essed father made himself a sacrifice," adding that such a change
would bring a great storm against the Romanists. He entertained to the
last hopes of obtaining leave to return to England. He asked for
permission in June 1671 and in August 1674. In the dedication of his
_Brief View of Mr Hobbes's Book Leviathan_ he repeats "the hope which
sustains my weak, decayed spirits that your Majesty will at some time
call to your remembrance my long and incorrupted fidelity to your person
and your service"; but his petitions were not even answered or noticed.
He died at Rouen on the 9th of December 1674. He was buried in
Westminster Abbey at the foot of the steps at the entrance to Henry
VII.'s chapel. He left two sons, Henry, 2nd earl of Clarendon, and
Lawrence, earl of Rochester, his daughter Anne, duchess of York, and a
third son, Edward, having predeceased him. His male descendants became
extinct on the death of the 4th earl of Clarendon and 2nd earl of
Rochester in 1753, the title of Clarendon being revived in 1776 in the
person of Thomas Villiers, who had married the granddaughter and heir of
the last earl.

As a statesman Clarendon had obvious limitations and failings. He
brought to the consideration of political questions an essentially legal
but also a narrow mind, conceiving the law, "that great and admirable
mystery," and the constitution as fixed, unchangeable and sufficient for
all time, in contrast to Pym, who regarded them as living organisms
capable of continual development and evolution; and he was incapable of
comprehending and governing the new conditions and forces created by the
civil wars. His character, however, and therefore to some extent his
career, bear the indelible marks of greatness. He left the popular cause
at the moment of its triumph and showed in so doing a strict
consistency. In a court degraded by licence and self-indulgence, he
maintained his self-respect and personal dignity regardless of
consequences, and in an age of almost universal corruption and
self-seeking he preserved a noble integrity and patriotism. At the
Restoration he showed great moderation in accepting rewards. He refused
a grant of 10,000 acres in the Fens from the king on the ground that it
would create an evil precedent, and amused Charles and James by his
indignation at the offer of a present of L10,000 from the French
minister Fouquet, the only present he accepted from Louis XIV. being a
set of books printed at the Louvre