the most influential of his advisers, though Clarendon was still in considerable favour; and Godolphin was, as he had been, Arlington's right-hand man. With them also was another of Locke's old school-fellows, Joseph Williamson, principal secretary of state in 1674, and now joint-secretary with Godolphin to Arlington. There was some, but apparently not much, intimacy between him. and Locke.

The session of parliament at Oxford, which lasted from the 9th till the 31st of October, was specially convened in order that an additional supply migh be obtained for carrying on the indefensible war with Holland that had been formally begun in February. If Locke, as may be almost taken for granted, sometimes attended the debates, his attention must have been roused by a curious discussion on the royal prerogative which sprang out of this business. The money asked for was readily voted; but there was considerable opposition to a proviso introduced into the bill, "to make all the money to be raised by this bill to be applied only to those ends to which it was given, which was the carrying on the war, and to no other purpose whatsoever, by what authority soever." The proviso was enforced, and the principle of "appropriation clauses," now such an important guarantee for the proper expenditure of public money, was for the first time established. Strange to say, however, the clause, introduced with Charles's concurrence, was approved by him all through the passage of the bill, and its chief opponents were Clarendon, Arlington, and Ashley, rivals banded together to preserve for the king a mischievous prerogative that he was quite willing to surrender. Charles may not have been shrewd enough to see the whole import of the innovation; but this is not the only occasion on

1665.

At. 33.

POLITICS AFTER THE RESTORATION.

99

which, contemptible as he was, he showed himself less tyrannical than his advisers.

One or two glaring instances of tyranny upon which both the king and his advisers were agreed cannot have escaped Locke's notice during this session at Oxford. The conventicle act having been passed in 1664, the high church party now secured a further triumph of bigotry over religious liberty by the passing of the five mile act, and only a majority of six prevented the adoption of another bill extending its monstrous provisions to all dissenting laymen as well as to all dissenting clergymen.

If, however, the brief Oxford session of parliament transacted business that must have helped to excite in Locke greater interest in political affairs than may have resulted from the distant and hardly reported proceedings in London, he probably saw the court in a much more favourable aspect than it generally presented in the metropolis. The Dutch war increased the work that had to be done by courtiers as well as by other folk; and the plague had thrown such gloom over the whole country, that even courtiers were not in the mood to play.

But Locke, hitherto for so long a time an almost constant resident at Oxford, only remained in it during the first five or six weeks of the royal stay in the town. The money voted, in October, 1665, towards the continuance of the war with Holland, was, of course, mainly required for the fitting out of new ships, and the renewing of munitions of all sorts in anticipation of fresh hostilities in the spring; but a portion of it was spent in diplomacy, and one of several small efforts to increase the strength of England by indirect means was an embassy to the elector of Brandenburg, whose territory was in immediate proximity to Holland, and whom it was

therefore desirable to keep neutral if he could not be secured as an active ally. This embassy was entrusted to Sir Walter Vane, and Locke was appointed to act as his secretary.

How the appointment came to be made is not recorded. But we need have no hesitation in assuming that it was effected either through the direct influence of William Godolphin or through Godolphin's introduction of Locke to Arlington and other leading men at court, perhaps to Charles the Second himself. As regards Locke, we can readily understand how willingly he accepted an offer enabling him, after so many years of studious retirement, to try his hand at public business, or, if the change of work was no attraction to him, to welcome the prospect which it afforded of a first visit to the continent. He evidently had not any thought, at this time, of abandoning his old pursuits. He probably considered that he would be able to resume those pursuits with new zest after a few months' occupation in other ways, and with the stock of fresh health and experience that it might be expected to bring him.

Sir Walter Vane was the fifth son of Sir Henry Vane the elder, who had been secretary of state to Charles the First, and was thus a younger brother of the Sir Henry Vane who was executed in 1662. He was a royalist, however, and during most, if not all, of the Commonwealth period he resided abroad. He was in Holland between 1654 and 1656, and often afterwards, and, having returned from one of these visits just before the new war was declared in the spring of 1665, his experience was found useful at court.' He was doubtless as serviceable a man as could be chosen for the work now assigned to him.

1 Domestic State Papers, Reign of Charles the Second, vol. cxvii., no. 18.

1665.

Et. 33..

ON AN EMBASSY TO BRANDENBURG.

101

About that work and its execution abundant information exists, as there has come down to us-besides the originals of twenty-six letters, chiefly in Locke's handwriting, but signed by Vane, to Ford Arlington and Joseph Williamson1-a letter book in which Locke had carefully copied several of these letters and several others addressed to Lord Clarendon, Sir William Morrice, and Sir William Coventry, along with all the replies to Vane's letters, forty in all, that were received from those various correspondents." But these letters are not of much interest to us. As to the public business to which they refer, it will be sufficient here to say that Vane, having been sent out to invite the friendly neutrality of Brandenburg, and to recommend neutrality as being to the advantage of the elector, no less than to that of the English king, received for answer that the elector was willing enough to remain neutral-or to be a fighting ally, for the matter of that, if King Charles would pay him well for it—but that he was not in the habit of showing friendship without a money return; and that, though Vane himself approved of the course hinted at, and urged the English government to bribe the Brandenburgers, his suggestion was not agreed to, and he was forced to return with nothing done, after remaining just two months in Cleve, and, perhaps, spending more than the 3007. that was allowed to him for the work.

One point is noteworthy in this correspondence. We find Vane writing for instructions indiscriminately to Lord Clarendon, Lord Arlington, and their subordinates, once,

1 Foreign State Papers, German States, series i., nos. 128-155. 2 Additional MSS., no. 16272, in the British Museum.

Domestic State Papers, Reign of Charles the Second, vol. cxlvi., no. 81.

in desperation, to King Charles himself, and in the same way receiving instructions indiscriminately from Arlington, Clarendon, and their subordinates. In a small matter like this there was not room for much confusion ; but it is easy to see what risks, in weightier business, would be incurred from such a redundance of masters, especially when the masters were jealous of one another, and when, as was often the case, the lord chancellor had to dictate his letters from the bed to which he was confined by the gout, and the secretary of state's letters were scribbled off in the ante-chamber of one or other of his own or his sovereign's mistresses.

The public import of this embassy, however, does not much concern us. The interest lies, not in Locke's first and last experiment in diplomatic service, but in his personal experiences during a winter visit to a quaint old town in the western valley of the Rhine, and to one of the most antiquated and pettifogging of German courts.1

1 Le Clerc says in his 'Eloge,' that "in 1664 Locke left England, and went to Germany as secretary to Sir William Swann, who was envoy of the king of England to the elector of Brandenburg, and some other German princes." Le Clerc mistook the year, and confounded Swann with Vane. Sir William Swann was envoy to the Hanse Towns, and resident at Hamburg, between 1662 and 1673, and a friend has called my attention to a letter signed by Swann, but writen by a secretary whose handwriting is somewhat like Locke's, dated March 22nd, 1664, among the Hamburg State Papers in the Record Office. The same handwriting, however, appears in several other letters of this series; the first dated November 3rd, 1663; when, as we have seen, Locke was certainly at Oxford. The handwriting, moreover, though superficially like Locke's, contains characteristic differences from his. Lord King correctly states that Locke went as secretary to Sir Walter Vane, instead of Sir William Swann; but he follows Le Clerc in giving the wrong year.