Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury

Visitors to Charleston, South Carolina quickly become familiar with two names: Ashley and Cooper. The Charleston peninsula, where the town was situated after 1680, is surrounded by the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, which according to a local joke, come together to form the Atlantic Ocean. Ashley Ave. is one of the major thoroughfares on the peninsula.  

If you live in Charleston or have lived there, you will be familiar with all this. You will more than likely know that Ashley and Cooper form part of the name one of the founders of the Carolina Colony: Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury. There is also a Shaftsbury Lane in Charleston, but someone apparently forgot the "e". 

The names Ashley, Cooper, and Shaftesbury abound in Charleston in other places and ways:  businesses, shops, apartments, schools, and more. Ashley and Cooper are common names in the region. 

Why did AAC get so much local publicity? He must have been an important guy in the Carolina Colony. In fact, he never set foot in the place. Yet he was important. 

Cooper was a leading politician in England before and during the reign of Charles II (1660-1685), for whom Charles Town* was named. In the 1660s, Charles granted the land of Carolina* to eight men, known as the Lords Proprietors [hereafter, LPs]. Originally, Carolina denoted all the land between Virginia and Florida. 

In making this grant, Charles' was rewarding these aristocrats for remaining loyal to his father, Charles I, or helping to restore the monarchy in 1660. Being able to mount the throne and the ladies of the court after 11 years of republican rule made Charles II a very Merry Monarch. He wanted to share his good fortune and keep these fellows loyal.

Cooper was one of the LPs who had opposed Charles I during the Civil War of the 1640s. He had also served in the government of the Republic (1649-1660), dominated by Oliver Cromwell. After the death of Cromwell, however, he worked for the restoration of the monarchy. The alternative, he believed, was another civil war or military dictatorship. [Image: Anthony Ashley Cooper as a young man, miniature by Samuel Cooper, c.1650]

No one asked the Native Americans what they thought about Charles II's grant of Carolina to the LP's, of course. Nor were the Spanish consulted, although they had claimed the territory a century before. That led to trouble.

AAC, or Lord Ashley, as he then was, was one of the LPs. He had a strong influence on the early development of the colony. He and his secretary, the philosopher John Locke, wrote the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, the legal blueprint for the colony. The colonists were unhappy with certain aspects of the document, especially the power it granted to the LPs, and they often contested or ignored them. That led to more trouble. 

During the formative years of Carolina, AAC had troubles of his own at home. In 1661, a happy Charles II had made him a Baron, Lord Ashley. In the early 1670s, he was one of an inner council of five men the king relied on to implement his policies. The five became known as The Cabal, an acronym formed from their names. In 1672, Charles raised him to a higher rank in the peerage as First Earl of Shaftesbury. [Image: Shaftesbury by John Greenhill, 1672-73]

Shaftesbury's close relationship with the king did not last. In the later 1670s, a political and religious crisis arose in Britain. The Exclusion Crisis, as it was known, centered on the succession to the throne. Charles II, famed for his mistresses, had not managed to father a legitimate heir. 

After his death, the law of succession meant the Crown would pass to his nearest male relative, his brother James, Duke of York. That was problem for many political leaders because James had recently become a Roman Catholic and married a Catholic, Mary of Modena. 

Shaftesbury became suspicious of James' intentions in the early 1670s. He feared that James intended to establish arbitrary rule and force Catholicism on the country with the aid of Louis XIV of France. He believed correctly that Charles was helping him. 

AAC was a trained lawyer and a firm advocate of the rule of law. He had opposed Cromwell's adoption of military rule in the 1650s and now he opposed the danger of an absolute monarchy. 

In the later 1670s, Shaftesbury helped establish a political movement to exclude James from the throne and limit the power of the monarch. The movement's supporters in Parliament became known as Whigs. Their opponents, who supported James, became known as Tories. 

Charles II supported his brother and lashed out against the Whigs. In 1682, fearing arrest, Shaftesbury fled to the Netherlands, where he died early the next year. The Whig Party lived on, however, as did the Carolina Colony he helped found. 

*Carolina was not named for Charles II, but his father Charles I, best known for starting the English Civil War and having his head removed by the victors. In the early 18th century, the Carolina Colony was divided into South and North Carolina. 

Charles Town (or Charlestown) was renamed Charleston in 1783.

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CABAL: The Curious History of a Word

The word "cabal" is likely familiar to online gamers. Google it and "Images" and you will get nothing but ads for the game "Cabal." 

Today's QAnon activists use "cabal" to denote a secret global conspiracy against freedom. (Secret to everyone except QAnon members, of course, who possess information the rest of us are ignorant of.) 

The origins of the word "cabal" lie in the distant past. It most likely derives from "Kaballah," which refers to the mystical interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. In medieval Christian Europe, "Caballa" or "cabale" came to refer to occult doctrines or secrets. In these contexts it related to mysticism and magic. 

In the 17th century "cabal" developed a wider, mainly political meaning. It came to mean a small group of individuals united in secret to achieve a desired political or economic goal. For many people it became a pejorative term used to denote a devious clique or conspiracy opposed to the general good. 

This usage has survived into modern times. Cabal is often used today to denote a clique, faction, gang, ring, junta, and similar groupings, real or imagined.   

In Britain, "cabal" came into prominent use during the turbulent politics of the late 17th century. Opponents of the "Merry Monarch," King Charles II (1660-1685), accused him of leading a cabal. [Image: Charles II, by Sir Peter Lely]

These accusations are particularly interesting, because at the time (1667-74), the King was governing with the advice of a small band of five ministers, the first letters of whose names could be used to spell out the acronym "CABAL." Opponents of royal policies often referred to them as the "Cabal" or "Cabal Ministry." 

The five members of the Cabal were Sir Thomas Clifford, Lord Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley, and Lord Lauderdale. They were signatories to the public Treaty of Dover (1670) that created an alliance with the France of Louis XIV against the Dutch. 

The public treaty acted as a screen for a secret treaty in which Charles promised to convert to Roman Catholicism in return for a French pension of £230,000 a year. Louis promised more money if Charles announced his conversion to the British public, which he wisely never did. Most of the CABAL did not sign and were not aware of the secret treaty.

Some historians argue that the present meaning of the word "cabal" derives from the usage of the term to describe this particular political grouping of the late 1660s -- early1670s. That may be true, although claims that the word itself derives from them is likely a myth. 

PS. A prominent member of the CABAL ministry who did not know of the secret treaty eventually turned against Charles II. In the 1670s, Lord Ashley (Anthony Ashley Cooper, later 1st Earl of Shaftesbury) helped found one of the first British political parties, the Whigs. 

The Whigs posed as defenders of Parliament and Protestantism against what they argued was the King's authoritarian and pro-Catholic tendencies. Charles II's supporters coalesced uneasily into what became the pro-royalist Tory Party. (Image: Lord Ashley, later Lord Shaftesbury)

Ashley was the patron of the philosopher John Locke. He was also one of the founders, or Lords Proprietor, of the colony of Carolina. He and Locke wrote the original blueprint for the colony, The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. The names "Ashley", "Cooper," and "Shaftesbury" are found all over the oldest settlement, Charleston, which of course, was named for Charles II. At that time, Charles and Ashley were still on good terms. 

In 1682, fearing arrest for High Treason, Ashley fled to the Netherlands, where he died of an illness the following year. By then, the CABAL Ministry was history, but the political meaning of the term "cabal" lived on and thrives today, for good or ill.