ABSTRACT
Sir Thomas Osborne, created Viscount Latimer in 1673 and Earl of Danby in 1674, was a Yorkshireman of modest fortune. Before his appointment as lord treasurer, following Clifford's resignation in 1673, he had held no office more senior than treasurer of the navy; he had been a privy councillor only since 1672. Danby's determination to pursue policies of hostility to France and to Catholicism inevitably brought him into conflict with York, who was drawn into an unlikely collaboration with oppositionist peers like Shaftesbury and Holles. Having convinced Charles that he alone could save him from financial ruin, he gained an exceptional degree of control over the king's patronage, which he used to build up a coherent 'court party' in Parliament and to some extent in the provinces. The threat which his patronage system seemed to pose to the independence and integrity of Parliament revitalized fears of arbitrary government as he tried to damp down fears of 'popery'.
