Note 28 — Chapter XXXVIII · CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL. 1667-1674

10. Ashley's Policy.—Anthony Ashley Cooper,[28] who had been created Lord Ashley since the Restoration, had changed sides again and again during the late troubles. He was a born party-leader, and had signalised himself as a youth at Exeter College, Oxford, by leading a successful revolt of the freshmen against the older undergraduates, who, according to custom, tried to skin the chins of the freshmen and to force them to drink a nauseous compound prepared for the occasion. Though in party conflict he was quite unscrupulous and despised no means which would enable him to gain his ends, he had the statesmanlike qualities of common sense and moderation. He had deserted Charles I. when he leant upon the Catholics (see p. 541), had supported Cromwell in his struggle with the zealots of the Barebone's Parliament (see p. 566), and had left him when he rejected the constitutional scheme of the first Parliament of the Protectorate (see p. 570). In disgust at the humours of the Rump and the army, he had done everything in his power to hasten the Restoration, and had soon shown hostility to Clarendon and to the persecuting laws of the Cavalier Parliament. In fact, there were two principles to which he was never entirely false, a love of Parliamentary government and a love of toleration, which last was based, not as was that of Oliver, upon sympathy with religious zeal of every kind, but upon dislike of clerical interference. At present he attached himself to Charles, because he knew of Charles's alleged wish to establish toleration, and knew nothing of the conspiracy against Parliament on which Charles had embarked, or of Charles's secret design to favour the Roman Church under cover of a general scheme of toleration.