Admiralty were two distinguished members of the House of Commons, William Sacheverell, a veteran Whig, who had great authority in his party, and Sir John Lowther, an honest and very moderate Tory, who in fortune and parliamentary interest was among the first of the English gentry.[1]
Mordaunt, one of the most vehement of the Whigs, was placed at the head of the Treasury; why, it is difficult to say. His romantic courage, his flighty wit, his eccentric invention, his love of desperate risks and startling effects, were not qualities likely to be of much use to him in financial calculations and negotiations. Delamere, a more vehement Whig, if possible, than Mordaunt, sate second at the board, and was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Two Whig members of the House of Commons were in the Commission, Sir Henry Capel, brother of that Earl of Essex who died by his own hand in the Tower, and Richard Hampden, son of the great leader of the Long Parliament. But the Commissioner on whom the chief weight of business lay was Godolphin. This man, taciturn, clearminded, laborious, inoffensive, zealous for no government and useful to every government, had gradually become an almost indispensable part of the machinery of the state. Though a churchman, he had prospered in a Court governed by Jesuits. Though he had voted for a Regency, he was the real head of a treasury filled with Whigs. His abilities and knowledge, which had in the late reign supplied the deficiencies of Bellasyse and Dover, were now needed to supply the deficiencies of Mordaunt and Delamere.[2]
There were some difficulties in disposing of the Great Seal. The King at first wished to confide it to Nottingham, whose father had borne it during several years with high reputation.[3] Nottingham, however, declined the trust; and it was offered to Halifax, but was again declined. Both these Lords doubtless
- ↑ London Gazette, March 11, 1688/9.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ I have followed what seems to me the most probable story. But it has been doubted whether Nottingham was invited to be Chancellor, or only to be First Commissioner of the Great Seal. Compare Burnet, ii. 3., and Boyer's History of William, 1702. Narcissus Luttrell repeatedly, and even as late as the close of 1692, speaks of Nottingham as likely to be Chancellor.
