Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury

Abstract

Few politicians have aroused as much venemous hatred as the first Earl of Shaftesbury. Dryden’s piercing character assassination expressed the views of virtually all those who supported Charles II during the Exclusion Crisis. Shaftesbury did have some popularity with the London populace, but few of the Whigs in Parliament felt great affection for him, and their successors of the post-1688 period showed no inclination to restore his reputation after Tory propagandists had demolished it. It is unfortunate that his destruction of most of his papers (in order to prevent Charles’s government from using them to secure his conviction) has removed the most useful evidence for understanding his motives; without them his actions all too often give an impression of inconsistency and ruthlessness, both of which characteristics were mercilessly exposed by Dryden. Most historians have found him a somewhat perplexing subject — Professor Clayton Roberts has described him as ‘a cross between a John Pym and a second duke of Buckingham’.¹ Professor Haley’s invaluable biography of Shaftesbury goes some way towards restoring his reputation, but his character remains somewhat elusive.

In friendship false, implacable in hate, Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.

Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel