by Jane Dunn
There was, however, one major change in William and Dorothy’s fortunes that gave him a greater freedom to follow his own wishes. His much admired and influential father having died, William could make all his major decisions without deferring to him and, having come into his inheritance, he and Dorothy were free of money worries at last. All their married life together they had existed largely on an income of £500 a year. Certainly his inheritance did not make them immensely rich but the estates in Ireland were well worth having and the hereditary job of Master of the Rolls in Ireland (fulfilled by a deputy) brought with it significant revenue, running to an extra £900 a year. William had returned from all his embassies with enormous arrears owed him by a king notoriously strapped for cash. This money was often not fully reimbursed, despite the assiduous charm of Dorothy, his highly esteemed debt collector. This time on his return from his last mission they worked out that they were owed the princely sum of £7,000,* £2,200 of which was never recovered.
William thought about the new job for three days before deciding he could not take it on: ‘it [was] a scene unfit for such actors as I knew myself to be’.54 However he did not wish to appear undutiful, or indeed ungrateful, to his king and so answered that he could not become secretary of state without being first a member of parliament. This seemed to satisfy the king and bought William time. He went to his house and garden at Sheen to recover his health and spirits. His friends had long tried to encourage him to take this position and petition for his just rewards. They felt his baronetcy was the very least of the honours he was due and were frustrated by his own lack of worldly ambition. Lord Halifax even joked that he would burn down William’s house at Sheen to force him back into business again. But nothing moved him.
The Restoration Parliament had been dissolved, having lasted longer than any other in history. The new parliament, the Short Parliament, as it was to be called, was about to sit, William not one of its members. As a result of the removal of his brother and his lord treasurer, surrounded as he was with violent factions in parliament and court, the king felt beleaguered and lacking in loyal support. Having always warmed to his person, while deploring his unprincipled shifts in foreign policy, William was touched by Charles’s rarely revealed vulnerability: ‘I never saw any man more sensible of the miserable condition of his affairs than I found his Majesty upon many discourses with him … But nothing he said to me moved me more, than when … he told me, he had none left, with whom he could so much as speak of them in confidence, since my Lord Treasurer’s[Danby] being gone.’55
Out of this sense of the king’s isolation, William discussed with him a plan to set up a Privy Council of thirty members, half of them the wealthy and the wise from among the country’s aristocracy and gentlemen, and the other half made up from the king’s chief officers. If Charles would decide on policy with the help of these counsellors then the idea was that parliament might be more reconciled. Parliament was not impressed by the idea, being much more exercised by the whole problem of the succession, brought to a head by the fever of the Popish Plot. The majority of the Commons and many of the Lords were strongly convinced that an exclusion act was needed to safeguard the Protestant religion by outlawing any Catholic succeeding to the throne. This would expressly ban James, Charles’s brother and legitimate heir, from becoming king.
William was not one of those in favour of the exclusion of James: suddenly his own famous moderation was seen as something dangerous, even sinister. There was talk of impeaching William, charging him with being in favour of absolute monarchy and Catholicism, apparently promulgated in books published anonymously by him. William in fact was urged to publish his essays, which he did as Miscellanea, part one, in 1679, to prove that his writings were not subversive after all. But he did show great courage and principle in the middle of all this nastiness by having a stand-up row with his friend Lord Halifax about the legality of executing Catholic priests merely to appease the populace: ‘[Halifax] told me, if I would not concur in points which were so necessary for the people’s satisfaction, he would tell every body I was a papist.’56
Everything was in disarray. In order to stop the progress of the Exclusion Bill Charles dissolved this parliament in the middle of July: it had lasted only four months and thus became the Short Parliament. By October a new parliament was elected and this time William joined it as MP for Cambridge University. This parliament, however, was as obdurately set on pushing through the Exclusion Bill as the last one had been and William, who had less and less appetite for the power struggles and bitterness and knew his intervention was to no avail, kept away from the debates. Instead, he spent as much time as he could in his London house in Pall Mall during the winter and at Sheen for the summer. In reply to a query as to why he was so much absent, William said, ‘it was upon Solomon’s advice, neither to oppose the mighty, nor go about to stop the current of a river’.57
Although a friend to James and personally not a great supporter of his exclusion, William was not an unequivocal supporter of the opposition either, for he cherished the overriding belief in the necessity of the king and his people being in agreement, otherwise the spectre of civil war, too recent and terrible a memory, threatened. In January 1681 Charles once more dissolved his fractious parliament and, trying to break the power of the Exclusionists who were based in London, he ordered a new one should meet at Oxford. Those in favour of the bill were to become known as the Whigs and those against were the Tories.*
This was William’s chance to retire gracefully at last from a hectic scene in which he, a moderate and libertarian, no longer felt he had a place. Half-heartedly he asked his king if he should stand again for parliament and Charles agreed with him: ‘considering how things stood at this time, he doubted my coming into the House would be able to do much good; and therefore he thought it as well for me to let it alone; which I said I would do.’ William left town as fast as he could for his paradise at Sheen. He sent his son John with a message for Charles: ‘I would pass the rest of my life as good a subject as any he had; but that I would never meddle any more with any public affairs; and desired his Majesty would not be displeased with this resolution.’ Charles sent back a gracious reply, ‘that he was not angry with me, no not at all’.58
Martha described her brother’s temperament as naturally optimistic and easy-going, generous towards others, his wit and warmth extended to everyone, ‘soe yt no body was welcomer in all company’. But frustration, disappointment and betrayal exacerbated the fluctuations in his mood and propensity to depression:
His humor naturally gay, but a great deal unequal, sometimes by cruel fitts of spleen and melancholy, often upon great damps in the weather, but most from the cross & surpriseing turns in his business, & cruel disappointments he met with soe often in (what nobody ever had more at heart) the contributing to the honnour & service of his country; wch he thought himselfe two or three times so near compassing he could not thinke with patience of what had hindred it, nor of those that he thought had bin the occasion of it.59
William Temple has been criticised, most notably by the great nineteenth-century Whig historian Macaulay, for refusing to take sides in this central but thorny debate about the Exclusion Bill, retiring instead to self-satisfied leisure in his gardens at Sheen. But William had always been a man who knew his limitations. He was not good with intrigue and power politics, nor could he veil his true feelings or spout the doctrine of the day. A remarkable quality and one that militated against his advancement throughout his life was his lukewarm ambition for material advancement and his lack of reverence for power. Yet he chose to give his all to those people and ideals in which he believed. He was loyal to his king and deeply patriotic about his country, exhausting himself in its service and asking nothing in return. Basically content, William merely recognised the value of what he had, a devoted family, a garden, a library and, after two decades in public office, an intact reputation as an honest and incorruptible man. His answer to the kind of criticism Ma
caulay made was typical: ‘The two greatest mistakes among mankind are, to measure truth by every man’s single reason; and not only to wish every body like one’s self, but to believe them so too … Both the effect of natural self-love. Men come to despise one another, by reckoning they have all the same ends with him that judges, only proceed foolishly towards them; when indeed their ends are different.’60
Indeed it might have been a kind of egotism in William that made him unwilling to compromise his ideals, so protective always of his reputation for fidelity and honesty, but he was unique among the men around the king at this time in being quite untainted by any corruption, self-seeking action or even interest in attaining his just rewards. All he could be accused of was some mild boasting about his quite considerable diplomatic achievements – although their effects proved fleeting – and the esteem in which he was held by everyone, from working man to monarch.
William and Dorothy were fifty-two and fifty-three years old when he decided his public life was over. Dorothy was never so adamantly set against town life as her husband and would occasionally go to their London house, conveniently situated in Pall Mall and close to St James’s Park, to see friends like Lady Sunderland. But William was absolutely true to his determination to retire to his garden. He was visited at Sheen by old friends and new, and entertained them with enthusiasm and grace, but he did not set foot in London for the next five years.
Writing in his library some years on, William admitted to the all-embracing pleasures of home:
since my resolution taken of never entering again into any public employments, I have passed five years without ever going once to town, though I am almost in sight of it, and have a house there always ready to receive me. Nor has this been any sort of affectation, as some have thought it, but a mere want of desire or humour to make so small a remove; for when I am in this corner, I can truly say with Horace,*
Me when the cold Digentian stream revives,
What does my friend believe I think or ask?
Let me yet less possess, so I may live,
Whate’er of life remains, unto myself.
May I have books enough, and one year’s store,
Not to depend upon each doubtful hour;
This is enough of mighty Jove to pray,
Who, as he pleases, gives and takes away.61
* * *
* Ciaran Murray has puzzled out the etymology, from a suggestion by E.V. Gatenby, who surmised that sharawadgi was in fact classical Japanese. The form sorowaji ‘does not match’ had died out 100 years before William Temple’s time. ‘It had stayed alive in the dialect of Kyushu. Now if you try to pronounce sorowaji in Kyushu-ben, what do you get? Shorowaji. And if you try to pronounce shorowaji in Dutch, you get what Temple got – sharawaji.’ ‘A Borrowed Vista’, Kyoto International Cultural Association newsletter, 27, p. 24.
* Jean-François Gerbillon S.J. (1654–1707) was learned in mathematics, cartography and philosophy. His book as a result of his time spent in China in the late 1680s was eventually published in English translation in 1736, entitled The General History of China. Interestingly, the admiration for foreign gardens was reciprocal. Emperor Qianlong was so impressed by western-style gardens, especially the tight formalism of Versailles, that he commissioned some palaces and gardens to be built in the French way in Beijing.
† William Kent (c.1685–1748), architect, landscape gardener and furniture designer, is best remembered as the architect who revived the Palladian style in England, building most notably the Treasury and Horse Guards in Whitehall. He was an originator of the English landscape garden. Horace Walpole called him the father of modern gardening.
* Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1716–83) was the English landscape gardener, designer of over 170 parks and gardens, many of which still exist as grand settings for great country houses. His work was controversial, and there were many who thought it philistine to tear up formal gardens to return them to imitations of wild nature, but his reputation remains undimmed.
† Joseph Addison (1672–1719), essayist, literary editor, playwright and politician. The son of the dean of Lichfield, he was a charming and witty intellectual who became a prominent member of the cultural and political Kit-Kat Club. Contributor and co-editor of the Tatler and the Spectator, his stylish articles contributed to the extraordinary success of these periodicals. He had a lasting success with his classical tragedy Cato (1713); after seeing the play more than once, George Washington adopted the Roman statesman as a presidential role model and even quoted some lines from the play in his farewell address.
* Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich (1625–72). A sailor and diplomat, he had worked for Cromwell in his naval campaigns and then successfully transferred his allegiance to the royalists and had been involved in escorting Charles II back to England. Ambassador fleetingly to Portugal and then Spain, he was in command of the British navy in the Battle of Sole Bay when he was killed. Evelyn considered him ‘Learned in the Mathematics, in Musique, in Sea affaires, in Political … was of a sweete obliging temper; sober, chast, infinitly ingenious, & a true noble man, an ornament to the Court, & his Prince, nor has he left any that approch his many Virtues behind him’.
* At this time there were two secretaries of state; the senior one was for the southern territory, covering southern England, Wales and Ireland and the American colonies as well as the Catholic countries of Europe and the Muslim states. The secretary of state for the northern territories was responsible for northern England, Scotland and the northern European countries.
† Sir Joseph Williamson (1633–1701), politician and second president of the Royal Society. He had had to buy his position from the previous secretary of state and never failed to make what money he could from his official positions, eventually becoming very rich and leaving £6,000 and his library to his old alma mater, Queen’s College, Oxford.
* Sir Thomas Osborne (1631–1712), a statesman whose escalating honours (1st Earl of Danby, 1st Marquis of Carmarthen, 1st Duke of Leeds) revealed his political stamina and agility. A friend and tennis partner of William’s in their youthful travels in France and a suitor of Dorothy’s, his career and ambitions differed from William’s and their intimacy dissipated. Implicated in the Popish Plot of 1678 he was imprisoned. A leading member of the ‘Immortal Seven’ who invited William of Orange to become the next king, he became chief minister from 1690, was made a duke four years later but his career ended the following year when he was impeached for accepting a bribe.
† Sir John Reresby (1634–89), politician, author and Yorkshire gentleman.
* Louis II de Bourbon, 4th Prince of Condé (1621–86). As head of the mighty Bourbons he was immensely rich, influential and proud, a leader when he was young in the series of aristocratic uprisings, the Fronde (1648–53). He went on to become one of Louis XIV’s greatest generals, arrogant, ruthless but also cultured and full of courage – Madame de Scudéry used him as a model for the hero in her romantic epic that so thrilled Dorothy in her youth, Artamène ou Le Grand Cyrus (1649–53).
* Hans Willem Bentinck (1645–1709), 1st Earl of Portland. Prince William had been friends with him since they were children but never forgot his devotion during his attack of smallpox and from that point existed an enduring friendship, even love. He came to England with William when he invaded in 1688 and was rewarded with titles and land from the new king. He joined William in the field and was also made ambassador to France. As a foreigner and a richly rewarded royal favourite he was not popular in England but died in his great house, Bulstrode House in Buckinghamshire, aware that he had established his family among the rich landed English aristocracy. He married as his second wife the widowed niece of William Temple, Jane Martha Berkeley (née Temple) in 1700, shortly after William’s death. She was twenty-eight and he fifty-one: they had six surviving children in the nine years before his death.
* The secretary of stateship on this reckoning was worth nearly £1,500,000 in today’s currency.
> * Louis de Rouvroy, due de Saint-Simon (1675–1755). Soldier and diplomat, he was the godson of Louis XIV and grew up at Versailles. His brilliant memoirs are invaluable for the light they throw on his king and his time.
* John Crowne (c.1640–1703), playwright, who was influenced by Molière and preferred to explore the states of mind of his characters rather than mere plot. His acquaintance with the Earl of Rochester gained him a commission to write Calisto as a masque for Charles II’s court. The king commended it but his plays were soon forgotten, except for a comedy about a histrionic fop, whose name prefigures one of Harry Enfield’s characters, Sir Courtly Nice, or It Cannot Be (1685), that entertained audiences well into the next century. It has occasionally been revived since then, the latest being at the Young Vic in 1990.
* Titus Oates (1649–1705) trained as a Protestant clergyman but was mentally unstable, and was sacked or expelled from various schools and then offices, for blasphemy, drunkenness and homosexual acts. He converted to Catholicism but soon his behaviour meant he was expelled from Jesuit college. His story of Catholic conspiracy suited the fears of the time and suddenly, in 1678, he was courted by parliament and his accusations believed, even though there were obvious holes in his story. By then the conspiracy had gained a momentum of its own. Oates was not charged and tried until 1684, when he was found guilty of perjury and imprisoned for life.
* Cosimo III de’Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1642–1723), born in Florence, became a great traveller in his youth and his travel writings were well known. He met William Temple in the United Provinces at least twice and their friendship dated from then. Once he had succeeded to his father’s dukedom in 1670, however, the bitter antipathy between his wife and mother drove his wife away and left his mother, Vittoria, in the driving seat. Under her influence his rule became religiously fanatical, irrational and retrogressive. His homosexual son and heir Gian Gastone, an even greater disaster as ruler, was the last of the Medici grand dukes, dying in 1737.