Note 566 — Chapter XI

Journals, June 14, etc.; Parl. Hist. 209; Life of Clarendon, 71; Burnet, 230. A bill discharging the loyalists from all interest exceeding three per cent. on debts contracted before the wars passed the Commons; but was dropped in the other house. The great discontent of this party at the indemnity continued to show itself in subsequent sessions. Clarendon mentions, with much censure, that many private bills passed about 1662, annulling conveyances of lands made during the troubles. Pp. 162, 163. One remarkable instance ought to be noticed, as having been greatly misrepresented. At the Earl of Derby's seat of Knowsley in Lancashire a tablet is placed to commemorate the ingratitude of Charles II. in having refused the royal assent to a bill which had passed both houses for restoring the son of the Earl of Derby, who had lost his life in the royal cause, to his family estate. This has been so often reprinted by tourists and novelists, that it passes currently for a just reproach on the king's memory. It was, however, in fact one of his most honourable actions. The truth is, that the cavalier faction carried through parliament a bill to make void the conveyances of some manors which Lord Derby had voluntarily sold before the restoration, in the very face of the act of indemnity, and against all law and justice. Clarendon, who, together with some very respectable peers, had protested against this measure in the upper house, thought it his duty to recommend the king to refuse his assent. Lords' Journals, Feb. 6 and May 14, 1662. There is so much to blame in both the minister and his master, that it is but fair to give them credit for that which the pardonable prejudices of the family interested have led it to mis-state.