PERILS FOR PROTESTANT TRAVELLERS
The quickening of animosity between Protestants and Catholics in the
last quarter of the sixteenth century had a good deal to do with the
censure of travel which we have been describing. In their fear and
hatred of the Roman Catholic countries, Englishmen viewed with alarm any
attractions, intellectual or otherwise, which the Continent had for
their sons. They had rather have them forego the advantages of a liberal
education than run the risk of falling body and soul into the hands of
the Papists. The intense, fierce patriotism which flared up to meet the
Spanish Armada almost blighted the genial impulse of travel for study's
sake. It divided the nations again, and took away the common admiration
for Italy which had made the young men of the north all rush together
there. We can no longer imagine an Englishman like Selling coming to the
great Politian at Bologna and grappling him to his heart--"arctissima
sibi conjunxit amicum familiaritate,"[152] as the warm humanistic phrase
has it. In the seventeenth century Politian would be a "contagious
Papist," using his charm to convert men to Romanism, and Selling would
be a "true son of the Church of England," railing at Politian for his
"debauch'd and Popish principles." The Renaissance had set men
travelling to Italy as to the flower of the world. They had scarcely
started before the Reformation called it a place of abomination. Lord
Burghley, who in Elizabeth's early days had been so bent on a foreign
education for his eldest son, had drilled him in languages and pressed
him to go to Italy,[153] at the end of his long life left instructions
to his children: "Suffer not thy sonnes to pass the Alps, for they shall
learn nothing there but pride, blasphemy, and atheism. And if by travel
they get a few broken languages, that shall profit them nothing more
than to have one meat served on divers dishes."[154]
The mother of Francis Bacon affords a good example of the Puritan
distrust of going "beyond seas." She could by no means sympathize with
her son Anthony's determination to become versed in foreign affairs, for
that led him into intimacy with Roman Catholics. All through his
prolonged stay abroad she chafed and fretted, while Anthony perversely
remained in France, gaining that acquaintance with valuable
correspondents, spies, and intelligencers which later made him one of
the greatest authorities in England on continental politics. He had a
confidential servant, a Catholic named Lawson, whom he sent over to
deliver some important secret news to Lord Burghley. Lady Bacon, in her
fear lest Lawson's company should pervert her son's religion and morals,
had the man arrested and detained in England. His anxious master sent
another man to plead with his mother for Lawson's release; but in vain.
The letter of this messenger to Anthony will serve to show the vehemence
of anti-Catholic feelings in a British matron in 1589.
"Upon my arrival at Godombery my Lady used me courteously until such
time I began to move her for Mr Lawson; and, to say the truth, for
yourself; being so much transported with your abode there that she let
not to say that you are a traitor to God and your country; you have
undone her; you seek her death; and when you have that you seek for, you
shall have but a hundred pounds more than you have now.
"She is resolved to procure Her Majesty's letter to force you to return;
and when that should be, if Her Majesty give you your right or desert,
she should clap you up in prison. She cannot abide to hear of you, as
she saith, nor of the other especially, and told me plainly she should
be the worse this month for my coming without you, and axed me why you
could not have come from thence as well as myself.
"She saith you are hated of all the chiefest on that side and cursed of
God in all your actions, since Mr Lawson's being with you....
"When you have received your provision, make your repair home again,
lest you be a means to shorten her days, for she told me the grief of
mind received daily by your stay will be her end; also saith her jewels
be spent for you, and that she borrowed the last money of seven several
persons.
"Thus much I must confess unto you for a conclusion, that I have never
seen nor never shall see a wise Lady, an honourable woman, a mother,
more perplexed for her son's absence than I have seen that honourable
dame for yours."[155]
It was not only a general hatred of Roman Catholics which made staunch
Protestants anxious to detain their sons from foreign travel towards the
end of Elizabeth's reign, but a very lively and well-grounded fear of
the Inquisition and the Jesuits. When England was at war with Spain, any
Englishman caught on Spanish territory was a lawful prisoner for ransom;
and since Spanish territory meant Sicily, Naples, and Milan, and Rome
was the territory of Spain's patron, the Pope, Italy was far from safe
for Englishmen and Protestants. Even when peace with Spain was declared,
on the accession of James I., the spies of the Inquisition were
everywhere on the alert to find some slight pretext for arresting
travellers and to lure them into the dilemma of renouncing their faith,
or being imprisoned and tortured. There is a letter, for instance, to
Salisbury from one of his agents on the Continent, concerning overtures
made to him by the Pope's nuncio, to decoy some Englishman of
note--young Lord Roos or Lord Cranborne--into papal dominions, where he
might be seized and detained, in hope of procuring a release for Baldwin
the Jesuit.[156] William Bedell, about to go to Italy as chaplain to Sir
Henry Wotton, the Ambassador to Venice, very anxiously asks a friend
what route is best to Italy. "For it is told me that the Inquisition is
in Millaine, and that if a man duck not low at every Cross, he may be
cast in prison.... Send me, I pray you, a note of the chief towns to be
passed through. I care not for seeing places, but to go thither the
shortest and safest way."[157]
Bedell's fears were not without reason, for the very next year occurred
the arrest of the unfortunate Mr Mole, whose case was one of the
sensations of the day. Fuller, in his _Church History_, under the year
1607, records how--
"About this time Mr Molle, Governour to the Lord Ross in his travails,
began his unhappy journey beyond the Seas.... He was appointed by
Thomas, Earl of Exeter, to be Governour in Travail to his Grandchilde,
the Lord Ross, undertaking the charge with much reluctance (as a presage
of ill successe) and with a profession, and a resolution not to passe
the Alpes.
"But a Vagari took the Lord Ross to go to Rome, though some conceive
this notion had its root in more mischievous brains. In vain doth Mr
Molle dissuade him, grown now so wilfull, he would in some sort govern
his Governour. What should this good man doe? To leave him were to
desert his trust, to goe along with him were to endanger his own life.
At last his affections to his charge so prevailed against his judgment,
that unwillingly willing he went with him. Now, at what rate soever they
rode to Rome, the fame of their coming came thither before them; so that
no sooner had they entered their Inne, but Officers asked for Mr Molle,
took and carried him to the Inquisition-House, where he remained a
prisoner whilest the Lord Ross was daily feasted, favoured, entertained:
so that some will not stick to say, That here he changed no Religion for
a bad one."[158]
No threats could persuade Mr Mole to renounce his heresy, and though
many attempts were made to exchange him for some Jesuits caught in
England, he lay for thirty years in the prison of the Inquisition, and
died there, at the age of eighty-one.
It was part of the policy of the Jesuits, according to Sir Henry Wotton,
to thus separate their tutors from young men, and then ply the pupils
with attentions and flattery, with a view to persuading them into the
Church of Rome. Not long after the capture of Mole, Wotton writes to
Salisbury of another case of the same sort.
"My Lord Wentworthe[159] on the 18th of May coming towards Venice ...
accompanied with his brother-in-law Mr Henry Crafts, one Edward
Lichefeld, their governor, and some two or three other English, through
Bologna, as they were there together at supper the very night of their
arrival, came up two Dominican Friars, with the sergeants of the town,
and carried thence the foresaid Lichefeld, with all his papers, into the
prison of the Inquisition where he yet remaineth.[160] Thus standeth
this accident in the bare circumstances thereof, not different, save
only in place, from that of Mr Mole at Rome. And doubtlessly (as we
collect now upon the matter) if Sir John Harington[161] had either gone
the Roman Journey, or taken the ordinary way in his remove thitherwards
out of Tuscany, the like would have befallen his director also, a
gentleman of singular sufficiency;[162] for it appeareth a new piece of
council (infused into the Pope by his artisans the Jesuits) to separate
by some device their guides from our young noblemen (about whom they are
busiest) and afterwards to use themselves (for aught I can yet hear)
with much kindness and security, but yet with restraint (when they come
to Rome) of departing thence without leave; which form was held both
with the Lords Rosse and St Jhons, and with this Lord Wentworthe and his
brother-in-law at their being there. And we have at the present also a
like example or two in Barons of the Almaign nation of our religion,
whose governors are imprisoned, at Rome and Ferrara; so as the matter
seemeth to pass into a rule. And albeit thitherto those before named of
our own be escaped out of that Babylon (as far as I can penetrate)
without any bad impressions, yet surely it appeareth very dangerous to
leave our travellers in this contingency; especially being dispersed in
the middle towns of Italy (whither the language doth most draw them)
certain nimble pleasant wits in quality of interceptors, who deliver
over to their correspondents at Rome the dispositions of gentlemen
before they arrive, and so subject them both to attraction by argument,
and attraction by humour."[163]
Wotton did not overrate the persuasiveness of the Jesuits. Lord Roos
became a papist.[164]
Wotton's own nephew, Pickering, had been converted in Spain, on his
death-bed, although he had been, according to the Jesuit records, "most
tenacious of the corrupt religion which from his tender youth he had
imbibed."[165] In his travels "through the greater part of France,
Italy, Spain and Germany for the purpose of learning both the languages
and the manners, an ancient custom among northern nations, ... he
conferred much upon matters of faith with many persons, led either by
inclination or curiosity, and being a clever man would omit no
opportunity of gaining information."[166] Through this curiosity he made
friends with Father Walpole of the Jesuit College at Valladolid, and
falling into a mortal sickness in that city, Walpole had come to comfort
him.
Another conversion of the same sort had been made by Father Walpole at
Valladolid, the year before. Sir Thomas Palmer came to Spain both for
the purpose of learning the language and seeing the country. "Visiting
the English College, he treated familiarly with the Fathers, and began
to entertain thoughts in his heart of the Catholic religion." While
cogitating, he was "overtaken by a sudden and mortal sickness.
Therefore, perceiving himself to be in danger of death, he set to work
to reconcile himself with the Catholic Church. Having received all the
last Sacraments he died, and was honourably interred with Catholic
rites, to the great amazement also of the English Protestants, who in
great numbers were in the city, and attended the funeral."[167]
There is nothing surprising in these death-bed conversions, when we
think of the pressure brought to bear on a traveller in a strange land.
As soon as he fell sick, the host of his inn sent for a priest, and if
the invalid refused to see a ghostly comforter that fact discovered his
Protestantism. Whereupon the physician and apothecary, the very kitchen
servants, were forbidden by the priest to help him, unless he renounced
his odious Reformed Religion and accepted Confession, the Sacrament, and
Extreme Unction. If he died without these his body was not allowed in
consecrated ground, but was buried in the highway like a very dog. It is
no wonder if sometimes there was a conversion of an Englishman, lonely
and dying, with no one to cling to.[168]
We must remember, also, how many reputed Protestants had only outwardly
conformed to the Church of England for worldly reasons. They could not
enter any profession or hold any public office unless they did. But
their hearts were still in the old faith, and they counted on returning
to it at the very end.[169] Sometimes the most sincere of Protestants in
sickness "relapsed into papistry." For the Protestant religion was new,
but the Roman Church was the Church of their fathers. In the hour of
death men turn to old affections. And so in several ways one can account
for Sir Francis Cottington, Ambassador to Spain, who fell ill, confessed
himself a Catholic; and when he recovered, once more became a
Protestant.[170]
The mere force of environment, according to Sir Charles Cornwallis,
Ambassador to Spain from 1605-9, was enough to change the religion of
impressionable spirits. His reports to England show a constant struggle
to keep his train of young gentlemen true to their national Church.[171]
The Spanish Court was then at Valladolid, in which city flourished an
especially strong College of Jesuits. Thence Walpole, and other
dangerous persuaders, made sallies upon Cornwallis's fold. At first the
Ambassador was hopeful:--
"Much hath that Creswell and others of that Societie" (the Jesuits)
"bestir'd themselves here in Conference and Persuasion with the
Gentlemen that came to attend his Excellencie[172] and do secretly bragg
of their much prevailinge. Two of myne own Followers I have found
corrupted, the one in such sorte as he refused to come to Prayers, whom
I presently discharged; the other being an honest and sober young
Gentleman, and one that denieth not to be present both at Prayers and
Preachinge, I continue still, having good hope that I shall in time
reduce him."[173]
But within a month he has to report the conversion of Sir Thomas Palmer,
and within another month, the loss of even his own chaplain. "Were God
pleased that onlie young and weak ones did waver, it were more
tollerable," he laments, "but I am put in some doubte of my Chaplaine
himself." He had given the chaplain--one Wadesworth, a good Cambridge
Protestant--leave of absence to visit the University of Salamanca. In a
week the chaplain wrote for a prolongation of his stay, making discourse
of "a strange Tempest that came upon him in the way, of visible Fire
that fell both before and behind him, of an Expectation of present
Death, and of a Vowe he made in that time of Danger." This manner of
writing, and reports from others that he has been a secret visitor to
the College of the Jesuits, make Cornwallis fear the worst. "I should
think him borne in a most unfortunate hower," he wails, "to become the
occasion of such a Scandall."[174] But his fears were realized. The
chaplain never came back. He had turned Romanist.
The reasons for the headway of Catholicism in the reign of James I. do
not concern us here. To explain the agitated mood of our Precepts for
Travellers, it is necessary only to call attention to the fact that
Protestantism was just then losing ground, through the devoted energy of
the Jesuits. Even in England, they were able to strike admiration into
the mind of youth, and to turn its ardour to their own purposes. But in
Spain and in Italy, backed by their impressive environment and
surrounded by the visible power of the Roman Church, they were much more
potent. The English Jesuits in Rome--Oxford scholars, many of
them--engaged the attentions of such of their university friends or
their countrymen who came to see Italy, offering to show them the
antiquities, to be guides and interpreters.[175] By some such means the
traveller was lured into the company of these winning companions, till
their spiritual and intellectual power made an indelible impression on
him.[176]
How much the English Government feared the influence of the Jesuits upon
young men abroad may be seen by the increasing strictness of licences
for travellers. The ordinary licence which everyone but a known merchant
was obliged to obtain from a magistrate before he could leave England,
in 1595 gave permission with the condition that the traveller "do not
haunte or resorte unto the territories or dominions of any foreine
prince or potentate not being with us in league or amitie, nor yet
wittinglie kepe companie with any parson or parsons evell affected to
our State."[177] But the attempt to keep Englishmen out of Italy was
generally fruitless, and the proviso was too frequently disregarded.
Lord Zouche grumbled exceedingly at the limitations of his licence. "I
cannot tell," he writes to Burghley in 1591, "whether I shall do well or
no to touch that part of the licence which prohibiteth me in general to
travel in some countries, and companioning divers persons.... This
restraint is truly as an imprisonment, for I know not how to carry
myself; I know not whether I may pass upon the Lords of Venis, and the
Duke of Florens' territories, because I know not if they have league
with her Majesty or no."[178] Doubtless Bishop Hall was right when he
declared that travellers commonly neglected the cautions about the
king's enemies, and that a limited licence was only a verbal
formality.[179] King James had occasion to remark that "many of the
Gentry, and others of Our Kingdom, under pretence of travel for their
experience, do pass the Alps, and not contenting themselves to remain in
Lombardy or Tuscany, to gain the language there, do daily flock to Rome,
out of vanity and curiosity to see the Antiquities of that City; where
falling into the company of Priests and Jesuits ... return again into
their countries, both averse to Religion and ill-affected to Our State
and Government."[180]
To come to our Instructions for Travellers, as given in the reign of
James I., they abound, as we would expect, in warnings against the
Inquisition and the Jesuits. Sir Robert Dallington, in his _Method for
Travell_,[181] gives first place to the question of remaining steadfast
in one's religion:
"Concerning the Traveliers religion, I teach not what it should be,
(being out of my element;) only my hopes are, he be of the religion here
established: and my advice is he be therein well settled, and that
howsoever his imagination shall be carried in the voluble Sphere of
divers men's discourses; yet his inmost thoughts like lines in a circle
shall alwaies concenter in this immoveable point, not to alter his first
faith: for that I knowe, that as all innovation is dangerous in a state;
so is this change in the little commonwealth of a man. And it is to be
feared, that he which is of one religion in his youth, and of another in
his manhood, will in his age be of neither....
"I will instance in a Gentleman I knew abroade, of an overt and free
nature Zealously forward in the religion hee carried from home, while he
was in France, who had not bene twentie dayes in Italy, but he was as
farre gone on the contrary Byas, and since his returne is turned againe.
Now what should one say of such men but as the Philosopher saith of a
friend, 'Amicus omnium, Amicus nullorum,' A professor of both, a
believer in neither.[182]
"The next Caveat is, to beware how he heare anything repugnant to his
religion: for as I have tyed his tongue; so must I stop his eares, least
they be open to the smooth incantations of an insinuating seducer, or
the suttle arguments of a sophisticall adversarie. To this effect I must
precisely forbid him the fellowship or companie of one sort of people in
generall: these are the Jesuites, underminders and inveiglers of greene
wits, seducers of men in matter of faith, and subverters of men in
matters of State, making of both a bad christian, and worse subject.
These men I would have my Travueller never heare, except in the Pulpit;
for[183] being eloquent, they speake excellent language; and being wise,
and therefore best knowing how to speake to best purpose, they seldome
or never handle matter of controversie."
Our best authority in this period of travelling is Fynes Moryson, whose
_Precepts for Travellers_[184] are particularly full. Moryson is well
known as one of the most experienced travellers of the late Elizabethan
era. On a travelling Fellowship from Peterhouse College, Cambridge, in
1591-1595 he made a tour of Europe, when the Continent was bristling
with dangers for Englishmen. Spain and the Inquisition infected Italy
and the Low Countries; France was full of desperate marauding soldiers;
Germany nourished robbers and free-booters in every forest. It was the
particular delight of Fynes Moryson to run into all these dangers and
then devise means of escaping them. He never swerved from seeing
whatever his curiosity prompted him to, no matter how forbidden and
perilous was the venture. Disguised as a German he successfully viewed
the inside of a Spanish fort;[185] in the character of a Frenchman he
entered the jaws of the Jesuit College at Rome.[186] He made his way
through German robbers by dressing as a poor Bohemian, without cloak or
sword, with his hands in his hose, and his countenance servile.[187] His
triumphs were due not so much to a dashing and magnificent bravery, as
to a nice ingenuity. For instance, when he was plucked bare by the
French soldiers of even his inner doublet, in which he had quilted his
money, he was by no means left penniless, for he had concealed some gold
crowns in a box of "stinking ointment" which the soldiers threw down in
disgust.[188]
His _Precepts for Travellers_ are characteristically canny. Never tell
anyone you can swim, he advises, because in case of shipwreck "others
trusting therein take hold of you, and make you perish with them."[189]
Upon duels and resentment of injury in strange lands he throws cold
common sense. "I advise young men to moderate their aptnesse to
quarrell, lest they perish with it. We are not all like Amadis or
Rinalldo, to incounter an hoste of men."[190] Very thoughtful is this
paragraph on the night's lodging:
"In all Innes, but especially in suspected places, let him bolt or locke
the doore of his chamber: let him take heed of his chamber fellows, and
always have his Sword by his side, or by his bed-side; let him lay his
purse under his pillow, but always foulded with his garters, or some
thing hee first useth in the morning, lest hee forget to put it up
before hee goe out of his chamber. And to the end he may leave nothing
behind him in his Innes, let the visiting of his chamber, and gathering
his things together, be the last thing he doth, before hee put his foote
into the stirrup."[191]
The whole of the Precepts is marked by this extensive caution. Since, as
Moryson truly remarks, travellers meet with more dangers than pleasures,
it is better to travel alone than with a friend. "In places of danger,
for difference of Religion or proclaimed warre, whosoever hath his
Country-man or friend for his companion doth much increase his danger,
as well for the confession of his companion, if they chance to be
apprehended, as for other accidents, since he shall be accomptable and
drawne into danger, as well as by his companion's words or deeds, as by
his owne. And surely there happening many dangers and crosses by the
way, many are of such intemperate affections, as they not only diminish
the comfort they should have from this consort, but even as Dogs, hurt
by a stone, bite him that is next, not him that cast the stone, so they
may perhaps out of these crosses grow to bitterness of words betweene
themselves."[192] Instead of a companion, therefore, let the traveller
have a good book under his pillow, to beguile the irksome solitude of
Inns--"alwaies bewaring that it treat not of the Commonwealth, the
Religion thereof, or any Subject that may be dangerous to him."[193]
Chance companions of the road should not be trusted. Lest the traveller
should become too well known to them, let him always declare that he is
going no further than the next city. Arrived there, he may give them the
slip and start with fresh consorts.
Moryson himself, when forced to travel in company, chose Germans, kindly
honest gentlemen, of his own religion. He could speak German well enough
to pass as one of them, but in fear lest even a syllable might betray
his nationality to the sharp spies at the city gates, he made an
agreement with his companions that when he was forced to answer
questions they should interrupt him as soon as possible, and take the
words out of his mouth, as though in rudeness. If he were discovered
they were to say they knew him not, and flee away.[194]
Moryson advised the traveller to see Rome and Naples first, because
those cities were the most dangerous. Men who stay in Padua some months,
and afterwards try Rome, may be sure that the Jesuits and priests there
are informed, not only of their coming, but of their condition and
appearance by spies in Padua. It were advisable to change one's
dwelling-place often, so to avoid the inquiries of priests. At Easter,
in Rome, Moryson found the fullest scope for his genius. A few days
before Easter a priest came to his lodgings and took the inmates' names
in writing, to the end that they might receive the Sacrament with the
host's family. Moryson went from Rome on the Tuesday before Easter, came
to Siena on Good Friday, and upon Easter eve "(pretending great
business)" darted to Florence for the day. On Monday morning he dodged
to Pisa, and on the folowing, back to Siena. "Thus by often changing
places I avoyded the Priests inquiring after mee, which is most
dangerous about Easter time, when all men receive the Sacrament."[195]
The conception of travel one gathers from Fynes Moryson is that of a
very exciting form of sport, a sort of chase across Europe, in which the
tourist was the fox, doubling and turning and diving into cover, while
his friends in England laid three to one on his death. So dangerous was
travel at this time, that wagers on the return of venturous gentlemen
became a fashionable form of gambling.[196] The custom emanated from
Germany, Moryson explains, and was in England first used at Court and
among "very Noble men." Moryson himself put out £100 to receive £300 on
his return; but by 1595, when he contemplated a second journey, he would
not repeat the wager, because ridiculous voyages were by that time
undertaken for insurance money by bankrupts and by men of base
conditions.
Sir Henry Wotton was a celebrated product of foreign education in these
perilous times. As a student of political economy in 1592 he led a
precarious existence, visiting Rome with the greatest secrecy, and in
elaborate disguise. For years abroad he drank in tales of subtlety and
craft from old Italian courtiers, till he was well able to hold his own
in intrigue. By nature imaginative and ingenious, plots and counterplots
appealed to his artistic ability, and as English Ambassador to Venice,
he was never tired of inventing them himself or attributing them to
others. It was this characteristic of Jacobean politicians which Ben
Jonson satirized in Sir Politick-Would-be, who divulged his knowledge of
secret service to Peregrine in Venice. Greatly excited by the mention of
a certain priest in England, Sir Politick explains:
"He has received weekly intelligence
Upon my knowledge, out of the Low Countries,
For all parts of the world, in cabbages;
And these dispensed again to ambassadors,
In oranges, musk-melons, apricocks--,
Lemons, pome-citrons, and such-like: sometimes
In Colchester oysters, and your Selsey cockles."[197]
Later on Sir Politick gives instructions for travellers:
"Some few particulars I have set down,
Only for this meridian, fit to be known
Of your crude traveller....
First, for your garb, it must be grave and serious,
Very reserv'd and lock'd; not tell a secret
On any terms; not to your father: scarce
A fable, but with caution: make sure choice
Both of your company, and discourse; beware
You never speak a truth--
PEREGRINE. How!
SIR P. Not to strangers,
For those be they you must converse with most;
Others I would not know, sir, but at distance,
So as I still might be a saver in them:
You shall have tricks eke passed upon you hourly.
And then, for your religion, profess none,
But wonder at the diversity of all."[198]
Sir Henry Wotton's letter to Milton must not be left out of account of
Jacobean advice to travellers. It is brief, but very characteristic, for
it breathes the atmosphere of plots and caution. Admired for his great
experience and long sojourn abroad, in his old age, as Provost of Eton,
Sir Henry's advice was much sought after by fathers about to send their
sons on the Grand Tour. Forty-eight years after he himself set forth
beyond seas, he passed on to young John Milton "in procinct of his
travels," his favourite bit of wisdom, learned from a Roman courtier
well versed in the ways of Italy: "I pensieri stretti e il viso
sciolto."[199] Milton did not follow this Machiavellian precept to keep
his "thoughts close and his countenance loose," as Wotton translates
it,[200] and was soon marked by the Inquisition; but he was proud of
being advised by Sir Henry Wotton, and boasted of the "elegant letter"
and "exceedingly useful precepts" which the Provost bestowed on him at
his departure for Italy.[201]
So much for the admonitory side of instructions for travellers at the
opening of the seventeenth century. Italy, we see, was still feared as a
training-ground for "green wits." Bishop Hall succeeded Ascham in
denouncing the travel of young men who professed "to seek the glory of a
perfect breeding, and the perfection of that which we call civility."
Allowed to visit the Continent at an early age, "these lapwings, that go
from under the wing of their dam with the shell on their heads, run
wild." They hasten southwards, where in Italy they view the "proud
majesty of pompous ceremonies, wherewith the hearts of children and
fools are easily taken."[202] To the persuasive power of the Jesuits
Hall devotes several pages, and makes an impassioned plea to the
authorities to prevent Englishmen from travelling.
Parents could be easily alarmed by any possibility of their sons'
conversion to Romanism. For the penalties of being a Roman Catholic in
England were enough to make an ambitious father dread recusancy in his
son. Though a gentleman or a nobleman ran no risk of being hanged,
quartered, disembowelled and subjected to such punishments as were dealt
out to active and dangerous priests, he was regarded as a traitor if he
acknowledged himself to be a Romanist. At any moment of anti-Catholic
excitement he might be arrested and clapped into prison. Drearier than
prison must have been his social isolation. For he was cut off from his
generation and had no real part in the life of England. Under the laws
of James he was denied any share in the Government, could hold no public
office, practise no profession. Neither law nor medicine, nor parliament
nor the army, nor the university, was open to him. Banished from London
and the Court, shunned by his contemporaries, he lurked in some country
house, now miserably lonely, now plagued by officers in search of
priests. At last, generally, he went abroad, and wandered out his life,
an exile, despised by his countrymen, who met him hanging on at foreign
Courts; or else he sought a monastery and was buried there. To be sure,
the laws against recusants were not uniformly enforced; papistry in
favourites and friends of the king was winked at, and the rich noblemen,
who were able to pay fines, did not suffer much. But the fact remains
that for the average gentleman to turn Romanist generally meant to drop
out of the world. "Mr Lewknor," writes Father Gerard to Father
Owen,[203] "growing of late to a full resolution of entering the Society
(of Jesus), and being so much known in England and in the Court as he
is, so that he could not be concealed in the English College at Rome;
and his father, as he considered, being morally sure to lose his
place,[204] which is worth unto him £1000 a year, he therefore will come
privately to Liege, where I doubt not but to keep him wholly unknown."
* * * * *