clear that he never expressed his disbelief in it, but, on the contrary, acted in full accord with its most violent assailers, when he joined them in pressing the king to dismiss James from the court (Collins, Peerage).
On the fall of Danby in 1679 the treasury was put in commission, and Essex was placed at its head (ib.) Along with Sunderland and Monmouth he now urged the king to try the experiment of an entire change of policy by introducing the leaders of the country party into the council. By thus acting independently of his party he appears to have incurred their jealousy. His own account to Burnet was that he hoped, by accepting office, to work the change that was now effected. The dismissal of the old council and the creation of a new one comprising the principal whigs from both houses, under the presidency of Shaftesbury, were, however, undoubtedly the results of Temple's advice. Essex was sworn a member of that council on 21 April; he declared that its creation would conciliate the parliament in its relations with the king. The whig party now was split up into two sections on the exclusion question. That led by Shaftesbury affirmed that to save England from the danger of a popish king the absolute exclusion of James was necessary; and it put forward Monmouth as its candidate for the throne. Essex, acting under the leadership of Halifax and Sunderland, proposed the scheme of limitations, whereby, when the crown should fall to him, James should be disabled from doing harm either in church or state, and these three, who formed the triumvirate, regarded the Prince of Orange, rather than Monmouth, as the natural representative of the protestant interest. Essex appears to have confined himself to treasury business, where ‘his clear, though slow sense, made him very acceptable to the king,’ and to the endeavours to regulate the expense of the court (Burnet, i. 456, 458). In the great debate which arose on the occasion of Danby's prosecution, he spoke against the right of the bishops to vote in any part of a trial for treason. On the question of the proposed dissolution of the pensionary parliament he joined Halifax in arguing that since no agreement seemed possible with the king upon the questions of the exclusion and Danby's pardon, it would be well to try whether a new parliament might not be disposed to let those matters drop. For this advice, according to Burnet (i. 469), he again incurred the anger of Shaftesbury and his party, which, however, ‘as he was not apt to be much heated,’ he bore mildly. He was evidently much trusted by Charles, who had in the previous year named him along with Halifax to discuss the grievances of the Scotch lords against Lauderdale (ib. 469). Upon the discovery of the Meal Tub plot, in which the forgers had represented Essex and Halifax as being implicated, they urged the king to summon parliament at once. Upon his refusal (ib.) Essex, with his brother, left the treasury on 19 Nov. 1679. In order, however, that this resignation might not strengthen Shaftesbury's party, a gloss was put upon his action by the statement that he ‘had the king's leave’ to resign (Ralph, 489). It is, indeed, probable that the grounds of his leaving were very different. In a letter from court of 27 Nov. 1679 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. 477 b) it is said, ‘some say the E. of Essex went out on this score. The king had given Cleveland 25,000l., and she sending to him for it he denied the payment, and told the king he (the king) had often promised them not to pay money on those accounts while he was so much indebted to such as daily clamoured at their table for money; but if his Maj. would have it paid he wish't somebody else to do it, for he would not, but willingly surrender his place, at which the king replied, “I will take you at your word.”’ Another account, equally honourable to Essex, is, that Charles being anxious to gain a subsidy from Louis, ‘the niceness of touching French money is the reason that makes my Lord Essex's squeazy stomach that it can no longer digest his employment of 1st commissioner of the treasury’ (ib. 6th Rep. 741 b). He continued to sit in the council, but in spite of Charles's earnest request refused to return to the treasury (Burnet, 476). His chief desire appears to have been to return to Ireland.
The candour and good sense with which Essex advised Charles are well shown in a letter to the king of 21 July 1679, in which he urges him to disband the guards he had just raised (DALRYMPLE, Memoirs, i. 314).
In the debates in 1680 on the Exclusion Bill, Essex, whose views had undergone a great alteration, ascribed by Lingard, though without authority, to his disappointment in gaining neither the lord-treasurership nor the government of Ireland, now appeared as a strong opponent of the court, and vehemently supported Shaftesbury's action. Possibly the cause is to be found in the fact that his urgent advice to James in October to retire to Scotland had been disregarded (ib. i. 346). When the Exclusion Bill was thrown out, and Halifax again brought in the scheme of expedients, he made a motion, agreed to in a thin house, that an association should be entered into to maintain those expedients,
