MAITLAND, John (1616-82)

Although he began his political career as a Covenanter, by the end of the civil wars Lauderdale was completely identified with the Royalist cause. Heavy-lidded and lugubrious in appearance, Lauderdale’s reputation, thanks to a damning portrayal of him in the memoirs penned by Gilbert Burnet, later bishop of Salisbury, is almost wholly negative. Haley, Shaftesbury, 169-70; Lee, Cabal, 28-29. He has been perceived as a brutal, cynical politician, willing to sacrifice almost any principle for personal gain. If the judgment was not quite fair, in his management of Scotland he exhibited a cunning, mercenary ruthlessness; and in the years following the fall of Edward Hyde, later earl of Clarendon, by aligning himself closely with Charles, he emerged as one of the king’s most trusted ministers. As such he proved a divisive figure and was the subject of a number of attacks in response to his perceived dominance of affairs. In spite of his portfolio of offices in Scotland, Lauderdale’s post-restoration career was as much in England but it was not until 1674 that he was finally granted a seat in the House of Lords.

Part of the reason for his pre-eminence dated back to the king’s experience of the earl during Charles’s unsuccessful bid to take back the throne in 1650-51. Lauderdale was a prominent participant in the Scots’ invasion of England and, after being captured at the battle of Worcester, spent the ensuing decade as a prisoner of the Cromwellian regime. Another reason was identified by the French ambassador mid-way through Charles’s reign. Lauderdale, he noted, ‘always, and rightly, ranges himself on the side to which he sees the king his master inclining’. TNA, PRO 31/3/125, pp. 214-15. Lauderdale was finally released in the early March 1660. He was immediately active in the service of the Crown, writing to the king to advise him of the progress being made towards his restoration: he had already sought to reassure the Presbyterian divine, Richard Baxter, of the king’s suitability to rule. R. Paterson, King Lauderdale: the Corruption of Power, 124. In April he received a letter from the king at Brussels, in which Charles expressed his pleasure at the earl’s release and testified to the esteem in which he held him: ‘I am confident you have the same opinions and judgment you had when we parted. I am sure I have, and the same kindness for you, and believe you entirely my own as any man, and that no other men’s passions can work upon you.’ Add. 23113, f. 90. Encouraged, Lauderdale embarked for the Netherlands, where he was, according to Hyde, ‘very well received by the king’. His arrival was less welcome to Hyde who observed that he and Lauderdale ‘as often as they had been together… had had a perpetual war’, though he did his best to reassure the chancellor that his Presbyterian days were behind him. Clarendon, Life, ii. 96-97; Paterson, King Lauderdale, 126-7. Hyde, thus, could hardly have been pleased with the decision to appoint Lauderdale secretary of state for Scotland, rather than his own candidate, James Livingston, earl of Newburgh [S]. It was equally unwelcome to Lauderdale’s rival, John Middleton, earl of Middleton [S], a client of Hyde’s, who had been appointed to the senior post of lord high commissioner to the Scottish Parliament. Lauderdale would make the post of secretary of state, based in London and linked to a Scottish Privy Council held there, the foundation of an unusual dominance of Scottish politics, at least after the disgrace and removal of Middleton. Paterson, King Lauderdale, 129-31.

Secretary of State for Scotland

Picking his way carefully through the minefields of early Restoration politics, Lauderdale steered a careful line in the debates in the Scottish Privy Council at the end of 1660 and beginning of 1661 over the Scottish political settlement, winning a point over the end of the English occupation of Scotland and the removal of English garrisons. On the question of the settlement of the Church, Lauderdale at first tended towards a settlement that would embrace moderate Presbyterian opinion. Eventually, he bowed to the king’s wishes over the reintroduction of episcopacy, no doubt swayed by the king’s clearly articulated dislike of Presbyterianism. Paterson, King Lauderdale, 132-7; Bodl. Clarendon 74, ff. 290-93. Despite their mutual hostility, by March 1661 Hyde (now earl of Clarendon) was able to report to Middleton that he and Lauderdale now ‘lived very civilly together’. But relations between Lauderdale, based in London, and Middleton, in Edinburgh, were made more difficult by Middleton’s programme of strikingly authoritarian legislation in the Scottish Parliament in the course of 1661, crowned by the restoration of episcopacy. Though Lauderdale acquiesced in Middleton’s plans, the relationship soon descended into a struggle for power, which reached its climax in Middleton’s attempt in September 1662 to have Lauderdale and others of his party excluded from office through exemptions from the Act of Indemnity selected by means of a rigged ballot. The ‘billeting affair’ infuriated the king and ended Middleton’s political career, though he clung on for a long time: he was sacked in May 1663, at a moment when his patron in London, Clarendon, was politically weakened by the challenge from George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol. On 12 May Henry Coventry^‡ informed James Butler, duke of Ormond [I], earl of Brecknock in the English peerage, that the ‘dispute between the earls of Middleton and Lauderdale is not yet determined, but it is generally believed… the latter will have the advantage’. Middleton was replaced as commissioner to the Scots Parliament by John Leslie, 7th earl (later duke) of Rothes [S], who had bank-rolled Lauderdale in the weeks immediately after his release from prison. According to Coventry, Middleton’s removal annoyed the Commons, but Lauderdale retained the king’s ‘good opinion, though for all I see he stands single in our English court, whatsoever party he has amongst his own countrymen’. HMC Ormonde, iii. 52. Certainly, his defeat of Middleton came as an unpleasant surprise to men such as Ormond, who viewed with concern the triumph of the former covenanter Lauderdale over a solid Anglican royalist like Middleton. Seaward, Cavalier Parlt. 212. Lauderdale’s success at the Restoration court, and particularly with the king, may have owed something to his role in arranging the marriage of the king’s young illegitimate son, James Scott, duke of Monmouth, in 1662 to Anne Scott, countess of Buccleuch [S], the daughter of Francis Scott, 2nd earl of Buccleuch [S] and Margaret, the daughter of John Leslie, 7th earl, and later duke, of Rothes [S]. Lauderdale would be a member of the commission set up on Monmouth’s majority in 1665 to look after his affairs, in which he would take a close interest. Clarendon, Life (1857), ii. 20; CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 173; NLS. MS. 7023, letter 16, 17, MS. 3136, ff.11r.-12v.

Lauderdale was despatched to Scotland in June 1663, leaving his ally Sir Robert Moray behind in London as his deputy. Bodl. Carte 59, ff. 516-17; Letters of Sir Robert Moray to the Earl of Kincardine, 1657-73, ed. D. Stevenson, 27-28. He secured a series of bills vindicating episcopal authority, outlawing conventicles and establishing a militia, while he finally finished off any remaining power that Middleton possessed. Paterson, King Lauderdale, 159-61. Still in Scotland in July, Lauderdale was embroiled in the dispute between Clarendon and Bristol, which resulted in Bristol’s botched attempt to have Clarendon impeached. The articles against Clarendon were presented on 10 July. Four days later, Bristol requested that commissions be sent into Ireland and Scotland summoning Ormond and Lauderdale to appear as his ‘witnesses’. This was generally interpreted as a delaying tactic, and Bristol’s attempt was brought to a halt by the king’s intervention. Add. 23119, f. 91; Bodl. Carte 222, ff. 26-27. Amongst Bristol’s accusations had been a charge that Clarendon had ‘persuaded his majesty, against the advice of the lord general’& George Monck, duke of Albemarle—‘to withdraw the English garrisons out of Scotland, and to demolish all the forts built there at so vast a charge to this kingdom’. Lauderdale denied any involvement in Bristol’s plans in a letter of 18 July, asserting that even ‘the boldest and most impudent liar could not suggest me accessory to my Lord Bristol’s paper, seeing the advising the removal of English garrisons and demolishing those badges of our slavery is by it made treason.’ Lauderdale was confident that although some ‘may have the impudence to question my duty to my master, yet no rational man will believe me so little a Scot as to be consenting to a paper with that into it’. He returned to the attack three days later, noting that Bristol ought to have remembered that the Lords had no power to examine in Scotland and insisting that ‘we will submit to no examinations but what flow from the king’s command’. LJ xi. 556; Lauderdale Pprs. ii (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxiv), 160-61. Lauderdale returned to London at the beginning of November, his success having helped him to mend his fences, at least to some extent, with English royalists. Henry Bennet, later earl of Arlington, wrote that it had served to make him ‘very welcome to those that cared not much for him before’. Bodl. Carte 46, f. 108. Lauderdale’s insistence that he had played no part in Bristol’s intrigues was not believed by Clarendon. The French ambassador noted Lauderdale as one of Clarendon’s principal enemies. Samuel Pepys^‡ considered Lauderdale as one of a group of half a dozen favourites who were able to monopolize the king’s attentions and prevent others from getting close to him. Another commentator, though, reckoned that by March 1664 both Lauderdale and Anthony Ashley Cooper, Baron Ashley, later earl of Shaftesbury, had given up their campaign and made their peace with Clarendon. HMC Ormonde, iii. 134; TNA, PRO 31/3/113, p. 24; Pepys Diary, v. 56-57; Bodl. Carte 76, f. 7.

The Fall of Clarendon, Anglo-Scots Trade and Union Negotiations

Relations between Clarendon and Lauderdale were never easy, however. Lauderdale’s efforts to ease the burdens borne by Scotland’s trade were opposed by the chancellor: during the summer of 1665 there had been some discussions at Southampton House, the residence of the lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton, about ‘abating the half of the imposition on salt’ but no further progress had been made owing, it was said, to Clarendon’s opposition. In November 1666, Lauderdale joined with Ashley in lobbying for a provision in the Irish cattle bill to exempt Scottish cattle: it was suspected that the two, together with Arlington, were planning a scheme to expand the Scottish cattle trade and settle the profits on the duke of Monmouth. NLS, ms 7023, f. 90; Bodl. Carte 35, f. 126; Seaward, Cavalier Parlt. 268-9.

In late 1666 opposition in Scotland to the reimposition of episcopacy erupted in the Pentland rising, quickly crushed, but leading to some recognition that the existing policy was not sustainable. In its aftermath, Lauderdale secured the removal of Rothes from offices carrying significant power; he was replaced as lord president by Lauderdale’s close ally, John Hay^‡, 2nd earl (later marquess) of Tweeddale [S]. Between them, Lauderdale and Tweeddale gradually shifted Scottish ecclesiastical policy in a more moderate direction. The removal of Clarendon at the end of August 1667 (which he welcomed very enthusiastically) also offered an opportunity for Lauderdale to assert greater control over Scottish affairs. It perhaps also enabled him to return to the question of trade. Paterson, King Lauderdale, 174-5. On 14 Sept. Lauderdale advised of a petition from some English merchants presented to the council. This requested the removal of certain duties on Scots imports ‘and the settling the trade between the two nations’. The ensuing discussion resulted in the appointment of a committee (of which Lauderdale was a member) tasked with drawing up proposals to be set before the next session of Parliament. NLS, ms 7023, f. 90. During the autumn Lauderdale kept Tweeddale informed of the committee’s progress, reporting to him on 10 Oct. the lord keeper’s address to Parliament in which he had ‘recommended the trade in general and particularly the balance of trade with Scotland, that nothing hurtful to England might be brought, and that Scotland might be so eased that they might not be compelled to carry their trade elsewhere’. Ibid. f. 101.

As well as reporting back on the state of trade, Lauderdale also noted the votes of thanks given by both Houses for the removal of Clarendon and the king’s response, promising not to employ the former chancellor again, the last being ‘received with a great hum’. Ibid. f. 103. Proceedings against Clarendon, which resulted in the act banishing him for life, dominated the session until the close of the year, so it was only in the new year that the question of trade once more returned to the agenda. On 11 Jan. 1668 Lauderdale wrote to Archibald Primrose, lord clerk register, requesting a copy of the 1607 union bill for the consideration of the commissioners delegated to consider the question of Anglo-Scots trade as well as certain technical details relating to former acts that had underscored the king’s authority over management of trade. NLS, Advocates’ ms, Wodrow pprs. letters, Oct. 11, f. 54. The commissioners met for the first time two days later at the Inner Star Chamber in Westminster, with Lauderdale and Rothes among those representing the Scots. The English commissioners comprised George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton, Charles Howard, earl of Carlisle, and three others. Neither set was complete with absentees on both sides. NLS, ms 14492, f. 2. Reporting the day’s proceedings to Tweeddale (one of the missing Scots representatives), Lauderdale noted the privations the commissioners were forced to put up with, neither heating nor chairs having been prepared for them in the chamber they occupied. They were compelled to stand to read through their commissions. NLS, ms 7023, f. 117. Further meetings were arranged for 17 Jan. and on 20 Jan. the Scots met by themselves to settle points to be drafted by Lauderdale for the ensuing discussions. They presented a paper to the English commissioners the following day. NLS, ms 14492, ff. 6-7. On 25 Jan. the English party reciprocated with a paper of their own, requesting a full set of the Scots’ proposals, which the Scots grudgingly agreed to, drawing up a comprehensive set of proposals on 1 February. Lauderdale reported it to Tweeddale, ‘we would not let the bone remain in our foot for wanting the giving in particulars’. NLS, ms 3136, f. 34. At the same time, they stuck to their resolution of insisting on a formal response to their paper before turning to anything else. It was not until 19 Mar. that Lauderdale was able to send Tweeddale the ‘English commissioners’ long and long expected answer with my sense of it and a little short paper which we have given them to turn their hands’. NLS, ms 14406, f. 49.

On 31 Mar. a select number of commissioners, among them Sir George Downing^‡, met together in conference with the king at Whitehall. The discussions were solely taken up with trade to the plantations in which, as Lauderdale informed Tweeddale, Downing ‘made a bitter tedious speech. The king answered him smartly and home so that there was little for me to say yet I have him jolly wipes’. It was agreed that the English commissioners would reach a resolution within two days and that once the Scots had responded to that, they would bring the matter back before the king. NLS, ms 7023, f. 142. Hostility to an agreement with the Scots was not confined to Downing and by 23 Apr. the Scots had begun to consider other ways of achieving their aims. Lauderdale explained, ‘We have resolved not to pursue the treaty any further unless they do it (which I do not expect) but that the king shall do it himself in council, for by the law his majesty may dispense with the act of navigation’. NLS, ms 3136, f. 39.

Attitudes had hardened by the end of the month when Tweeddale learnt that even before Lauderdale received his advice, he had decided ‘not to give our list of ships till we see whether they will make any good use of it’. Ibid. f. 40. Aware that the Scots were intent on making a direct appeal to the king over their heads, on 22 May the English commissioners demanded to be heard by the Privy Council. The lord keeper suggested that a sub-committee, made up of two sets of commissioners, should be appointed ‘to try to bring the differences to a head to be reported to his majesty when he returned’. This was opposed by Buckingham, who demanded that both sets of commissioners should be heard before the council and, in reference to Lauderdale’s refusal to deliver a list of Scottish ships to the English commissioners, alleged that ‘the matter stuck at my Lord Lauderdale who would not give in the list’. Lauderdale resorted to brinkmanship in the face of the English commissioners’ intransigence. He insisted to Tweeddale ‘I justified myself well enough and show how many delays we had had and what little hopes there was’. He also did his utmost to have the business referred back to the king, which resulted (he considered) in the other side becoming ‘alarmed with my seeming coldness and with my desire to have leave from the king to treat with others, what this will produce a little time will show’. NLS, ms 7023, f. 158.

As the trade negotiations teetered on the brink of deadlock the Scots began to consider options other than an appeal to the king, namely recourse to the duke of York, who had already indicated his appreciation of Lauderdale’s efforts in managing Scotland. The question of union was also revisited. Lauderdale’s subsequent championing of this new scheme was particularly ironic given his prominent role in advising the king to dismantle the Cromwellian union soon after the restoration. P.W.J. Riley, Union, 5. At first it appeared that negotiations towards the union and the ongoing efforts to secure a commercial treaty would be pursued simultaneously. In advance of his own return to Scotland, Lauderdale gave Tweeddale ‘a full account of the proposition concerning the union’ and revealed that on 3 June he had raised the issue with the lord keeper, who had assured him that all the trade commissioners were ‘most earnest for it’ and that he thought the scheme ‘both feasible and very probable.’ At the same time Lauderdale considered that the ‘discourse of the union will I am confident advance and not retard the matter of trade’. NLS, ms 7023, f. 165. Lauderdale’s optimism was not shared by Tweeddale, who by September 1668 was expressing his doubts about the strategy and now concluded ‘I have small hope of the trade with England, and I apprehend the matter of the union was proposed to divert it’. NLS, ms 23130, f. 18. Lauderdale meanwhile remained upbeat and from Newmarket concluded the following month with regard to trade, ‘I have some hopes of it, when we come back, but more of the union, in which all seem most earnest’. Buckingham was one of those he considered in favour: Lauderdale considered he was now ‘very great’ with the duke. Carlisle too he believed to be ‘in earnest in the union, but backward in the trade’. Even Sir George Downing now seemed more willing to come to a resolution with the Scots. Even so, he advised caution. ‘I must not seem to press anything, but let nature work’. NLS, ms 7023, f. 206.

By the end of October, Lauderdale was still reporting back to Tweeddale optimistic appraisals relating to union and how the lord keeper and dukes of Buckingham and Albemarle were ‘all equally zealous’ for it. Ibid. f. 212. A meeting held a month later, though, proved a serious disappointment, with only four men (of whom Lauderdale was one) turning out. Lauderdale was commissioned to prepare some preliminaries for a further meeting. Anticipating Tweeddale’s annoyance that he had not raised the question of the union while the king was at Newmarket, Lauderdale explained that his backwardness had not been on account of his ‘love of hawking or air, but because I would not begin it without the duke of Buckingham (who is most zealous in the matter)’. In the absence of this key figure he resolved instead to remain at Hampton Court ‘to be merry in good company till the king should return’. NLS, ms 3136, ff. 49-50.

On 3 Dec. Lauderdale despatched to Tweeddale ‘an account of our yesterday’s excellent meeting’. He enjoined Tweeddale to secrecy about the details while recommending that he should confer with ‘confident persons’ about it. This letter, amended by Tweeddale and then forwarded to Rothes by Lauderdale, revealed the state of the negotiations about the projected union. Lauderdale had written that there ‘is a business of weight enough that a knot of good fellows have been hammering upon times and which now begin to look as if something might be made out of it by God’s blessing and good guiding’. The union, Lauderdale explained, was ‘a work our master is much set upon, as it looks now to me as something probable’. He also asserted that ‘all that talk together seem very forward and but few differences are among us’. Once his compatriots had delivered their response, he aimed to ‘offer something to the king as a discourse between friends without any formal authority’. He then warned Tweeddale to be sure that there was no indication on the papers he was to communicate to Rothes that ‘you had them long ago’. Ibid. ff. 56, 58. A week later Tweeddale reported back, having conferred with Archibald Campbell, 9th earl of Argyll [S], noting the principal concern to be the small number of Scots peers who were to sit in the House of Lords. Tweeddale insisted that Lauderdale ‘must either prevail for a greater number or get some assurance of sitting more speedily, which I suppose must be in the king’s power or you will have a hard task’. Add. 23131, f. 16. Lauderdale admitted the strength of the objection but considered even so that such small numbers of Scottish peers would be willing to make the journey to Westminster (not least given the lack of allowances), that it was not a material bar. He concluded by assuring Tweeddale (again) of a speedy response following the ensuing meeting. NLS, ms 3136, f. 63.

The secrecy which Lauderdale insisted on in his letters to Tweeddale and Rothes obscured much of the proceedings on the proposed union during the first half of 1669. By the summer of that year Lauderdale had drawn up a paper advising the appointment of commissioners from each Parliament to take the business forward. NLS, ms 597, f. 232. Discussion then turned to the best way to select the commissioners. It was assumed initially that the nomination would lie with the king, as appeared to have been done during the negotiations under James I, but on 31 Aug. this met with ‘a stumble’ after the lord keeper advised that on that occasion it had been Parliament and not the king who had named the commissioners. NLS, ms 3136, f. 116. A meeting was arranged between Lauderdale, Lord Keeper Bridgeman and the two secretaries of state to settle the matter before Parliament was convened. NLS, ms 7023, f. 227.

The gradual shift of Scottish ecclesiastical policy had resulted in July 1669 in the promulgation of an indulgence, promising that ‘peaceable’ Presbyterian ministers would be allowed to return to their parishes without episcopal collation. Lauderdale departed for Scotland early in October 1669 to preside over the new session of the Scottish Parliament that was to coincide with its Westminster counterpart. (It would also pass an act asserting a remarkable level of royal control over the Church and giving legal authority to the indulgence. In England, to ‘sweeten’ the prospect of union, it was reported that a number of dissenting ministers had been restored to their livings. Add. 36916, f. 143.) When the lord keeper addressed the two Houses at Westminster on 19 Oct. informing them of the need to appoint commissioners for the union, he noted that Lauderdale had similar instructions for the Scots Parliament. Despite this, the question of nominating the commissioners was dealt with differently at Edinburgh, where the Parliament resolved to leave the nomination of its commissioners to the king. York responded to Lauderdale’s success in securing this, writing to him on 28 Oct. expressing his pleasure that the ‘union goes on so well where you are’ convinced that, ‘were his majesty as well served here as he is where you are’ there would be no doubt of it being achieved. At Westminster, the Commons refused to turn their attention to the matter before settling other business. By the end of the month Sir Robert Moray was complaining to Lauderdale about the problem ‘of moving the houses to despatch the business of the union’. He had spoken to the king, Arlington and Sir Thomas Clifford, later Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, stressing ‘the inconvenience of the parliament of Scotland’s sitting long fully enough’ and, with Clifford’s encouragement, suggested that if the English Parliament continued to delay consideration of the union, he should request Lauderdale to have an act passed granting the king a commission under the great seal of Scotland for ‘empowering such persons as he shall think fit to treat about the union’. This would leave the Scottish Parliament free to adjourn to the spring to await the resolution of its English counterpart. Lauderdale Pprs. ii (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxiv), 142, 148-49 appendix v, p. lxxxvi,. Lauderdale’s response was quick and emphatic. On 2 Nov. he wrote to Moray about ‘your pretty proposition in yours of 28 October’ but rejected it firmly, stressing ‘God forbid such an order come to me for such an act as you propose’. Moray, he felt, did not realize the extent of the hostility to union in Scotland itself. The ‘endeavour to have made us slaves by garrisons and the ruin of our trade by severe laws in England frights all ranks of men from having to do with England’. More particularly, Lauderdale had an eye to his own position and warned that ‘to press more before England take notice of the matter would render the proposer most odious as a betrayer of his country’. Consistent with his overarching policy of fidelity to the king’s wishes in all things he concluded that if the command came ‘I shall not dispute but obey what can come’, while repeating that ‘it does quite overthrow the service and render the union here impossible’. Ibid. 154.

Lauderdale’s warning was not heeded and he received soon after an express commanding an act to be passed for establishing a commission, the terms of which were to be left to the king. Lauderdale complained that the way this was sent prevented him from trying to argue against the policy: ‘by the ordinary packet I could have quietly returned my humble opinion to his majesty without noise, but the return of the express fills all the parliament men with curiosity, what has the express brought? And I have nothing to answer’. Faced with this, Lauderdale sought advice from the lords of the articles. All of them advised against putting the king’s request before the Scottish Parliament. Lauderdale reported back once again promising to go ahead if the king insisted, but disclaiming ‘all promises of success in this or in the treaty if this shall be pressed’. Ibid. 155, 158. With matters effectively at a standstill, Parliament at Westminster was prorogued on 11 Dec. and Lauderdale adjourned the Scots Parliament until the following June.

Lauderdale’s delayed return to England may in part have been caused by his suspension of the archbishop of Glasgow, Alexander Burnet, shortly before Christmas. Bodl. Add. C 306, f. 92. By the beginning of February he had arrived in England, ‘having settled that kingdom [Scotland] according to instructions’. It was reported that he was to be rewarded ‘for his good service’ there with being made a knight of the garter. It was also rumoured that he would be promoted to a Scottish dukedom and awarded an English peerage. Add. 36916, ff. 164-65. In the event he was made to wait a further two years for the garter and dukedom, and four years for the English peerage. The English Parliament reconvened on 14 Feb. 1670 when, at the king’s request, the lord keeper reminded both Houses that as the Scots Parliament had already settled the question of the appointment of commissioners (if not the terms of the commission), they too should now ‘take the matter effectually into your consideration’. Following the proceedings in the House of 26 Feb., Lauderdale reported to Tweeddale that the ‘debate toward the union went fairly on only three did speak bitterly but all conclude the house will do this week just what Scotland did, so a treaty is more than probable’. On 3 Mar. the Lords took the subject into consideration and resolved that the king should appoint commissioners, as had happened in Scotland. The next day a message was sent to the Commons desiring their concurrence, which was forthcoming on 10 March. The ensuing draft act, drawn up by the English solicitor general, proved so unacceptable to Lauderdale that he and the lord keeper drafted another. This was examined by the king on 17 Mar. at the foreign affairs committee and again on 19 March. NLS, ms 7023, ff. 233, 236. Two days later, the king made a surprise visit to the House of Lords accompanied, according to Lauderdale, by none but his Scottish secretary of state. He did so again on 22 March. By reviving a practice last taken advantage of by Henry VIII, of attending debates informally, the king, so Lauderdale opined, ‘does raise the decayed reputation of the peers’. Ibid. f. 238. The immediate cause of the intervention now was said to be the divorce bill brought in by John Manners, styled Lord Roos, later duke of Rutland: a measure supported by Lauderdale, Ashley and Buckingham in the teeth of bitter opposition from York. According to Gilbert Burnet it was on Lauderdale’s advice that the king attended to help stifle opposition to the bill. Haley, Shaftesbury, 278; Swatland, 96. Meanwhile, progress of the union bill continued and on 26 Mar. Lauderdale was able to announce that it had passed the Lords with only four peers voting against. NLS, ms 7023, f. 239. It enjoyed a similarly swift passage through the Commons before being sent back to the Lords early in April.

Lauderdale’s clear influence with the king was no doubt behind reports of the middle of April that he was one of five members of the cabinet council ‘who do all things’. Add. 36916, f. 179. This presumably referred to the members of the ‘Cabal’, which had effectively been in existence since the fall of Clarendon. Towards the end of May it was reported that Lauderdale was once more on the point of heading back to Scotland to take charge of the new session of Parliament there, though in the event it was not until the middle of July that he finally set out. Ibid. f. 182; Norf. RO, BL/Y/1/34. Lauderdale’s instructions were to continue the business that had been left hanging at the close of the former session and to secure an act empowering the assembling of a commission to treat with their English counterparts. NLS, ms 597, ff. 226-27; Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, viii. 6. Once this had been achieved Lauderdale adjourned Parliament once more and by the middle of September was back at Whitehall. On 14 Sept. the 17 Scots commissioners met in the Exchequer Chamber with the 14 members of the English commission. Lauderdale and Gilbert Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, sat together around a large table with the Scots leading off to Lauderdale’s left and the English to the archbishop’s right. The lord keeper presented the English commission, following which two versions of the Scots commission were offered by Lauderdale, one in English and the other in Latin. The latter version was preferred and the two sets of papers were then exchanged after which this initial, rather ceremonial meeting was adjourned to the following Saturday. NLS, ms 14406, ff. 164-5. There followed a series of meetings, with the Scots meeting on their own on 19, 20 and 21 Sept., the early agenda dominated by debates surrounding the question of the succession, how best to secure each nation’s laws, and in particular the method by which the two Parliaments would be merged. NLS, ms 3136, ff. 130-31; G. MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament under Charles II, 113-4. Towards the end of October it was resolved to shelve further discussion of the settlement of laws until the proposal for uniting the Parliaments had been attended to. In this point, as Lauderdale had warned Tweeddale, the ‘great stick is concerning the peers’ precedence’. He was confident that the king was ‘positively for us that it must be according to creation’ but when the king summoned both sets of commissioners to discuss the matter it was the Scots who were dissatisfied, pointing out ‘the unreasonableness and impossibility of taking any less than all our parliament’. The English pointed out in their turn the impossibility of proposing any such thing to the Westminster Parliament. With neither side willing to compromise, a further adjournment was commanded to the following week. Defoe, History of the Union between England and Scotland (1786), 60; NLS, ms 3136, f. 138, ms 7023, f. 248; Paterson, King Lauderdale, 189.

Lauderdale’s warning that ‘the difficulties will appear so great that no further progress can be made at this time’ was quickly borne out. On 1 Nov. the lord keeper asked to hear the Scots’ proposal about their representation in the new united Parliament. Lauderdale declared that ‘they did not see how their number should be less, than is in the Parliament of Scotland’, reminding his English colleagues that he would have to persuade the Scots Parliament to accept any treaty that was drawn up. The lord keeper, however, made plain that incorporating the whole Scots Parliament would not be acceptable to the English side. Defoe, History of Union, 61. Although the commissioners were due to meet again a week later, this was subsequently put off until 12 November. The day before the commissioners were due to meet the king intervened to announce an adjournment until the following March (1671), thereby bringing the negotiations to an end.

Some commentators, such as Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, a commissioner for Ross-shire, considered that the suspension of the negotiations proved that neither the king nor Lauderdale had ever been serious about the question of union. Lauderdale, he thought, had too much to lose from the experiment. With the kingdoms distinct, Lauderdale was able to present himself to the English as an expert on Scots affairs; with the kingdoms united he would quickly have lost ground to other favourites, ‘who would be very ready to undermine him, when they found him to stand in their way’. Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, Mems. of the Affairs of Scotland from the Restoration of King Charles II, 138-9, 140, 212. In reality, Lauderdale’s view closely shadowed that of the king. For as long as he believed union to be something desirable to the king and something that would enhance his own authority, Lauderdale worked hard for the project. Lee, Cabal, 51. Once the king turned his back on the scheme, he was willing to let it drop. Whatever his private view of the thing, Lauderdale’s relations with Tweeddale steadily deteriorated following the failure of the negotiations.

Under attack 1670-74

Lauderdale was widely regarded as one of the five most prominent ministers to emerge at the head of the administration following the fall of Clarendon in 1667: the so-called ‘Cabal’. The extent of his influence within it has been questioned, partly because of his close identification with Ashley and Buckingham, and partly because his chief preoccupation was with Scottish, rather than English, politics. Nonetheless, his overall influence at court remained acute: he was included in, and regularly attended, the meetings of the foreign affairs committee which constituted the effective decision-making body that surrounded the king at this time. His dominance was no doubt assisted by his close relationship with, and then marriage to the equally forceful countess of Dysart in February 1672, a match that enabled him to establish his own court at Ham House. Whether inspired by his duchess or in emulation of Arlington, Lauderdale made significant changes to the house later in the decade, filling it with fashionable embellishments. H. Jacobsen, ‘Luxury Consumption, Cultural Politics, and the Career of the Earl of Arlington’, HJ lii. 306.

In Scotland, the efforts to achieve an accommodation with Dissent made very little headway under the guidance of Robert Leighton, who replaced the suspended Burnet as archbishop of Glasgow in 1671. Lauderdale himself became disenchanted with the negotiations; he also became estranged from some of his key allies, in particular Sir Robert Moray, for reasons that are obscure, and John Hay, 4th earl of Tweeddale, whose son, Lord Yester, had married Lauderdale’s daughter in 1666: the break with Tweeddale was caused by a family dispute stemming from Lauderdale’s second marriage, though it also had its roots in Lauderdale’s increasing tendency to regard his former friend and relation as a rival. Paterson, King Lauderdale, 194-5. No meeting of the Scottish Parliament was held, as had been initially planned, in the summer of 1671, because of the breakdown of the union negotiations. Although he had not been party to the 1670 secret treaty with France, towards the end of 1671 Lauderdale was one of five commissioners appointed by the king to treat with the French, a negotiation which led to the so-called ‘Traité simulé’. Add. 36916, f. 235. He was advanced to a dukedom in May 1672 and awarded the Garter shortly before a new session of the Scottish Parliament opened in June 1672: another success for Lauderdale, it produced a generous supply and further laws against Dissent. Lauderdale returned south after it closed in September, leaving his brother, Charles Maitland of Hatton, later 3rd earl of Lauderdale [S], as his deputy, and having promulgated a second indulgence. MacIntosh, Scottish Parliament, 116-22. The new indulgence, along with the effects of the increasing political instability in England would, in fact, contribute to a distinct worsening of the political situation in Scotland, and set off a more difficult period for Lauderdale.

Following the fall of Clifford in the summer of 1673 Lauderdale was one of those credited with having supported the succession to the lord treasurership of Thomas Osborne, later earl of Danby and ultimately duke of Leeds, in preference to Arlington. TNA, PRO 31/3/128, pp. 76-77. He was appointed in July one of the new commission for the admiralty following York’s resignation as lord high admiral. But the French ambassador by now considered him to be ‘so mortally hated in parliament and at this court that it is enough for him to have an opinion to make all the others oppose it’. Ibid. pp. 88-90. The following month, it was reported that he had successfully negotiated with the king to sell the pension attached to his office as gentleman of the bedchamber, while retaining the place. By this it was thought he would receive £6,000 from the king, ‘a good bargain’. Verney ms mic. M636/26, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 17 July 1673; NLS, ms 7006, ff. 30-32. At the beginning of September, he was said to be one of those (with the duke of York and the duke of Monmouth) advising the king to delay summoning the English Parliament, too, contrary to Arlington’s recommendation, and possibly because of expectations of attacks on him. TNA, PRO 31/3/129, f. 24. Around the same time, Lauderdale met in London Gilbert Burnet, later bishop of Salisbury: his conversation with the young and ambitious divine, in which he asked his views on whether a Scots army might be used against the political opposition in England, indicates why suspicion about him was mounting in England. Though initially welcoming to Burnet, Lauderdale soon regarded him with suspicion, particularly when he turned up back in Scotland before the ensuing session of Parliament. Burnet, ii. 20-1, 32-3.

Parliament was expected to meet in Scotland in November, a few weeks after the English Parliament was due to assemble, on 20 Oct. 1673 (though the latter was prorogued for another week pending the arrival of the duke of York’s new wife). While Lauderdale prepared for the next session of the Scots Parliament, speculation continued that ‘if any sacrifice be offered the next session’ of the English Parliament, it would be him. Bodl. Tanner 42, f. 34. The French envoy, Colbert, reported being informed on 27 Oct. by Richard Vaughan, earl of Carbery [I] and Baron Vaughan in the English peerage, that Lauderdale was to be attacked during the coming session and that Parliament would insist on his recall to answer the charges against him relating to his perceived mismanagement in Scotland. TNA, PRO 31/3/129, ff. 53-58. By then Lauderdale had probably left for Scotland: he was still in London on 14 October, when he was due to meet Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey, but by the beginning of November he had returned to Scotland for the new parliamentary session, which began on the 12th. Add. 40860, f. 57. On 4 Nov. he reported back to the king how necessary it had been to send someone ‘to quiet the minds and secure the peace’ of the kingdom following a resurgence of religious and political dissent. His principal concern, though, was the evident co-ordination between his enemies in London and Edinburgh and he noted that ‘the disaffected here have divers sorts of correspondents at London, which much hardens them’. He was proved correct when, at the opening of the Parliament on 12 Nov. William Douglas Hamilton, 3rd duke of Hamilton, asserted his leadership of the discontents by demanding that the Parliament discuss grievances—copying what had just taken place at Westminster—before it moved to other business. Lauderdale, stunned by this turn of events, wrote on the following day to his brother, Hatton, that he had ‘met with such a spirit as I thought never to have seen here, which makes me with the more assurance repeat what I hinted before in my first coming into the kingdom, that there have been industrious tamperings from London here’. Burnet evidently fell under suspicion for precisely this reason. Lauderdale Pprs. ii (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxiv) 237, 241; Burnet, ii. 32-3; MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament, 124-9. During the following adjournment, a week after his report to his brother, Lauderdale informed the king that he had identified the leading figures in the opposition both in England and Scotland and that he had good reason ‘to believe the earl of Shaftesbury plotted long to get me out of this employment, and perhaps another who is about you who you know has long huffled [sic] at me’. Lauderdale Pprs. iii (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxvi) 16-17. Tweeddale, who had at first been ‘an underhand contriver’, also now came out into the open against his former ally. Lauderdale struggled to negotiate with his opponents during a series of adjournments; the last, on 2 Dec., put off another meeting until the end of January; in the interim, Hamilton and other of Lauderdale’s opponents, hot-footed it to London, leaving Edinburgh around 8 Dec., and obtaining a meeting with the king on the 28th. Lauderdale remained in Scotland, in an attempt to find a means to secure a more cooperative meeting of the Parliament. NAS, GD 406/1/2775; MacIntosh, Scottish Parliament, 129-33.

Hamilton and Lauderdale’s other opponents were clearly seeking to stimulate hostility to the commissioner in Westminster. The English Parliament, briefly prorogued on the 20th, had assembled at Westminster on 27 Oct. and promptly turned its attention to a series of grievances. On 4 Nov. Sir Robert Thomas^‡ moved for the question of ‘evil counsellors’ to be taken into consideration, naming Lauderdale. However, ‘the word was no sooner out of his mouth but the user of the black rod knocked at the door, and the serjeant gave notice of it to the Speaker, who forbade Sir Robert proceeding any further’. Grey, ii. 222-3. The Commons were summoned to the upper House, where the king adjourned the session until 7 January 1674. Undeterred by the failure of their first attempt to attack Lauderdale, his adversaries prepared themselves for January. Tweeddale drew up a new indictment of Lauderdale and at the same time it was noted that a ‘very powerful faction in Scotland’ was now being supported by Shaftesbury and his allies in England. NLS, ms 7025, f. 127; Bodl. Ms Eng. misc. 4, ff. 8-9. On 13 Jan. Lauderdale was ‘hunted in the House of Commons’. Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. to E. Verney, 15 Jan. 1674. Thomas gave the speech he had intended in November, supported by Sir Nicholas Carew, Sir Thomas Littleton, Lord St John, Sir Scrope Howe, and others. Lauderdale was charged with ‘endeavouring to infringe the laws of the land, and introducing arbitrary government’ by advising the king that royal edicts were equal with the law. His activities during The Civil War prior to his decision to join his fortunes with those of the king were also dredged up. After a long debate it was resolved nem. con. ‘that the king be addressed to remove Lauderdale from all his employments, and from his presence and councils, for ever; being a person obnoxious and dangerous to the government’. Grey, ii. 236-43; CJ ix. 292. A similar motion was made against Buckingham. It was anticipated that Arlington would be treated in like fashion, though it was observed out that he ‘falls more leisurely than they have done’. It was later reported that Arlington had the benefit of ‘many friends in the House else it had gone as hard with him as with the two dukes’. NLW, Wynn of Gwydir, 2676-77. The king responded the next day by writing to Lauderdale to assure him of his continuing ‘kindness to you, which nothing shall alter’. Lauderdale expressed his gratitude at the king’s ‘gracious letter’ which he regarded as ‘a sovereign cordial against the storm raised against me there’. Lauderdale Pprs. iii (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxvi) 22, 26. On 4 Feb. 1674 the Commons presented their formal censure of Lauderdale to the king, who assured them two days later of a speedy answer. CJ ix. 304. He made no further response, though, and on 24 Feb. prorogued Parliament until the autumn. An order to prorogue the Scottish Parliament was sent to Edinburgh, prompting Lauderdale to acknowledge ‘my joy for your proroguing your Parliament of Scotland, where mad motions were prepared against your service, but you have like yourself dashed them in a moment’. Eager to return south, he professed his willingness to rid the king ‘of the trouble of Scots Parliament, which I swear are now useless at the best’. Lauderdale Pprs. iii (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxvi) 36. The Scottish Parliament when it met on 3 Mar. was adjourned again to October.

Lauderdale finally departed Edinburgh in mid-April accompanied by ‘a very great train of nobility and gentry’, the city provost and ‘above 500 citizens’ as far as Berwick. Bodl. Ms Film 293, Folger Lib. Newdigate mss, LC 41. Soon after his arrival in London, the Scottish Parliament was dissolved, by proclamation issued on 19 May, and a number of his adversaries, including Tweeddale, put out of the council. Sir Ralph Verney thought Lauderdale had come back ‘in great state and is in great favour’. The French envoy echoed this, adding the detail of Tweeddale’s discomfiture. Writing on 4 June he observed that Tweeddale, ‘a declared enemy of this duke and who pursued him during the last sitting of Parliament, was yesterday chased from this Privy Council’. Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 4 June 1674; TNA, PRO 31/3/131, ff. 51-2. As a further mark of favour, as well as to help protect him from future assaults from the Commons, Lauderdale was granted the English earldom of Guilford. It was also speculated that Lauderdale’s stepdaughter was to marry Charles Fitzroy, earl of Plymouth, but this proved not to be the case. Verney ms mic. M636/27, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 11 June 1674. Towards the end of the year it was reported that Lauderdale and his duchess had been granted a pension of £3,000 and early in 1675 there were further rumours, this time that Lauderdale was to be sent to Spain as ambassador. Bodl. Carte 38, f. 221; NAS, GD 406/1/2921.

Earl of Guilford

Lauderdale took his seat as earl of Guilford on 10 Nov. 1674, introduced between Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, and William Wentworth, 2nd earl of Strafford. Parliament was then prorogued until the following April. In the interval, both Lauderdale and Danby were said to have been ‘irate’ at being kept in the dark about Arlington’s trip to Holland, which it was believed was intended to lay the groundworks for a marriage treaty between Princess Mary and the Prince of Orange. TNA, PRO 31/3/131, ff. 109-12. In advance of the new session Lauderdale was one of a select group of councillors appointed to meet with an equal number of bishops to determine the best ways to suppress Catholicism and bolster the Church of England, the result of which was a series of proclamations for enforcing the penal laws. By the beginning of February 1675 he was noted as ‘very zealous in his conversation among the bishops’ and ‘very sincere for the Church of England’. Bodl. Carte 72, ff. 257-58; Carte 38, ff. 252-3; Verney ms mic. M636/28, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 25 Jan. 1675. It was indicative of a further shift in Lauderdale’s views on ecclesiastical policy against any further concessions to Scottish Dissent, signalled by the return of Alexander Burnet as archbishop of Glasgow, and a new alliance with Archbishop Sharp of St Andrews. Paterson, Lauderdale, 214-15, 219-20. It also corresponded with reports of a falling out with York: a theme that was to persist over the coming years. There was also renewed talk of an expected attack on Lauderdale in the new session. NAS, GD 406/1/2844, 2849, 2925.

In early April Lauderdale was one of those assessed to be in favour of the non-resisting test. He returned to his place on the opening day of the session (13 Apr. 1675), after which he was present on every day except one. He was named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions as well as to the committee for the bill for preventing frauds and perjuries. On 21 Apr. he was also named to the committee for the bill for explaining the Act for preventing dangers which may happen from Popish recusants (the 1673 Test Act). On 14 Apr., the day after the opening of Parliament, the Commons returned to the offensive, appointing a committee to draw up an address to the king complaining at Lauderdale’s actions in Scotland and calling for his removal. One of those called to give evidence was Gilbert Burnet, described the previous December as ‘a mortal enemy’ to the duke. Verney ms mic. M636/28, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 14 Apr. 1675, Sir R. Verney to E. Verney, 3 Dec. 1674. Burnet testified before the committee that when he had sought Lauderdale’s assistance on behalf of his kinsmen in 1672 and had expressed his concern at the possibility of rebellion, Lauderdale had replied, ‘he could wish that those rogues would rebel, that he might send for some Irish Papists to suppress them’. Burnet subsequently refused to confirm his tale when called before the House, leaving the Commons to fall back on the earlier accusation that Lauderdale had proclaimed royal edicts to be superior to the law. The Commons agreed on 23 Apr. a new representation to the king calling on him to remove Lauderdale from his offices. Cobbett, Parl. Hist., iv. 683-5; Grey, iii. 15-19; Burnet, ii. 49-53. At the heart of their complaint was Lauderdale’s responsibility for the two Scottish militia acts. There were further complaints, particularly concerning Robert Murray’s imprisonment, which had initially been referred to by Burnet. On 5 May the House voted a further address against him. The king’s evasive answer to the first one, given on 7 May, told them that the first Militia Act had been passed in 1663, well before Lauderdale was commissioner for the Parliament, and that the other offence mentioned had been covered by the last act of general pardon. Lauderdale continue his attendance of the House for the remainder of the session unmolested. It was even speculated that Lauderdale was ‘so strong in the House’ that he would have a motion brought in for clearing him of all such aspersions ‘and so come off with honour’, though nothing of the kind appears to have been advanced. Verney ms mic. M636/28, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 28 Apr. 1675; NAS, GD 406/1/2729; NLS, MS 7007, f. 60. The king continued to indicate his own favour to Lauderdale. Paterson, King Lauderdale, 224. Lauderdale took his seat once more on 13 Oct. for the autumn 1675 session of Parliament. He was present on every possible sitting day. In the course of the session he was named to six committees in addition to the standing committees. On the penultimate day of the session, 20 Nov., he rallied to the court side to vote against the proposed address to the king requesting that Parliament be dissolved. According to one account the motion had been brought in after Lauderdale and a number of other court peers had left the chamber and Lauderdale only returned late in the day, having been engrossed in cards all afternoon, to help swing it for the court. Verney ms mic. M636/29, W. Fall to Sir R. Verney, 22 Nov. 1675.

The absence of a Parliament in Scotland after 1674 did not prevent the expression of political dissent there, and a series of issues—the rights of the faculty of advocates, the qualifications for membership of the convention of burghs—all had their origin in the suppression of Parliament. Hamilton was back in London in December 1675, making further complaints against Lauderdale; the corruption of Hatton, Lauderdale’s effective deputy in Scotland was a constant theme of complaint from many quarters. In July 1676 more of Lauderdale’s opponents, including Hamilton, were purged from the council following their further complaints about his Scottish regime. MacIntosh, Scottish Parliament, 144-9; Paterson, King Lauderdale, 224-6, 227-8.

During the long prorogation of the English Parliament Lauderdale had voted on 30 June 1676 with the majority in the trial of Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, finding him not guilty of murder. He took his seat in the House once more the following year on 15 Feb. 1677, after which he was present on just under 30 per cent of all sitting days (his attendance being interrupted by his return to Scotland following the adjournment). In advance of the session it was stated that efforts had been made to reconcile Lauderdale and Shaftesbury, but on 16 Feb. he intervened in the proceedings over whether or not to commit Buckingham to the Tower, telling the House that ‘he thought it was the custom of that House that a question being put, when one lord said aye and no lord said no, it was to pass for an order of the House’. No one sought to contradict him and the order for Buckingham’s commitment was drawn up accordingly. Add. 28045, f. 39; 27872, f. 32. Lauderdale was entrusted with two proxies in the course of the session. Between 24 Feb. and 19 Mar. he held Strafford’s and between 4 and 9 Apr. that of the duke of Monmouth. An assessment compiled by Shaftesbury in May listed Lauderdale as triply vile. In April Lauderdale acted as one of the assistants at the introduction of Danby and Henry Cavendish, 2nd duke of Newcastle, as garter knights and afterwards hosted a celebration at Ham House. NLS, MS 7008, f. 33.

That summer, Lauderdale returned to Scotland. According to Thomas Thynne, later Viscount Weymouth, Lauderdale intended to make the trip by sea ‘to avoid wearisome ceremony and public receptions’. Add. 75353, Thynne to Halifax, 8 June 1677. The journey was mainly concerned with the marriage of two of his step-daughters, though while in Scotland, Lauderdale looked for a new strategy to deal with the problem of religious and political dissent: his initial discussions with nonconformists made no progress, and having abandoned them he sought to raise a new, irregular, militia, the ‘Highland Host’, to suppress disorder, a project which would raise the political temperature of Scotland to new heights. Paterson, King Lauderdale, 228-34. Lauderdale seems to have sought leave to return to England after only a few months in Scotland: on 16 Oct. Danby informed him of the king’s satisfaction with his services while insisting that he ‘does believe for some time that you will be more useful to him in that place than here, so that though he leaves it to your discretion, he thinks your stay this winter may be best’. Bodl. MS Eng. Lett. c. 589, f. 192. In the event, raising and organizing the Host, and dealing with the mayhem it caused when let loose from January to April 1678, kept Lauderdale in Scotland, and it was not until the following summer that Lauderdale was able to return to England. On 29 Jan. 1678 he registered his proxy with William Maynard, 2nd Baron Maynard, which was vacated by the close of the session.

In his absence Lauderdale was the subject of yet another assault in the Commons. In the spring of 1678 a deputation led by Hamilton travelled to London to represent their grievances to the king. Having left Scotland without securing permission, though, they were at first denied an audience. An appeal to Monmouth secured them admission to the cabinet council. HMC Drumlanrig, i. 236. Lauderdale sent his own agents—Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh and Alexander Burnet—down to London to respond to their argumentsThe Commons proved far more receptive to their complaints. On 27 Apr. Ormond was advised that some ‘of the faction against the court in the House seem inclined to favour the Scotch complaining lords, and wonder his majesty does not let them be heard’. HMC Ormonde, iv. 140. The new session opened, with Lauderdale absent, on the 29th. On 7 May, the Commons resorted to the by now familiar expedient of an address seeking Lauderdale’s dismissal. Debate continued into the following day, with a series of divisions. On this occasion Lauderdale’s supporters, led by Thomas Dalmahoy^‡, succeeded in making an amendment to the address in a division of 161 votes to 157 which may have had the effect of rendering it incoherent. An attempt to recommit it was then rejected by the Speaker. On the 10th, however, it was agreed to add a line about Lauderdale to a general, omnibus address about advisers. CJ ix. 477; Lauderdale Pprs. iii (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxvi) 134. This elicited an infuriated response from Charles in a speech to the Lords only on 13 May, who promptly ordered a brief prorogation ‘in hopes they will consider better what they ought to do at their return’. CJ ix. 480; Cobbett, Parl. Hist. iv. 977.

In late May the Scots delegation, now backed by York, tried once more to present their grievances to the king. NAS, GD406/1/8095. The king continued to support Lauderdale, and they found themselves wrongfooted by the summoning of a Convention of Estates in their absence, intended to raise the money to pay for the Host. They hastened back to Scotland, but the elections to the body, held on 7 June, had already taken place before they could return. The Convention itself assembled on 26 June, and despite the efforts of Hamilton and his allies (now often referred to as ‘the Party’) to object to those who had been elected, and arguments against the supply bill over which Hamilton led a walkout of the chamber, Lauderdale had secured a grant of supply by 11 July. The Estates was formally dissolved that day. MacIntosh, Scottish Parliament, 156-70. Shortly after, the king congratulated him on his success, granted him leave to return to London, and assured him of his continuing favour: ‘you need not in the least fear your enemies shall have more credit with me to your prejudice than they have hitherto had, but that you shall always find [me] your true friend.’ Lauderdale Pprs. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxvi) 159. Lauderdale, though, recognized that the efforts of Hamilton in London had done him some damage in the eyes of the king. Paterson, King Lauderdale, 244; R. Hutton, Charles II, 354.

Lauderdale returned to London in mid-August ‘in pomp’. Verney ms mic. M636/31, J. Verney to Sir R. Verney, 22 Aug. 1678. He took his seat in the House when it sat on 29 Aug. when the session was prorogued to the beginning of October. He was present again at a further prorogation on 1 Oct. and at the opening of the new session on 21 Oct. when he was named to the standing committees. He was also entrusted with the proxy of Edward Ward, 2nd Baron Ward. Two days later he was named to the committee to consider papers relating to the Popish Plot. Lauderdale joined Danby in speaking against the motion for York to be asked to withdraw from the king’s presence on 2 November. On 15 Nov. he supported the inclusion of the declaration against transubstantiation within the Test Act. HEHL, HM 30315 (180). On 26 Nov. he was named to the committee discussing the bill for maintaining the peace by raising the militia and on 12 Dec. to that for the bill for preventing the children of Catholic recusants from being sent overseas. Towards the end of December, Lauderdale voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill. The following day he opposed committing his close ally Danby.

Following the close of the session, Lauderdale claimed to have ‘turned the scale’ in a debate in council over whether or not to prorogue Parliament to a later date than first intended. A separate report suggested that Lauderdale’s influence was declining and that he had ‘fallen off’ from supporting the embattled Danby. Bodl. Carte 243, f. 436; HMC Ormonde, n.s. iv. 315. In each of a series of assessments compiled by Danby at the beginning of March 1679, however, Lauderdale is noted as a likely supporter in the coming proceedings against the imprisoned earl. Lauderdale attended six days of the abortive session of 6 Mar. 1679 before taking his seat once more on 15 March. He was thereafter present on 98 per cent of all sitting days. On 19 Mar. he contributed to the debate on the impeachment of the imprisoned peers and on 21 Mar. spoke in favour of allowing Danby to remain at liberty until the time originally granted him. His support for the former lord treasurer continued on 1 Apr. when he spoke and voted against the early stages of the bill for attainting him; and in the ensuing divisions of 2 Apr., when he voted against the committal of the bill, and on 4 and 14 April. Danby wrote to thank him for his support. Bodl. Carte 228, ff. 229-30; Add. 28046, ff. 50, 53; Browning, Danby, ii. 77-8. On 10 May he voted against appointing a committee of both Houses to consider how best to proceed against the imprisoned lords.

By then Lauderdale was operating in an increasingly hostile political world. The creation of a new English Privy Council in April exposed him to much more open criticism. He was again subject to attack in the Commons. That he no longer expected the same level of protection from the king is indicated by a comment made by Edward Conway, earl of Conway, at the beginning of May. Reporting a dinner with Lauderdale, Conway recorded that the duke ‘expects to march off’ and that the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham, expected to do the same. HMC Hastings, ii. 387-88. On 6 May the Commons resolved once again to submit an address to the king seeking Lauderdale’s removal from his offices and from all other places of trust. Hants. RO, Jervoise mss, 44M69/F5/3/10. The address, reported by Sir John Trevor and agreed by the House on 8 May, claimed that the House was ‘sensibly affected with trouble to find such a Person (notwithstanding the repeated Addresses of the last Parliament) continued in your councils at this time, when the affairs of your kingdom require none to be put into such Employments but such as are of known abilities, interest, and esteem’. It was ignored for a long time: the lack of a response was raised on 12 May and it eventually received a curt response from the king. According to one newsletter Charles reiterated that Lauderdale was ‘wholly innocent of what they imputed to him, and so it is now hoped that great storm is over.’ NAS, GD 157/2681/3. The Commons were said to be considering ‘something extraordinary and very different from an address’ as they continued their campaign to have Lauderdale removed. A delay in compiling material for this latest initiative meant, though, that proceedings were brought to a halt by the prorogation on 27 May (on which day he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases). Lauderdale was one of a handful of ministers blamed for counselling the king to terminate the session. HMC Ormonde, n.s. iv. 518. NLS ms. 14407 f. 77.

Events at Westminster took place against a background of escalating violence against the government in Scotland, most notably Archbishop Sharp’s murder on 17 May, culminating in the outbreak of open rebellion at the end of the month, and the routing of a party of dragoons at Drumclog on 1 June. Paterson, King Lauderdale, 248-9. Though York was no friend to Lauderdale, towards the end of May the duke wrote from Brussels offering his opinion that the king should continue Lauderdale in Scotland and Ormond in Ireland. This he considered would ‘make men of estates consider well before they engage against the king’. HMC Dartmouth, i. 34. The events in Scotland, however, increased the clamour against Lauderdale. Hamilton and Tweeddale drafted more complaints against him in June. NAS, GD 406/2/B635/10. On 9 June, it was reported that the council had met twice to discuss the rebellion, with Lauderdale on both occasions coming in for severe criticism: both times, the king continued to back him ‘to the wonder of everybody’, though Anglesey recorded in his diary for 16 June how he had been present at council that day, ‘where all but I were mealy mouthed in Duke Lauderdale’s concern’. Sidney Diary, i. 5; Add. 18730, f. 56. Sir William Coventry^‡ queried whether the constant pressure might not induce Lauderdale to retire, ‘for certainly this cannot end with any good to him, if he stand out’. Add. 75362, Sir W. Coventry to Halifax, 16 June 1679. Monmouth, who left London in the middle of the month for Scotland to suppress the rebellion, was said to resent the way in which Lauderdale’s management of affairs in Scotland had left him with ‘great arrears of rent’. HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 135. Monmouth’s success, defeating the rebels at Bothwell Brig on 22 June, was seen by his opponents as weakening Lauderdale’s standing with the king further: ‘surely these accidents will at last cure my master of his infinite passion for his beautiful paramour of Lauderdale’, wrote Henry Savile from Paris on 5 July NS. Savile Corresp. 105. Certainly, on 14 July the king held a conference at Windsor at which the complaints of Hamilton and his associates were fully aired. Though Lauderdale survived it, thanks largely to a robust defence from Sir George Mackenzie, it was generally taken to show that Lauderdale was unlikely to survive for much longer. He took the precaution of taking out a pardon in late September. MacIntosh, Scottish Parliament, 182-3; Add. 70081, newsletter, 18 Sept. 1679; HMC Ormonde n.s. iv. 541, v. 211.

Lauderdale did not travel to Scotland with York that October when the latter took up his post as governor of the kingdom. He may have tried to portray York’s appointment as taken on his advice, since Sir Robert Southwell wrote to Ormond that he had been told ‘in great secret’ that it was Secretary Coventry, and not Lauderdale, who had suggested it. Add. 70081, newsletter, 23 Oct. 1679; Verney ms mic. M636/33, Dr W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 30 Oct. 1679. James’s presence in Edinburgh inevitably affected his power in Scotland; and dependent in part on his royal pension, retrenchment at court sapped Lauderdale’s ability to entertain as lavishly as formerly. A report of the middle of January 1680 noted that he excused himself to his guests ‘that his table was no better’ owing to the king’s decision to cease paying out pensions. Bodl. Carte 243, f. 429. Lauderdale remained theoretically in office as secretary, although displaced as commissioner, and his reach was still thought to be significant: the removal of Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, from office was believed by some to have been Lauderdale’s work; if nothing else it was widely put about that Lauderdale and Sunderland had ‘irreconcilably fallen out’. Bodl. Carte 39, f. 127. But having suffered a collapse in his health in the spring of 1680, he finally resigned his position as secretary of state for Scotland in September and retreated to Bath. NLS ms 14407, f. 65; Bodl. Carte 39, f. 198; Carte 232, f. 82. On 13 Sept., prior to his departure for Bath, he wrote from his Surrey residence, Ham House, for ‘an ample and full exoneration and discharge’ to be drawn up covering his activities in office, mindful that an earlier document (presumably the pardon drawn up the previous year) had been defective. University of St Andrews Library, Dysart pprs. MS CS468.D9 26; HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 211; Eg. 3331, f. 122.

Lauderdale’s diminished role was evident at the time of the second Exclusion Parliament. Although he was present in the Lords for the opening day (21 Oct.) and subsequently attended well over three quarters of all sitting days, on 26 Oct. Thomas Belasyse, 2nd Viscount (later Earl) Fauconberg, informed Tweeddale that ‘Lauderdale concerns not himself at all in our affairs, nor has been at council since he divested himself of his secretaryship’. Fauconberg repeated the assessment later in the session, observing that the duke ‘makes no figure here at all’. NLS ms 14407, f. 73. On 15 Nov. Lauderdale voted to reject the exclusion bill at first reading and on 23 Nov. he rejected the motion for appointing a committee of both Houses to meet to consider the state of the kingdom. His last act of note was to vote in favour of the attainder of William Howard, Viscount Stafford.

Lauderdale failed to attend the Oxford Parliament, though a pre-sessional forecast suggested that had he done so he would have supported a motion for Danby to be bailed from the Tower. His retirement from affairs failed to protect his former allies who were gradually stripped of their offices. According to one of Northampton’s correspondents, writing in the autumn of 1681, ‘Lauderdale’s party in Scotland are either already displaced from their employments or intended to be. I fear the duke is not gratefully used; but there is a knack in it, and we are not anywhere in this false age to expect gratitude’. Castle Ashby MS, 1092, newsletter, 27 Oct. 1681. Rumours of proceedings against him and his wife dogged him to the end. In April 1682 it was reported that although no articles were anticipated at that time, there was ‘sufficient proof’ that his duchess had received £22,000 from the city of Edinburgh. Bodl. Carte 232, ff. 99-100. Lauderdale died that summer at Tunbridge Wells, where he had spent much of his retirement. Writing from Windsor on 25 Aug. 1682 Ormond announced the death as having occurred either ‘last night or early this morning’. Bodl. Rawl. letters 23, f. 93; HMC Ormonde, vi. 429. His funeral was delayed until the following April, 1683. On 6 Apr. his brother, Charles, who had succeeded to his Scottish earldom but not the dukedom nor the English peerage, communicated an account of the event, which was held at Haddington, to Lauderdale’s widow. The duke had been laid to rest in St Mary’s church at 5 in the afternoon, ‘next to his father’s body but raised higher upon a base of stone made of purpose’. The ceremony was attended by ‘two thousand horse at least: insomuch that they filled the highway for full four miles in length, there was 25 coaches’. Neither Tweeddale nor Yester attended, which some considered ‘strange carriage’. Lauderdale Pprs. iii (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxvi) 231.