Note 645 — Chapter XI · (continued 2)

As no one, who regards with attachment the present system of the English constitution, can look upon Lord Clarendon as an excellent minister, or a friend to the soundest principles of civil and religious liberty; so no man whatever can avoid considering his incessant deviations from the great duties of an historian as a moral blemish in his character. He dares very frequently to say what is not true, and what he must have known to be otherwise; he does not dare to say what is true. And it is almost an aggravation of this reproach, that he aimed to deceive posterity, and poisoned at the fountain a stream from which another generation was to drink. No defence has ever been set up for the fidelity of Clarendon's history; nor can men, who have sifted the authentic materials, entertain much difference of judgment in this respect; though, as a monument of powerful ability and impressive eloquence, it will always be read with that delight which we receive from many great historians, especially the ancient, independent of any confidence in their veracity.

One more instance, before we quit Lord Clarendon for ever, may here be mentioned of his disregard for truth. The strange tale of a fruitless search after the restoration for the body of Charles I. is well known. Lord Southampton and Lindsey, he tells us, who had assisted at their master's obsequies in St. George's chapel at Windsor, were so overcome with grief, that they could not recognise the place of interment; and, after several vain attempts, the search was abandoned in despair. Hist. of Rebellion, vi. 244. Whatever motive the noble historian may have had for this story, it is absolutely incredible that any such ineffectual search was ever made. Nothing could have been more easy than to have taken up the pavement of the choir. But this was unnecessary. Some at least of the workmen employed must have remembered the place of the vault. Nor did it depend on them; for Sir Thomas Herbert, who was present, had made at the time a note of the spot, "just opposite the eleventh stall on the king's side." Herbert's Memoirs, 142. And we find from Pepys's Diary, Feb. 26, 1666, that "he was shown, at Windsor, where the late king was buried, and King Henry VIII. and my Lady Seymour." In which spot, as is well known, the royal body has twice been found, once in the reign of Anne, and again in 1813.