborne, and would later be characterised as Tory, while the Whigs grew out of Ashley Cooper’s opposition grouping. Other innovations in the period have also survived to the present day. However, politics was still a risky occupation, and both men spent lengthy periods in the Tower; Osborne for almost 5 years and Ashley Cooper for 18 months in two spells, before he finally fled the country shortly before his death in 1682. Osborne governed England between 1674 and 1679, not least because of his mastery of the nation’s finances, though he was unable to achieve the same control of foreign policy for which his objectives diverged from those of King Charles II. In the same period, and for a few years afterwards, Ashley Cooper mounted an effective opposition which eventually overthrew Osborne, and he came close to altering the Royal succession, and establishing himself as the chief power in the land. The careers engrossed much else besides. Ashley Cooper fought on both sides in the Civil War, held important office under Cromwell and then Charles II, and became one of the leading members of the notorious Cabal ministry. Osborne obtained his release from the Tower in 1684, but then risked his career and his head again, by taking a major part in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, before going on to dominate another government, which served King William III between 1690 and 1695. It is fair to say that history has been kind to neither, and while the book does not gloss over the unattractive aspects of their personalities and careers, it is intended to be a re-appraisal, as well as a narrative account. The Turbulent Careers of the Earls of Danby and Shaftesbury Contents List of Illustrations 1. Introduction 2. The Rise of Anthony Ashley Cooper, (later Earl of Shaftesbury) 2.1. Ancestry and Early Years 2.2. Marriage and Parliamentary Ambitions 2.3. Civil War Dilemmas 2.4. Cromwellian Politician 2.5. Surviving the Chaos of the Later Years of the Interregnum 2.6. A Royalist Again 2.7. Confusion and Drift during the Clarendon Ministry 3. The Cabal Ministry 3.1. The Grand Design of King Charles II 3.2. The King Takes Charge 3.3. Preparations for War with the Dutch 3.4. Early Setbacks and Ashley Cooper’s Promotion 3.5. Fissures in the Cabal and Osborne’s Spectacular Ascent 4. The Emergence of Thomas Osborne, (later Earl of Danby) 4.1. Ancestry and Early Years 4.2. A Young Royalist in Republican England 4.3. First Steps towards Power 4.4. Ministerial Office 5. The Osborne Ministry and Ashley Cooper’s Opposition 5.1. Osborne’s Solution to a Financial Crisis 5.2. The Crumbling of the Cabal and the Continuing Rise of Osborne 5.3. Ashley Cooper’s Drift towards Systematic Opposition 5.4. The Great Debates about Osborne’s Test Bill 5.5. The Widening of the Struggle between Osborne and Ashley Cooper 2 6. Osborne in the Ascendant, Ashley Cooper in the Tower 6.1. Osborne and Ashley Cooper regroup during the Prorogation 6.2. Ashley Cooper’s Greatest Blunder 6.3. Osborne’s First Great Mistake 6.4. The Dutch Marriage 7. The Resurgence of Ashley Cooper and the End of the Osborne Ministry 7.1. The Release of Ashley Cooper from the Tower 7.2. England betwixt War and Peace 7.3. The Popish Plot 7.4. The Re-Appearance of the Montagu Letters 7.5. The Resignation and Imprisonment of Osborne 8. Ashley Cooper’s Contest for Power with the King 8.1. Ashley Cooper’s Return to Office 8.2. The 1st Exclusion Parliament and its Aftermath 8.3. The 2nd Exclusion Parliament 8.4. The 3rd (Oxford) Exclusion Parliament 8.5. The Reassertion of Royal Authority and Ashley Cooper’s 2nd Imprisonment 8.6. End-Game, the Flight and Death of Ashley Cooper 8.7. An Appraisal of Ashley Cooper 9. Osborne’s Decade of Difficulties 9.1. An Unrepentant Prisoner for Five Years 9.2. Osborne’s Failure to Resurrect His Career 9.3. The Construction of an English Conspiracy 9.4. The Dutch Descent on England and the English Uprising 9.5. Osborne’s Limited Favour with the New Regime 10. Osborne’s Second Ministry under William III 10.1. The Failure of Lord Halifax as First Minister 10.2. The Return of Osborne as First Minister 10.3. Osborne’s Struggles to Maintain and Increase His Power 10.4. The Decline in Osborne’s Authority 10.5. The Eclipse of Osborne’s Power 10.6. Ambitious to the End 10.7. An Appraisal of Thomas Osborne 3 11. The Careers in Perspective Timeline Bibliography After-word 4 The Turbulent Careers of the Earls of Danby and Shaftesbury List of Illustrations 1. Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury by Greenhill 2. Sir Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby by Lely 3. Wimborne Manor largely as rebuilt by Ashley Cooper c1650 4. King Charles II. 5. George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham 6. The House of Lords in the early 18th Century 7. Osborne’s Southern Palace, Wimbledon Manor House 8. James Scott, Duke of Monmouth 9. King James II, formerly Duke of York 10. King William III 11. George Savile, Marquis of Halifax 12. Osborne’s Yorkshire Mansion, Keeton Hall at Kiveton Park 5 1. Introduction In November 1682 it appeared that the careers to be described in this book had both ended in failure. In one part of London, still for now beyond the reach of the King, an old man had put his affairs in order as best he could and had taken what was to be final leave of his wife before boarding a ship which would take him to Holland and exile for the remaining few months of his life. His name was Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, (Figure 1.), and for the past 8 years he had been engaged in a struggle, at first with the King’s apparently all-powerful first minister, and thereafter with King Charles II himself, ostensibly to prevent the succession to the throne of the Roman Catholic brother of the King, but as much to determine who wielded the chief power in England. He had lost decisively many months earlier but had been protected from retribution by his supporters’ ability to sway the verdicts of the courts in London. Even this lifeline had recently been removed by the government, leaving him no option but to go into hiding and prepare to flee the country. The alternative would have been arrest, imprisonment, conviction for high crimes against the state and most likely, his execution. Across London, in the Tower, Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby, (Figure 2.), the erstwhile first minister, languished as a prisoner, and his prospects appeared to be little better. He had been confined to the Tower for more than two years since impeachment and then draconian attainder proceedings had been orchestrated against him in parliament by Ashley Cooper. The King’s attempt to pardon him for the actions of which he had been accused only increased the level of hostility to him in political circles and after he had refused to obey the King’s wish that he go into exile, he had been lodged in the Tower to await trial on what amounted to charges of Treason. A guilty verdict might have cost him his life, though this fate had become less likely as Ashley Cooper’s power had waned. However, Osborne was not to be freed for another two and a half years, and it was to require further tumultuous events before he again became a power in the land. These then were the disastrous results for the principals, of the political struggle between Thomas Osborne, then Earl of Danby and recently Lord Treasurer of England, and Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, which played out during the latter years of the 1670s. It is tempting to see the collision between two of the most ambitious and able politicians of their age as a precursor to the rather better known parliamentary clashes involving William Pitt the Younger and Charles James Fox during almost 25 years up to the year after Trafalgar, 1806, and Gladstone and Disraeli in the middle years of the 19th century. This was my own initial view, but I now think that the political landscape altered so much between 6 the 1670s and the 1780s, never mind over the hundred years afterwards, that attempts to make comparisons are largely unhelpful. Yes, Danby and Shaftesbury were dominant political figures, and they were rivals, just as were the later contenders for power, but their rivalry was expressed in a very different and more dangerous environment than that occupied by the later politicians. It can be said that a number of features of politics that now seem normal did make an appearance in the 1670s; for example, serious attempts to organise support for the government in both houses of parliament, systematic opposition which involved the formation of the first political party, the Whigs, and conflict between the two houses of parliament, the Lords and the Commons, over their respective rights and privileges.