Laurence Hyde, an opponent of the Exclusion Bill that would have prevented James, Duke of York from acceding to the throne, had been created Earl of Rochester, Viscount Hyde of Kenilworth, and Baron Wotton Basset on November 29, 1682.

Compelled to join in arranging the treaty of 1681, by which Louis XIV agreed to pay a subsidy to Charles, he was simultaneously imploring William, Prince of Orange, to save Europe from the ambitions of the French monarch.

Rochester's enemy Lord Halifax had called for an inquiry into Rochester's stewardship of the finances and it was found that forty thousand pounds had been lost by mismanagement.

As a consequence, Rochester is removed from office in August 1684 and given the post Lord President of the Council, a more dignified but less lucrative and important office.

Halifax said: "I have seen people kicked down stairs but my Lord Rochester is the first person that I ever saw kicked up stairs". (Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second. Popular Edition in Two Volumes. Vol. I, p.136 (London: Longmans, 1889).)

The second son of Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon and his wife, Frances Aylesbury, is a near contemporary of King Charles II of England.

He was baptized at St. Margaret's, Westminster on March 15, 1642, and following the Restoration, had sat as member of parliament, first for Newport, Cornwall and later for the University of Oxford, from 1660 to 1679.

He had been sent in 1661 on a complimentary embassy to Louis XIV of France, while he held the court post of Master of the Robes from 1662 to 1675.

He had in 1665 married Lady Henrietta Boyle (died 1687), daughter of Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington and Cork.

When his father was impeached in 1667, Laurence had joined his elder brother, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, in defending him in Parliament, but the fall of Clarendon had not injured the fortunes of his sons.

They were united with the royal family through the marriage of their sister, Anne, with the future King James II, making her Duchess of York.

Laurence Hyde had been sent as ambassador to Poland in 1676; he then traveled to Vienna, whence he proceeded to Nijmegen to take part in the peace congress as one of the English representatives.

Having returned to England, he had entered the new parliament, which met early in 1679, as member for Wootton Bassett; in November 1679 he was appointed First Lord of the Treasury, and for a few years he was the principal adviser of Charles II.