He made the "first step in his future rise" by joining Buckingham in his attack on the Earl of Clarendon in 1667. In 1668 he was appointed joint Treasurer of the Navy with Sir Thomas Lyttelton, and subsequently sole treasurer. He succeeded Sir William Coventry as commissioner for the state treasury in 1669, and in 1673 was appointed a commissioner for the admiralty. He was created Viscount Osborne in the Scottish peerage on 2 February 1673, and a privy councillor on 3 May. On 19 June, on the resignation of Lord Clifford, he was appointed lord treasurer and made Baron Osborne of Kiveton and Viscount Latimer in the peerage of England, while on 27 June 1674 he was created Earl of Danby, by Charles II when he surrendered his Scottish peerage of Osborne to his third son Peregrine Osborne; (he was on his mother's side a great-nephew of the previous Earl of Danby). He was appointed the same year lord-lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and in 1677 received the Garter. Leading the King's government, 1674–1678 Danby was a statesman of very different calibre from the leaders of the Cabal Ministry, Buckingham and Arlington. His principal aim was no doubt the maintenance and increase of his own influence and party, but his ambition corresponded with definite political views. A member of the old Cavalier party, a confidential friend and correspondent of Lauderdale, he desired to strengthen the executive and the royal authority. At the same time, he was a keen partisan of the established church, an enemy of both Roman Catholics and dissenters, and an opponent of all toleration. He is often credited with inventing "Parliamentary management", the first conscious effort to convert a mass of country backbenchers into an organised Government lobby. While he made full use of patronage for this purpose, he undoubtedly regarded patronage as an essential tool of Royal policy; as he wrote in 1677 "nothing is more necessary than for the world to see that he (the King) will reward and punish". Politics of religion In 1673 Osborne opposed Charles II's Royal Declaration of Indulgence, supported the Test Act, and spoke against the proposal for giving relief to the dissenters. In June 1675 he signed the paper of advice drawn up by the bishops for the king, urging the rigid enforcement of the laws against the Roman Catholics, their complete banishment from the court,