[49] “Copies of Two Papers written by the late King Charles II., together
with a Copy of a Paper written by the late Duchess of York. Published by
his Majesty’s command. London, 1686.”
[50] His pamphlet is entitled, “An Answer to some Papers lately printed,
concerning the authority of the Catholic Church in matters of Faith, and
the Reformation of the Church of England. London, 1686.”—Stillingfleet
withheld his name.
[51] “I refer myself to the judgment of those who have read the answer
to the defence of the late king’s papers, and that of the duchess, _in
which last_ I was concerned, how charitably I have been represented
there.”—_Preface to the Hind and Panther_, Vol. X. p. 113, 114.
[52] See Vol. X. p. 203-208, and the notes there referred to.
[53] Morley, bishop of Winchester, who, as presently will be noticed,
was chaplain in the family of Sir Edward Hyde during the usurpation,
tells us, “that the duchess, (then Miss Hyde,) as she was the eldest,
so was she the forwardest, and most capable to receive instruction; for
God having given her an extraordinary good understanding for one of her
sex and years, so he had given her an extraordinary good inclination to
the exercises of piety and devotion; so that, when she was not, as I
remember, above twelve years of age, I did think her every way fit to be
admitted to the receiving the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which she
did then, and always afterwards, with very great devotion, so long as
she and I staid together in her father’s house at Antwerp.”—_Preface to
Bishop Morley’s Treatise_, p. vi.
[54] Morley says, that he continued to be the duchess’s spiritual
director “until after her father’s banishment; and all that time I must
bear her witness, that she was not only a zealous Protestant herself,
according as it is by law established in the church of England, but
zealous to make proselytes.”—_Preface as above_, p. xii.
[55] Dr Peter Heylin was born at Burford, in Oxfordshire, in 1600, and
rose high in the church, being one of the chaplains in ordinary to
Charles I. During the great civil war, he was reduced to distress, but
survived the Restoration, and died in 1662. In 1661, he published his
history of the Reformation, under the title of “_Ecclesia Restaurata_.”
[56] These were Sheldon and Morley. Sheldon was bishop of London, and was
promoted to the see of Canterbury on the death of the venerable Juxon.
Burnet describes him as generous and charitable, and extremely dexterous
in politics; but adds, that he only spoke of religion as an engine of
government, and _thus_ gained with the king the character of a wise and
honest clergyman. He was much blamed by the Low Church divines, for the
rigour with which he followed up the parliamentary deprivation, by which
two thousand divines, as was alleged, were ejected for non-conformity.
Blandford, successively bishop of Oxford and Worcester, was an able
and excellent divine, modest and humble, says Burnet, even to a fault.
Morley, bishop of Winchester, had recommended him to the duchess to
be her spiritual director in his stead, when he himself retired from
court in 1667: “And I made choice of him,” says that prelate, “not only
because, in regard of his learning, piety, gravity, and modesty, together
with the gentleness and sweetness of his address and conversation, he
was at least as fit as any I could think of for that employment, but in
regard of his former relation of chaplain to her father, to whom he owed
his rise in the church.”—_Preface to Bishop Morley’s Treatise_, p. xiv.
[57] Stillingfleet, being at this time dean of St Paul’s, stood in the
van of the controversy with the Papists. He had learning, penetration,
some power of language, without much nicety of expression, and, above
all, that intrepidity and undaunted resolution which the times required.
After the Revolution, he reaped the harvest of his labours in the
bishopric of Worcester. This eminent divine was born in 1635, and died
in 1699. The tract which follows, is the third part of his Answer to the
Papers published by James, respecting the conversion of his brother and
wife to the Roman Catholic faith.
[58] This prelate was Dr George Morley, who, during the time of the
usurpation, was domestic chaplain to Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Lord
Clarendon; and educated his daughter, Anne Hyde, in the faith of the
church of England. See page 189. Upon the Restoration, Morley was made
successively bishop of Worcester and Winchester. “He was,” says Burnet,
“a pious, charitable man, of an exemplary life, but extremely passionate
and obstinate.” This prelate, who was deeply and justly afflicted with
the Duchess’s change of religion, vindicated himself from the suspicion
of having neglected his duty towards her, by publishing, in 1683, a
collection of tracts, with an apologetical preface already quoted, and a
letter which he had written to the Duchess in 1670-1, some months before
her death, upon hearing a rumour that she was shaken in her adherence to
the Protestant faith.
[59] Preface to his Treatise, p. 5.
[60] Letter to her Royal Highness, p. 3, 4.
[61] “And this I am the rather obliged to believe, because, the last time
I had any discourse with your Highness of things of this nature, you did
seriously affirm to me, that never any priest of the church of Rome had
ever been so bold as to enter into any discourse of religion with you.
Whereupon, when I humbly besought your Highness, that if any of them
should be so bold at any time afterwards, and you should think fit to
hear what they could say, either for their own church, or against ours;
your Highness would be pleased to command them to give it you in writing,
and that you would be pleased to show me, or my lord of Oxford, any such
papers, or paper, they should give you to consider of, and to reply to:
the which, because you were pleased to promise me you would do, and have
never as yet done, (not to me I am sure, nor to him either for aught I
know,) I cannot believe that any thing of that kind hath been as yet said
to you, at least, not so as to make any impression on you, and much less
to gain an absolute belief from you, that there is no salvation to be
had but in the church of Rome only, and consequently, that if ever you
mean to be saved, you must of necessity quit our communion, and embrace
theirs.”—_Letter to the Duchess_.
[62] Sheldon, and Blandford. The former, as already mentioned, was bishop
of London, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury; the latter bishop of
Oxford, afterwards of Worcester.
[63] Blandford.
[64] The bishop of Winchester had only heard of this paper from
Maimbourg’s publication, “wherein,” says Morley, “he reciteth something,
which he saith was written by the late Duchess of York, to justify her
leaving the communion of the church of England, to embrace that of Rome.
But why should I say any more, or indeed so much as I have said of a
_non-ens_, or of what I believe never was in _rerum naturâ_; I mean such
a discourse, as is pretended to have been betwixt the Dutchess of York,
and two of the most learned bishops of England; I know no proof we have,
that there was ever any such thing, at least in print, or publicly known,
and avowed, but this attestation of Maimbourg the Jesuit, who I am sure
was neither eye nor ear witness of it, but must have it by hearsay only,
from others, who had it from others, that might be the devisers of it.”
[65] Heylin’s extreme animosity against the Puritans, hurries him into
the opposite extreme of favouring the Catholics. Nicolson has observed,
that he falls foul of all the princes of the time, without regard
to their good or ill wishes to the Protestant interest. _Historical
Library_, p. 98.—Burnet even charges him with delivering “many things
in such a manner, and so strangely, that one would think he had been
secretly set on to it by those of the church of Rome;” but adds, “I doubt
not he was a sincere Protestant, but violently carried away by some
particular conceits.”—_Burnet’s History of the Reformation_, Preface.
[66] The treatise alluded to, seems to be “An Exposition of the Doctrine
of the Church of England, in the several Articles proposed by the late
Bishop of Condom,” 4to, 1689. This was circulated by the Protestant
divines, in reply to “An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic
Church in Matters of Controversy. By the Reverend James Benigne Bossuet,
Counsellor to the King, Bishop of Meaux, formerly of Condom. Done into
English,” &c. 4to, 1685.
[67] This alludes to a story of an Oxford divine, who imagined he had
utterly confounded the grand advocate of the Catholic church, by the
stout, though unsupported asseveration, “Bellarmine, thou liest!”
This egregious argument is alluded to in the Preface to “The Royal
Medal Vindicated;” and in another tract, entitled, “Letter to a Friend
concerning Dr Owen’s Principles,” 1670.
[68] Sir Henry Wotton, provost of Eton College, who died in 1639,
directed his grave-stone to be thus inscribed:
_Hic jacet hujus Sententiæ primus Author;
Disputandi Pruritus, Ecclesiæ Scabies,
Nomen Alias Quære._
Wotton’s biographer, honest Isaac Walton, seems to allow, that this
sentence, or something like it, was to be elsewhere found, and that Sir
Henry was not the first author of it. But he contends, that reason, mixed
with charity, must persuade all readers to believe that a holy lethargy
had surprised his memory when he assumed the merit of inventing it.
[69] Dr Seth Ward, an eminent mathematician.
[70] Sheldon and Blandford. _Vide Supra_, p. 198.
[71] Dr Blandford, at the time of the conference with the duchess of
York, was bishop of Oxford. Being afterwards translated to the diocese
of Worcester, he is elsewhere always in this tract called by the latter
title. He died bishop of Worcester in 1675.—MALONE.
[72] In allusion to the game of chess, where one of the two pieces,
called bishops, always moves on the white, and the other on the black
spaces of the chequer.
[73] From the French _rompre en visiere_; a phrase taken from tilting,
and used metaphorically for giving an open affront.
[74] During the parliamentary struggles of 1680, the Commons used
many arbitrary measures to support their authority, and especially
by summarily committing those who, having expressed by petition to
the king their abhorrence of addresses for calling a parliament, were
called _abhorrers_. “Scarce a day passed, but some _abhorrer_ was
dragged before them, and committed to the custody of the serjeant at
arms, at the pleasure of the House; and this strange despotism they
exercised with so much wantonness, as well as cruelty, that Mr Treby
was pleased to say, _they kept an hawk_, (meaning the said serjeant,)
_and they must every day find flesh for him_. And the quantity he was
this sessions gorged with, gave rise to this proverbial expression—_Take
him, Topham!_ [the name of the serjeant,] in all discourse of peremptory
commitment.”—_North’s Examen_, p. 561. These arbitrary commitments are
elsewhere censured by Dryden, particularly in the Postscript to the
History of the League.—See p. 179.
[75] _Nolo episcopare._
[76] Morley is anxious to vindicate himself from being one of the two
bishops consulted, for, in Maimbourg’s copy of the Duchesses paper,
they were not named. “Supposing,” said he, “there was such a conference
betwixt her Highness and two bishops of the church of England, and that
what they said to her did increase her desire to embrace the Roman
Catholic religion; yet what doth that concern you, (may some man say,)
as to your own particular? Are you one of the two of the most learned
bishops of the church of England? (for so it is said they were, to whom
the Duchess proposed her scruples,) No; I am not, I know I am not, I
am sure I am not; but yet (how unlearned, and how unworthy soever,) I
am a bishop, and a bishop of the church of England; and therefore as
he, to whom it was said, _Tantumne otii tibi à re tuâ est, aliena ut
cures?_ answered, _Homo sum, Humani nihil à me alienum puto_; so say I,
_Episcopus sum, et Episcopus Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ_, and therefore think
myself concerned in whatsoever was said in reproach of episcopacy;
especially in reproach of any of the bishops of our own church.”
[77] Probably her brothers, Clarendon and Rochester.
[78] Such was James’s account of the dying hours of his first wife.
Burnet gives a different statement, which may be here transcribed:—
“While things were in fermentation, the Duchess of York died. It was
observed, that for fifteen months before that time, she had not received
the sacrament; and that upon all occasions, she was excusing the errors
that the church of Rome was charged with, and was giving them the best
colours they were capable of. An unmarried clergy was also a common
topic with her. Morley had been her father confessor; for he told me,
she practised secret confession to him from the time that she was twelve
years old; and, when he was sent away from the court, he put her in the
hands of Blandford, who died bishop of Worcester. Morley also told me,
that upon the reports that were brought him of her slackness in receiving
the sacrament, she having been for many years punctual to once a month,
he had spoken plainly to her about it, and told her what inferences were
made upon it. She pretended ill health, and business; but protested to
him, she had no scruples with relation to her religion, and was still of
the church of England; and assured him, that no Popish priest had ever
taken the confidence to speak to her of those matters. He took a solemn
engagement of her, that if scruples should arise in her mind, she would
let him know them, and hear what he should offer to her upon all of them.
And he protested to me, that to her death she never owned to him that
she had any scruples, though she was for some days entertained by him
at Farnham, after the date of the paper, which was afterwards published
in her name. All this passed between the bishop and me, upon the duke’s
shewing me that paper, all writ in her own hand, which was afterwards
published by Maimbourg. He would not let me take a copy of it; but he
gave me leave to read it twice. And I went immediately to Morley, and
gave him an account of it; from whom I had all the particulars already
mentioned. And upon that he concluded, that that unhappy princess had
been prevailed on to give falsehoods under her hand, and to pretend that
these were the grounds of her conversion. A long decay of health came at
last to a quicker crisis than had been apprehended. All of the sudden
she fell into the agony of death. Blandford was sent for, to prepare her
for it, and to offer her the sacrament. Before he could come, the queen
came in, and sat by her. He was modest and humble, even to a fault. So
he had not presence of mind enough to begin prayers, which probably
would have driven the queen out of the room. But, that not being done,
she pretending kindness, would not leave her. The bishop spoke but
little, and fearfully. He happened to say, he hoped she continued still
in the truth: Upon which she asked, what is truth; and then, her agony
encreasing, she repeated the word truth, truth, often; and in a few
minutes after she died, very little beloved, or lamented. Her haughtiness
had raised her many enemies. She was indeed a firm and a kind friend:
But the change of her religion made her friends reckon her death rather
a blessing than a loss at that time to them all. Her father, when he
heard of her shaking in her religion, was more troubled at it, than at
all his own misfortunes. He writ her a very grave and long letter upon
it, enclosed in one to the duke. But she was dead before it came into
England.”—_Burnet’s History of his own Times_, Book II.
[79] History of Henry VIII. p. 402, according to Dryden. I cannot find
the passage alluded to.
[80] Clement the Tenth.
[81] The church of England Divines made a common cause at this important
crisis. Those who directed the warfare, were Tillotson, Stillingfleet,
Tennison, and Patrick; and under their banners, Burnet numbers Sherlock,
Williams, Claget, Gee, Aldrich, Atterbury, Whitby, Hooper, and Wake. It
is probable, that when a piece of such consequence as the Answer to the
Royal Papers was to be brought forward, more than one of these would be
employed in revising, at least, and correcting it.
[82] The Duke of York, who commanded the fleet in the Dutch wars.
[83] Robert Wisdom was a fugitive in the reign of Queen Mary; in that of
Elizabeth, he became rector of Stysted in Essex, and of Settrington in
Yorkshire, and died in 1568. He was a zealous puritan, and the author of
a hymn, printed at the end of Sternhold’s psalms, which begins with the
passage referred to in the text:
Preserve us, Lord, by thy dear word;
From Turk and Pope defend us, Lord.
The witty Bishop Corbet thus addresses the ghost of Robert Wisdom:
Thou, once a body, now but aire,
Arch-botcher of a psalme or prayer,
From Carfax come;
And patch me up a zealous lay,
With an old _ever and for aye_,
Or _all and some_.
Or such a spirit lend mee,
As may a hymne down send mee,
To purge my braine.
So, Robert, look behind thee,
Least _Turk or Pope_ do find thee,
And goe to bed againe.
[84] This assertion Stillingfleet denied. See the conclusion of his
Answer to the Defence, where he affirms “such a book had been lately
published in London.” To this Dryden replied, that “the magnified piece
of Duncombe on this subject, which his opponent must have meant, was
stolen, or translated, without acknowledgment, from the Spanish of
Rodriguez;” meaning, probably, the Jesuit Alonso Rodriguez, who wrote
“_Exercio de perfecion y Virtudes Christianas, Sevilla, 1609_.” But while
Dryden claimed for the Catholic church the merit of this work, he seems
to have mistaken the name of the translator; for in the preface to the
“Town and Country Mouse,” Prior, or Montague, upbraid him with having
confounded _Allen_ with _Duncombe_; names which did not so much as rhyme.
In a list of books subjoined to “The Practice of a Holy Life, by Thomas
Allen, rector of Kettering, in Northamptonshire,” I find “The Virtue of
Humility, recommended to be printed by the late Reverend and Learned Dr
Henry Hammond,” which may be the book alluded to by Stillingfleet. See
Vol. X. pages 114. 249.
[85] Hitherto Stillingfleet had been encountering the person who defended
the two papers which were found in the king’s strong box, with which part
of the controversy Dryden had nothing to do.
[86] Defence, p. 250.
[87] Defence, p. 219.
[88] Defence, p. 217.
[89] Ibid. p. 210.
[90] Defence, p. 211.
[91] Defence, p. 220.
[92] Ibid. p. 232.
[93] Defence, p. 232.
[94] Defence, p. 212.
[95] Defence, p. 213.
[96] Ibid, p. 217, 218.
[97] Defence, p. 222.
[98] Defence, p. 242.
[99] Nicholas Sanders, some time regius professor of the canon law at
Oxford. Upon the Reformation, he fled to Rome, where he was long a
retainer of Cardinal Hosius. At last Gregory XIII. sent him as Nuncio
into Ireland, where he died in 1580. His work here alluded to, is a
history of the Reformation, under the opprobrious title _De Origine et
Progressu Schismatis Anglicani_. Stillingfleet refers to the passage, l.
i. p. 11.
[100] Page 15.
[101] Page 10.
[102] Page 18.
[103] Acworth. c. Sander. l. 2. c. 14, 17.
[104] Page 22.
[105] History of Hen. VIII. p. 216.
[106] _Servi Fidelis Responsio, &c._
[107] Lord Herbert, p. 219.
[108] Apology for the Oath of Allegiance.
[109] Defence, p. 243.
[110] Ibid.
[111] Conference, § 24. p. 156.
THE
ART OF PAINTING;
BY
C. A. DU FRESNOY.