OF THE FRIENDS AND CONTEMPORARIES OF LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON: ILLUSTRATIVE OF PORTRAITS IN HIS GALLERY. BY LADY THERESA LEWIS. "Of all the woes which civil discords bring, IN THREE VOLUMES.-VOL. I. With Portraits. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1852. ΤΟ GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK EARL OF CLARENDON This Work IS INSCRIBED BY HIS AFFECTIONATE SISTER, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. It is with feelings of great diffidence that the following pages are offered to the public, though not without the hope that the result of much agreeable labour may be of some interest to those whose sympathy is readily awakened in the deeds of men who played their part in an important period of the history of their own country. No pains have been spared in the endeavour to be accurate as to facts; but it would be vain to suppose that, in a work relating to a period of violent political animosity and of civil war, the attempt to reconcile conflicting evidence and to supply the deficiencies of information caused by the unsettled state of the country should have always been successful. Nothing, however, has been stated without full reference to the authorities from which it is drawn, and in no case has information knowingly been accepted at second hand when the original was accessible; still less have the conjectures of the author been allowed to supply the place of authentic testimony. But if, through inadvertence or error, facts |