inge gave him the Signett, and declared him to
be Secretary of State of that kingdome, and at the same tyme declared
that Middleton should be his Commissyoner, the Earle of Glengarne
his Chancellour, the Earle of Rothesse, who was likewise one of the
Commissyoners, and his person very agreable to the kinge, President of
the Councell, and conferred all other inferiour offices, upon men most
notable for ther affection to the old goverment of Church and State.

67.

By BURNET.

The Earl of _Lauderdale_, afterwards made Duke, had been for many
years a zealous Covenanter: But in the year forty seven he turned to
the King's interests; and had continued a prisoner all the while after
_Worcester_ fight, where he was taken. He was kept for some years in
the tower of _London_, in _Portland_ castle, and in other prisons,
till he was set at liberty by those who called home the King. So he
went over to _Holland_. And since he continued so long, and contrary
to all mens opinions in so high a degree of favour and confidence,
it may be expected that I should be a little copious in setting out
his character; for I knew him very particularly. He made a very ill
appearance: He was very big: His hair red, hanging odly about him:
His tongue was too big for his mouth, which made him bedew all that
he talked to: And his whole manner was rough and boisterous, and very
unfit for a Court. He was very learned, not only in _Latin_, in which
he was a master, but in _Greek_ and _Hebrew_. He had read a great deal
of divinity, and almost all the historians ancient and modern: So that
he had great materials. He had with these an extraordinary memory,
and a copious but unpolished expression. He was a man, as the Duke of
_Buckingham_ called him to me, of a blundering understanding. He was
haughty beyond expression, abject to those he saw he must stoop to,
but imperious to all others. He had a violence of passion that carried
him often to fits like madness, in which he had no temper. If he took
a thing wrong, it was a vain thing to study to convince him: That
would rather provoke him to swear, he would never be of another mind:
He was to be let alone: And perhaps he would have forgot what he had
said, and come about of his own accord. He was the coldest friend and
the violentest enemy I ever knew: I felt it too much not to know it.
He at first seemed to despise wealth: But he delivered himself up
afterwards to luxury and sensuality: And by that