the matter to a successful issue. Lady Temple, who was on intimate terms with Lady Villiers, the princess's governess, was fortunately able to satisfy the prince's curiosity on a number of small points, and in 1676 she went over to England and interviewed Danby concerning the matter (Temple Memoirs, ii. 345; Ralph, i. 336; Strickland, vii. 30 sq.). The negotiations, which were terminated by William's visit to England in September 1677 and his marriage a few weeks later, brought about a close rapprochement between Danby and Temple, and a gradual estrangement, due in part no doubt to jealousy, between Temple and Arlington. The strife between Danby and Arlington was already a source of vexation to the king; and when, during Temple's visit this summer, he pressed the secretaryship once more upon him (even offering himself to defray half the fees), it was probably in the hope that a man of Temple's character would be able to restore harmony as well as respectability to his council. He must have thought Temple's ultimate value great, or he would not have tolerated the portentous lectures which the statesman delivered for his benefit (cf. Memoirs, ii. 267).
Immediately after the wedding on 4 Nov., Temple hastened back to The Hague, his coming there being esteemed ‘like that of the swallow which brought fair weather with it.’ He was instructed to proceed without delay to the congress at Nimeguen, where Leoline Jenkins was acting as English plenipotentiary, but nervously craved for Temple's moral support. While there he heard of his father's death on 14 Nov. 1677, whereby the reversion of the Irish mastership of the rolls devolved upon him. A license to remain away from Ireland for three years was prepared and renewed in September 1680 and September 1685, when he appointed John Bennett of Dublin to be deputy clerk and keeper of the rolls; he did not finally surrender the post until 29 May 1696 (Lascelles, Liber Munerum Hiberniæ, 1824, ii. 20). In July 1678 Temple negotiated another treaty with the Dutch with the object of forcing France to evacuate the Spanish towns; but this separate understanding was neutralised by the treaty ratified at Nimeguen, whither he travelled for the last time in January 1679. He congratulated himself that in consequence of a formal irregularity his name was not affixed to a treaty the terms of which he thoroughly disapproved as being much too favourable to France. Extremely susceptible at all times to professional jealousy, Temple was greatly disconcerted during these negotiations by the activity of a diplomatic busybody called Du Cros, the political agent in London of the Duke of Holstein, but in the pay of Barillon. Temple subsequently referred slightingly in his ‘Memoirs’ to Du Cros, who rejoined in ‘A Letter … in answer to the impertinences of Sir W. Temple’ (1693). An anonymous ‘Answer,’ inspired, if not actually written, by Temple, appeared without delay, and two months later, in some interesting ‘Reflections upon two Pamphlets’ (the author of which professed to have been waiting in vain for Temple's own reply), the ‘unreasonable slanders’ of Du Cros were severely handled.
Upon his return to England in February 1679 the secretaryship of state was again pressed upon him, and he again refused it on the plea of waning health and the lack of a seat in parliament. He found that the personnel of the court had greatly changed, and that influences adverse to him were more powerful than formerly. Shaftesbury and Buckingham, Barillon and Lady Portsmouth were bitterly hostile, but their confidence as well as that of the king seemed possessed by Sunderland, upon whom the post seemed naturally to devolve. Under the circumstances it is hardly fair to accuse Temple of pusillanimity in declining it. Temple was popular as the bulwark of the policy of protestant alliance, and he knew that what was wanted was his name rather than his advice. He refused to barter away his good name.
The king, however, by adroit flattery managed in another way to obtain from Temple's reputation whatever fillip of popularity it was able to give to a thoroughly discredited administration. In April 1679 was put forth, as the outcome of a number of private interviews between Temple and the king, a scheme under Temple's sponsorship for a revival of the privy council. The numbers were now to be fixed at thirty (the number actually nominated appears to be thirty-three), who were to represent as completely as possible the conflicting interests of office and opposition, but above all the landed wealth of the country; and it was thus by its representative character to provide a bridge between a headstrong and autocratic executive and a discontented and obstructive assembly. Such a council, after having been nearly wrecked at the outset by the king's reluctance to admit Halifax, followed by his determination to include Shaftesbury, was actually constituted on 21 April 1679. The funds in Holland rose upon the receipt of the news that Temple's plan had been carried into effect, and Barillon was correspondingly displeased, in spite of Lady Portsmouth's
