The ignoble struggles of callous selfishness were made all the more
desperate by the bewildering confusion of the political situation. The
most difficult problem had been the attitude of Monk, and that was all the
more baffling from the fact that Monk had no clear discernment of his own
line of policy, and with all his accidental command of the situation, was
too obtuse to choose his own course and follow it consistently. The
Presbyterians were monarchical in sympathy, and dreaded the Independents
too much to be willing to revert to republican forms; but their
determination to alter the ecclesiastical traditions of the Church could
not be encouraged without losing the support of the main body of Royalist
opinion. The Roman Catholics hoped for toleration, but their hopes could
not be indulged without arousing the anti-Catholic prejudices of the
nation. The reviving aspirations of the Church had to be fostered, but the
extravagance of her hopes of revenge for past wrongs had to be kept in
severe check. Hyde himself was too little known by the new generation to
be cordially trusted, and he had to reckon on the implacable opposition of
those who believed that his influence over the King would make him
absolute as Minister. He was left in no doubt as to the slanders which
gathered round his name, and as to the personal jealousy of his power. For
a time it seemed doubtful whether the Restoration could be accomplished
without an express condition that the King should return without his chief
adviser. Between Hyde himself and the Presbyterians the feud was too old
to be appeased. The Roman Catholics recognized that their hopes of
toleration from the King might be frustrated by Hyde's sturdy
Protestantism. Monk was jealous of his influence, and his jealousies were
fostered by his wife, who was under the dominion of the Presbyterian
clergy. No pains were spared to stir up suspicion against him. "By stories
artificially related both to the General and his Lady," writes Lord
Mordaunt to him on May 4th, 1660, "your enemies have possessed them both
with a very ill opinion of you, which has showed itself by several bitter