THE QUEEN AND THE WAR
II
The darksome statesman, hung with weights and woe
Like a thick midnight fog mov'd there so slow
He did not stay, nor go;
Condemning thoughts--like sad eclipses--scowl
Upon his soul,
And clouds of crying witnesses without
Pursued him with one shout.
Yet digg'd the mole, and lest his ways be found
Work'd underground
Where he did clutch his prey.
HENRY VAUGHAN
If, at the time of her departure from England, Queen Henrietta Maria had
been able to make choice of a book for her private reading and meditation,
and if in that choice she had been guided by the most enlightened
self-interest, she would perhaps have chosen a little pamphlet published in
London in 1642. It was entitled _A collection of Records of the great
Misfortunes that hath hapned unto Kings that hath joyned themselves in a
near allyance with forrein Princes with the happy successe of those that
have only held correspondency at home_.
Henrietta landed in France in the spring of 1644, and from that time until
her husband's death her life was a continuation of that which she had led
in Holland, namely, a perpetual struggle to gather together men and
money--particularly the latter--to help on the cause of the King of
England. For this she intrigued now with one foreign Prince, now with
another, with the King of Denmark, with the Prince of Orange, with the Duke
of Lorraine, the admirer of Madame de Chevreuse, the old enemy of
Richelieu, with the Pope himself. The result was the undying hatred of a
large section of the English people towards both her and her husband, and a
growing distrust which had much to do with the King's final overthrow.
It is idle to blame her overmuch. It cannot be denied that hers were the
mind and the will which impelled her husband along this fatal road; but he
fell in gladly with her suggestions, and he was almost as eager as she for
help from any quarter. She believed, moreover, that the Scotch rebels had
set the example by intriguing with Richelieu, and she knew that the English
Puritans had made it possible for an army of Scots, who at that time were
looked upon almost as foreigners, to enter into England and to remain upon
its soil. It would have required the brain of an Elizabeth to perceive that
a king, by following such precedents, was courting disaster. Henrietta's
brain, acute, lively, but never profound, was incapable of perceiving this.
Besides, she was a Bourbon, and her simple political creed was identical
with that of her husband: a King should be no tyrant, he should rule his
people with justice and mercy; but it was his to command and theirs to
obey, without asking questions as to matters with which they had no
concern.
The exiled Queen spent some weeks at
"ces admirables Fontaines
Où par douzaines et centaines
Pluzieurs gens vont pour être sain
Et qu'on nomme Bourbon-les-Bains."[308]
Their healing influence, together with the care of some of the most
distinguished physicians of France,[309] restored her to such a small
measure of health as enabled her to turn her steps towards Paris. The
kindness she had received since her arrival in her native land was a
preparation for the magnificent reception which awaited her at the capital.
Her brother, the Duke of Orleans, came out as far as Bourg la Reine to meet
her, and was quickly followed by his daughter, Mademoiselle de Montpensier,
the richly dowered girl of whom Henrietta was already beginning to think as
a possible bride for her eldest son. At Montrouge, on the southern
outskirts of the city, the Queen of England received an even more
distinguished attention, for there the Queen of France, accompanied by her
two little sons, met her. Anne's kind heart was touched when she saw the
sister-in-law from whom she had parted nearly twenty years earlier as a
bride returning sad, sick almost to death, and bereft by ill-health and
sorrow of the brilliant beauty which had then been hers. Forgetting the
girlish unkindness which Henrietta had shown her in the past, remembering
nothing but their common friends and enemies--Richelieu, Madame de
Chevreuse, Jars, Montagu--the Queen of France took the Queen of England
into her arms, and the two women clung together weeping and embracing. Then
they climbed up into the royal coach, and Henrietta made the acquaintance
of the little King, whose unexpected appearance in the world six years
earlier had caused so much excitement, and of the still younger Duke of
Anjou, "the real Monsieur" (as he was called in contradistinction to his
uncle), who was one day to be her son-in-law. In such company there can
have been no tedium in the long drive through the Rue S. Jacques, over the
Pont Neuf, and through the Rue S. Honoré to the Louvre, where the kindness
of Queen Anne had caused apartments to be prepared for the royal guest.
That afternoon deputations from the city of Paris and from the various
sovereign bodies waited upon Henrietta, and the ceremonies of reception
were concluded a few days later by a State visit to Notre-Dame, where the
Queen of England gave thanks to Heaven for her safe return to France
through the ministry of the young Coadjutor Bishop of Paris, the witty and
dissolute churchman who afterwards became famous as Cardinal de Retz, and
who always retained a kindness for the exiled royal family of England.
Nothing could exceed the kindness and sympathy which were shown to the
Queen, kindness all the more welcome because she was aware of the annoyance
it would cause to her enemies. "I am so well treated everywhere that if my
lords of London saw it, I think it would make them uneasy,"[310] she had
written to her husband shortly after her landing in France. She was
assigned a pension of 10,000 crowns a month, which enabled her to keep up a
fitting establishment, and in addition to her lodgings at the Louvre she
was given the Château of S. Germain-en-Laye, where she had played as a
child, and where, half a century later, her son was to wear out a more
desolate exile. Her own affairs prospered. Her health improved surely if
slowly. She had the comfort of the presence of faithful servants--Jermyn,
who acted as her secretary, Henry Percy and Lady Denbigh, who herself had
tasted the full bitterness of civil strife in the death of her husband, who
fell fighting for the King, and in the defection of her eldest son to the
rebels, which sorrows bound her all the more closely to the Queen, who had
shown the tenderest sympathy with her bereavement. Moreover, in Paris
Henrietta found many friends. Familiar faces, indeed, were missed. The
Bishop of Mende had not been given time to learn wisdom by experience, but
had "made an angelical end" at the siege of Rochelle, dying in the same
year as his enemy Buckingham. Madame S. Georges, who had found an
honourable position as governess to the heiress of Montpensier, had passed
away in 1643, and Louis XIII was gone, so that all his sister could do for
him was to journey to S. Denys and to sprinkle his tomb with holy water.
But old servants, such as the Bishop of Angoulême, were there to welcome
her; and in the brilliant Paris of the day she came across not only friends
of the past--M. de Chateauneuf, the Chevalier de Jars, and others--but new
acquaintances, who soon became friends, of whom perhaps the most
interesting was the accomplished Madame de Motteville, herself one of the
band of exiles whom the death of Richelieu had brought back in triumph to
the Court of France.
Nor did she fail to attract the exiles of England to her own Court, where
she gathered round her some of the men of wit and learning whom the evil
times had forced to quit their native land. Thither came "Master Richard
Crashaw, Master of Arts of Peterhouse, Cambridge, well known for his
excellent poems,"[311] who was introduced to the Queen's notice by a
brother poet, Abraham Cowley, at this time Jermyn's secretary. It can
hardly be supposed that Henrietta understood the highly difficult poems of
the Cambridge mystic, but perhaps she talked with him of S. Teresa,[312]
whose praise inspired some of his choicest work, and whom she herself had
learned to love as a child among the Carmelites in Paris. Moreover, Crashaw
was interesting as a recent convert to Catholicism. "Being a meer scholar
and very shiftless,"[313] he was quite destitute in the French capital when
he was found by Cowley, and he was delighted to accept Henrietta's
hospitality. He dwelt nearly a year at her Court, making many friends by
his talents and virtues, of whom the chief was Lady Denbigh. Her he
exhorted, not without success, to follow his religious example, and to her
he dedicated his book of poems, _Carmen Deo Nostro_, which was published
after he had passed on to the Court of Rome, bearing a letter of
introduction written to Innocent X by the Queen's own hand.[314] To the
exiled Court of England came also another poet, Sir William D'Avenant,
whose welcome was the warmer because he had been concerned in the army
plot. At the Louvre he wrote the dreary verses of _Gondibert_, and
dedicated them to Thomas Hobbes, that daring philosopher who had likewise
found a refuge in Paris, where, apart from the turmoils of England, he was
able to reflect upon those principles of government wherewith he startled
the world a few years later on the publication of _The Leviathan_. To these
literary refugees must be added English Catholic nobles, such as Lord
Montagu, and ladies of the same persuasion, among whom was prominent the
Dowager Countess of Banbury, a lady who, after a not irreproachable career
in England, had settled down in Paris to enjoy the reputation of a rich
_dévote_.
But no social pleasures and attentions could satisfy Henrietta, whose heart
was with her struggling husband. "There is nothing so certain as that I do
take all pains I can imaginable to procure you assistance, and am as
incapable of taking any delight or being pleased with my being here, though
I have all kinds of contentments, but as I hope it may enable me to send
you help."[315] These words, written to the King on November 18th, 1644,
were no idle sentiment; they are the truest epitome of her life in Paris.
The royal cause was balancing between hope and fear. The defeat of Marston
Moor, on July 2nd, 1644, had been indeed a terrible blow, but new hope was
infused into the party by the surrender of Essex in Cornwall, a victory
peculiarly grateful to the Queen, who could not forget the Earl's ungallant
conduct to her. The great need was men and money, and to procure these was
the end of Henrietta's unremitting efforts. For this she carried on
negotiations with the Prince of Orange, by means of an English Catholic
named Stephen Goffe, for the marriage of Prince Charles with his daughter;
for this she attempted to mortgage the tin mines of Cornwall; for this,
above all, she carried on personally and through Jermyn long and weary
negotiations with the Court of France.
France had not been unmindful of the difficulties of the King of England,
or of the troubles which threatened the Queen; but great caution was used,
and Gressy, who had shown too openly his partiality for the royal cause,
was replaced by Sabran, who knew better how to trim between the two
parties. It is probable that at the beginning of the struggle Mazarin
desired the victory of the King, and it is said that up to 1644 the French
Government gave as much as 300,000 crowns in money and munitions to aid
him.[316] A letter of Goring,[317] Henrietta's agent in France, dated at
the beginning of that year, which unfortunately fell into the hands of her
enemies, spoke of the dispatch of a considerable quantity of arms, and gave
a cheerful account of the kind words of the Queen-Regent and of Mazarin.
Charles himself thought that a little French money and a little French
influence would settle everything. His enemies were manifestly cast down,
not only by the death of Richelieu, but by the accounts which reached
London of the kind reception which had been given to the Queen. But,
nevertheless, Henrietta was to find disappointment here as elsewhere.
France was in no condition to give such help as would have sufficed for her
needs. The country was overtaxed, and though the new reign was brightened
by the éclat of the victory of Recroy, at which the young Duke of Enghien,
afterwards the great Condé, won his reputation, yet the war with Spain was
a terrible burden. Moreover, in spite of the assertions of the Queen-Regent
and her advisers that it was the means and not the will that was lacking,
there is little doubt that the French Government was beginning to see in
the English troubles a state of affairs highly satisfactory to itself.
Besides, Mazarin certainly inherited from Richelieu a distrust of Charles
and Henrietta. The Queen was specially distrusted. The English Catholics
had not quite forgotten her French birth, but it was believed in France
that they had inclined her to Spain, an opinion which was strengthened by
the fact that up to the time of her leaving England two of her principal
advisers were the Digbys, father and son,[318] who were well known to be
pro-Spanish in their sympathies. Mazarin was quite aware of Henrietta's
influence over her husband, and he hoped that her removal from his side
would help to turn Charles' eyes from Spain.
And there were other and more personal reasons for Mazarin's distrust of
the Queen of England. Henrietta, who was always too prone to believe that
good diplomacy consisted in cultivating relations with all parties at once,
allowed her ambassador Goring to meddle in the intrigues which grew up
round Mazarin as they had round Richelieu, a fact of which the Cardinal,
who had inherited a perfect system of espionage, was quite aware. By the
time Henrietta reached France the power of the Importants was broken, and
Madame de Chevreuse had again left the Court. The exiled Queen desired
greatly to see her old friend, and without pausing to consider how
imprudent was the appearance of any connection between herself and that
factious lady, she asked her sister-in-law's permission to have an
interview with the Duchess, permission which with all courtesy was refused,
at the instance of Mazarin. The Cardinal, moreover, caused the Queen of
England to be warned against others of her old friends, among whom may be
mentioned M. de Chateauneuf, who had indeed escaped public disgrace, but
who was known to be as inimical to Mazarin as ever he had been to
Richelieu.[319]
Thus it came about that, in spite of the kind words and occasional
assistance of the Queen-Regent and of Cardinal Mazarin,[320] Henrietta was
less successful than she had hoped to be, and could by no means persuade
Mazarin to an open breach with the Parliamentary party, whose strength he
was beginning to appreciate. "I have not found the means of engaging France
as forwardly in your interest as I expected," she wrote sadly to Charles.
In 1645 she was informed that all the French Government could do for her
was to permit her to make levies in the country (and she was so poor that
it was thought she would not take advantage of the permission), and to make
an appeal to the clergy of France on behalf of the necessities of the King
of England.
Of this last grace Henrietta availed herself eagerly; but of all the many
injudicious acts which she committed at this period of her life, this
appeal to the clergy of a race and of a faith alien to those of her
subjects was one of the most injudicious. The outburst of anti-Catholic
rage which she had witnessed in England ought to have taught her prudence;
but hers was not a mind to learn by experience. Moreover, she seems from
the outbreak of the war to have looked upon the Puritans as irreconcilables
who could only be subdued by force, and whom it was useless to attempt to
propitiate. She thought also, and most erroneously, that they were but a
small minority of the nation.
The Queen had recovered her spirits. Not only had Mazarin, in spite of his
official refusals, sent her secretly a sum of money sufficient to raise her
ever-ready hopes, but she expected great things from a growing friendship
with Emery, the Deputy Treasurer and one of the richest men in France. To
complete her satisfaction the clergy showed great sympathy with her, and
sent her, on their first assembling, a sum of money as an earnest of more
to come[321]; which money was immediately laid out in raising levies for
England.
The assembly of the French clergy, which was presided over by the
Cardinal-Archbishop of Lyons, the brother of the great Richelieu, met in
May, 1645, but it was not until the February of the following year that the
case of the Queen of England was seriously considered. Henrietta's advocate
on this occasion was probably the best that could have been chosen. The
Bishop of Angoulême during his sojourn in England had resisted in a really
praiseworthy manner those foreign influences which had corrupted some of
his fellow-countrymen who resided there, and he was perhaps regarded in
Paris with greater favour than any other of the Queen's servants. He was,
moreover, a speaker and preacher of repute, and the oration which he
delivered before the Fathers of the Church was not only a fine piece of
oratory, but was skilfully constructed to work as much as possible upon the
feelings of his audience.[322]
He dwelt upon the miserable condition of the Catholic Church in England,
which, before these troubles, had begun, after a century of persecution, to
raise its head under the protection of the Queen. He asserted (what was
true) that were the King forced to make terms with his foes, the Catholics
would be the scapegoat. He drew lurid word-pictures of the terrible
consequences to the Church throughout Europe should the impious rebels
succeed in their object of setting up a Puritan republic in England. Then
he turned to the even more powerful argument of self-interest. The
Huguenots, he said, who were beaten down but not destroyed, were looking
across the Channel to the Puritans of England, whose real design was the
destruction of the Catholic Church as well in France as in their own land.
To help forward this project of the Evil One large sums of money were being
dispatched by the French Protestants to aid the armies of rebellion in
England.[323]
"Res tua tunc agitur, paries cum proximus ardet,"
cried the good Bishop, hoping, not without reason, to arouse the fears of
his audience; for it was only twenty years since the fall of Rochelle, and
the revival of the power of the Huguenots, which it had required the strong
hand of Richelieu to repress, was an ever-present terror to the French
Catholics. But Du Perron was not content with such arguments. He was able
to make a statement which he hoped would tell much in favour of the cause
he was advocating. He declared that the King of England had promised in
writing to his wife that if he were restored by Catholic help he would
repeal every law against the Catholics on the statute book,[324] and the
Bishop added that he was at liberty to make this statement, as its purport
was already known to the Puritans through the interception of the King's
letter. That Charles made this promise there is no reason to doubt; that
had cause arisen he would have broken it, as he broke others, is in the
highest degree probable.[325] Perhaps the French bishops knew the man with
whom they had to deal, perhaps they were instructed by Mazarin, whom they
were too well trained not to consult. Be this as it may, the results of the
eloquence of the Bishop of Angoulême were disappointing, even though he
enforced his arguments by descriptions of the piteous condition of
Henrietta and of her children, "the grandsons, the nephews, and the cousins
of three of our Kings." The clergy of France did not feel able to offer to
the Queen of England more than a few thousand crowns, "a somme fitter to
buy hangings for a chamber than prosecute a war,"[326] as a newswriter of
the day said.
But disappointed as the Queen was, she quickly turned to other hopes and
schemes.
Ever since the Irish rebellion of 1641 Puritan scandal had linked
Henrietta's name with that of the rebels. The accusation as it stood was
ridiculous, but the Confederate Catholics,[327] as the Irish in arms called
themselves, certainly hoped something from the Catholic Queen, and in 1642
they presented to her a petition, in which they begged her "Hester-like
intercession to our most gracious Prince." They heard with sympathy of her
arrival in Paris, and again dispatched a letter to congratulate her on that
event.
She, on her side, regarded the Confederate Catholics as rebels in arms
against their lawful King; but she had a certain sympathy with them as the
victims of Puritan intolerance, and she thought, like her husband, that it
might be possible to turn their arms against worse enemies. With this end
in view she carried on negotiations with a certain Colonel FitzWilliams,
whom she found in Paris, and for the same purpose she cultivated the
acquaintance of the agent of the Confederate Catholics in that city, Father
O'Hartegan, the Jesuit.
This patriot, who was of a type not uncommon in his native land, was
greatly pleased at the notice of the Queen of England, whom he believed to
be on the point of starting for Ireland. He also thought, on account of
some slight attention shown to him by Mazarin,[328] that France, which up
till now had shown herself very cool to the necessities of the persecuted
Irish Catholics, and had even, by the mouth of the Cardinal, lectured them
on their lack of loyalty to their sovereign, was about to do her duty by
them. "What is needed," remarked the Jesuit modestly, "is 200,000 crowns
out of hand, with a good store of arms and ammunition, and promise of
yearly favour."
O'Hartegan had reason for his good spirits. His glib tongue recommended him
where he was not too well known, and he was caressed by the English
Catholics in Paris and by Jermyn, who was the more entirely satisfactory to
deal with, inasmuch as he had no religious scruples of any kind. Moreover,
the affairs of the Confederate Catholics were going very well in Rome.
When Henrietta had been but a short time in France, the news of two deaths
arrived, that of Elizabeth, Queen of Spain, and that of Maffeo Barberini,
Pope Urban VIII.
The Queen of England had long ceased to be in close touch with her
sister,[329] but it was thought that she would be greatly distressed at the
death of the Pope, for the Barberini had always been considered her
friends. But it may be that she was not altogether displeased. Any change
in the personnel of the European Courts meant a fresh chance for her
schemes; and though Urban had been kind enough to send her 25,000 crowns,
which she, or perhaps her husband, acknowledged from Oxford in 1643,[330]
yet he had shown himself somewhat callous to her larger claims, and it was
perhaps not unknown to her that Cardinal Francesco, in spite of his
often-repeated professions of friendship, had been the first foreign prince
to contribute to the necessities of the rebellious Confederate Catholics.
The new Pope, Innocent X, was believed to favour Spain as his predecessor
had favoured France, but Henrietta had not lived for nearly twenty years
among the English Catholics without having learned to consider this an
advantage rather than otherwise in religious negotiations. She determined
to send an envoy to Rome, ostensibly to congratulate the Pope upon his
accession, and O'Hartegan learned that her choice had fallen upon her old
friend Sir Kenelm Digby.
There are few more picturesque figures in the history of the time than that
of this gentleman: a scholar who was welcome among the learned of all
nations, a chemist who was half scientist, half charlatan, a naval
commander who had brought home stories even more remarkable than the
majority of travellers' tales, it is not surprising that he should have
attracted the attention of the Queen, who liked brilliant people. She may
perhaps also have been touched by the strange story of his love, which had
bound him in affectionate marriage to a woman who had been the acknowledged
mistress of another man. But she ought to have known better than to send
him to Rome. Not only was he a vain and undependable person--a teller of
strange tales, as even the courteous Evelyn described him--but the
religious vacillations and experiments which had made him unwelcome a few
years earlier to Urban VIII were not likely to commend him to Innocent X,
who would be less attracted by his learning and accomplishments than his
scholarly predecessor. The English Catholics in Paris who opposed the
appointment were wiser than could be understood by Henrietta; she added to
her mistake by permitting the envoy who was going to Rome on an
international mission, and who above all should have shown himself strictly
impartial between the rival factions of English Catholicism, to take upon
him before leaving Paris the charge of advancing at the Papal Court the
interests of the Chapter, which, after the banishment of the Bishop of
Chalcedon, claimed ecclesiastical authority in England, whose pretensions
were resolutely opposed by the regular and some even of the secular
clergy.[331]
And Sir Kenelm had hardly reached Rome when the need for help became more
pressing than ever, for the 14th of June of that same year was the day of
Naseby.
It was a crushing defeat, and after it the royal party never really
rallied. Henrietta, in her unconquerable hopefulness, thought that now, at
her extremity, France would come effectually to her aid; but Mazarin feared
to offend the Puritans more than he feared their dominance, and the old
weary round of intrigue was pursued with the same lack of result. Even an
offer from which the Queen hoped much, made to her by the Duke of Bouillon,
of raising troops for England round Cologne, came to nothing, because the
Cardinal believed that the real intention of Bouillon was to use these men
in the interests of Spain.
[Illustration: SIR KENELM DIGBY
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY VAN DYCK]
And Naseby was more than a military defeat. On that fatal field, through
some misfortune or negligence, fell into the enemy's hand the papers of the
King.[332] Nothing more unfortunate could have occurred. The secrecy of
these letters, which were shortly published in London with choice comments,
was worth more to Charles and Henrietta than men or money. Their
publication betrayed the schemes in which the Queen had been spending her
strength for winning back England by foreign troops or by foreign gold. It
revealed how greatly the King was under the influence of his wife, and how
deeply she was compromised with the hated Irish. Most disastrous of all, it
showed how at the very time that he was promising to support the Protestant
religion and never to permit Catholicism, he was secretly giving her
authority to pledge his word for the complete toleration of the hated
religion. He stood revealed as what he was, a shifty and untrustworthy man.
After Naseby Charles was never trusted again.
Henrietta probably did not appreciate the magnitude of the disaster, and
she turned again cheerfully to the tortuous intrigues from which she hoped
so much.
At first it seemed as if Sir Kenelm Digby's mission would be successful.
The smaller Italian princes to whom he appealed he found indeed "a frugal
generation," but the Pope received him with great kindness, and appeared
charmed by his flow of persuasive eloquence and by the piety and
fascination of his manners. He even gave him an order for 20,000 crowns, to
be used in arms and munitions of war, which the Queen of England gratefully
acknowledged from S. Germain in September, 1645.[333] So far so good, but
neither she nor her agent knew the odds against which they were fighting.
Henrietta always believed that her husband's leniency to the Catholics
during his years of power had given him a claim upon the gratitude of the
whole Catholic world. She also knew better than any one else what the
hatred of the Puritans to her co-religionists really was, and what their
domination might mean. But at Rome matters were looked at in another light.
A certain interest was taken in Charles, and considerable sympathy was felt
for his unhappy wife; but neither were trusted. Henrietta was believed to
be guided by heretics, and even, through their influence, to have been in
the past "a powerful instrument for the destruction of the Catholics and of
the Catholic religion";[334] while Charles was disliked as a heretic, and
his failures to keep his word--his persecution of the Catholics in 1626,
his desertion of Strafford and the like--were reckoned up against him with
pitiless accuracy. As he had been in the past so no doubt would he be in
the future. It cannot be said that it was a misreading of Charles'
character which led the Pope and his advisers to think that he would have
taken the money of the Church and then thrown over the Catholics, if by
doing so he could further his own interests. And there were other and
better claimants in the case. Hopes at Rome were rising high with regard to
Ireland. Urban VIII, in 1628, had thought it would be a nice arrangement
for all concerned if that island were handed over to the Holy See. Innocent
X's designs were not quite so far-reaching, and he recommended loyalty to
the King of England; but he thought that it might be possible to coerce a
faithless and heretic Prince by means of the Confederate Catholics.
Moreover, that body, which had agents all over Europe, was fortunate enough
to have in Rome a representative as able and effective as Sir Kenelm Digby
was the reverse, in the person of Father Luke Wadding, of the Order of St.
Francis. This friar left Ireland when he was a boy of fifteen, and he never
saw again his native land; but throughout a long life which he spent
roaming about the Continent he preserved a fervid Hibernian patriotism, of
which the effects are felt to the present day.[335] At this time he was
living in Rome, and any slight feeling of loyalty to the King of England
which he may have once possessed had long ago been lost in the desire to
see his faith and his race triumph over the hated oppressor. It was he who
had prevailed upon Cardinal Francesco Barberini to send money to Ireland,
and though he had not been able to rouse the cautious Urban VIII to any
considerable effort,[336] he prepared with undiminished hope to use all his
influence to win over Innocent X, from whose Spanish sympathies he augured
the happiest results.
And indeed it was largely owing to the representations of this Irish friar
that, in the summer of 1645, while Sir Kenelm Digby was still fêted in
Rome, an envoy on his way from the Pope to the Confederate Catholics
appeared in Paris bearing a large sum of money, which the indefatigable
Wadding had amassed for the use of the faithful in his native land.
Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo, was a worthy ecclesiastic
of middle age. It is said that he was appointed to this delicate mission to
pleasure the Grand Duke of Tuscany, whose subject he was. He had, however,
a certain interest in the British Isles, because as a young man he had been
associated with a Scotch Capuchin, by name George Leslie, of whom he wrote
an edifying biography, which may be considered an early example of
religious romance.[337] Clarendon stigmatizes him as a "light-headed
envoy," but the epithet is hardly happy as applied to this stern, unbending
Churchman, whose unalterable determination it was that the money of the
Church should not be squandered to further the interests of a heretic
sovereign. In this respect, indeed, he followed with fidelity the
instructions given to him which dwelt upon the necessity of the strongest
guarantees of real benefit to the Catholics before money was advanced to
the King of England, and which altogether would have been instructive, if
not pleasant, reading for Charles and Henrietta.
The Queen was indeed already beginning to repent of her overtures to the
Confederate Catholics,[338] for in the early part of the year some letters
of O'Hartegan had fallen into the hands of the Roundheads, who caused them
to be printed. These letters spoke disrespectfully of her, and showed how
cheaply the Jesuit held the advantage of the King, so that Charles, who was
wont to feel great indignation at every one's self-seeking and shiftiness
except his own, wrote to his wife that the agent was "an arrant
knave."[339] Rinuccini's arrival in Paris made matters worse. Henrietta was
a Catholic, but she was a queen also, and it was an insult to which she
could not tamely submit that the Pope should send an envoy to those who,
after all, were rebels in arms against her husband. She wrote a dignified
letter of remonstrance to Innocent, and she refused to receive Rinuccini
except as a private person, a condition which the ambassador, one of whose
strongest characteristics was his personal vanity, declined to accept.
The poor Queen was indeed in a mesh from which there was no escape, and she
knew not how to carry out the task of so settling the affairs of Ireland
that the King might be able to draw troops therefrom. She desired to make
peace between Ormonde, her husband's Viceroy, and the Catholics, and her
difficulties were such as attend all persons who, being in authority, are
obliged to seek at one and the same time the help of representatives of
opposing interests. Rinuccini, seeing her under the influence of
Protestants, concluded, not unjustly on his own premises, that the duty of
the Holy Father was to turn a deaf ear to her entreaties for aid, and to
send such moneys as he could afford to the Confederate Catholics, whose
loyalty to the Holy See was not compromised by any inconvenient devotion to
a heretic Prince. Out in Rome Sir Kenelm was begging and praying for help,
unconscious of the fact that the envoy was warning the Pope against him,
and asserting, probably with some truth, that the rosy pictures which he
drew of the intentions of the King of England with regard to the Catholics
were greatly over-coloured. The Confederate Catholics in Ireland were
waiting eagerly for the coming of Rinuccini, and had little desire to help
the King of England, except in so far as such help would conduce to the
realization of their chief object, the emancipation of Ireland from the
hated foreigner.
Rinuccini, after a considerable delay in Paris, whence he wrote many
letters to Rome expressing his views with great frankness upon the Queen of
England and her advisers, pushed on to Ireland, where, far from making
peace with Ormonde or with any one else, he set everybody by the ears--not
a difficult task, it is true, in that island--and ended by excommunicating
most of the Confederate Catholics themselves. Steps were taken by some of
the victims to find out the opinion of the Sorbonne as to the validity of
this sweeping ecclesiastical censure.
Meanwhile, in Paris, Henrietta was dragging on her old life of intrigue and
disappointment. The presence at her side of Jermyn, whose great influence
over her was generally remarked,[340] was not in her favour, either with
the extreme Catholics, who disliked him as a heretic, or with the French,
who considered him, with justice, to be a man of mediocre ability, and who
were pleased to see that the Queen, in spite of her subservience, could
sometimes assert her will against his. The French Government was becoming
more and more afraid to provoke the Puritans, whom Mazarin feared to throw
into the arms of Spain. The defeat of Naseby, whose importance the Queen
and her friends vainly endeavoured to minimize, was followed by the hardly
less disastrous day of Philiphaugh, when Montrose was overwhelmed by an
army of the Covenant. Thus the year 1646 broke in gloom and despondency,
which were not lightened when a scheme of the Queen's for the invasion of
England by French troops was discovered by the interception of her
letters.[341] In the spring affairs had so far advanced that Charles, with
a confidence rendered pathetic by the event, gave himself up into the hands
of the Scots, the true compatriots of a Stuart King.
For a moment there seemed to be hope, and it is possible that Charles might
have recovered his crown had he been able to accept unreservedly the
Covenant. His refusal to give up the Church of England, which was one of
the most respectable acts of his life, brought upon him remonstrances,
entreaties, and almost anger from his wife, to whom all Protestants were
heretics alike. She even sent D'Avenant to him to represent her wishes on
the subject; but Charles, with a violence he did not often show, drove the
hapless poet from his presence with an intimation that he was never to
enter it again. Mazarin at this time seems to have desired the King's
restoration by means of an accommodation, though, owing to the ever-present
fear of Spain, he would not openly assist him. He could not repress his
scorn for the man who could throw away his crown for such a bagatelle as
the Church of England. In fact, he frankly owned that he could not
understand Charles. The latter had granted concessions which compromised
his kingly dignity; why make a fuss about a trifle which, nevertheless, if
conceded, might restore him to power? The Cardinal urged the French
ambassador in England to do all he could to bring the King to reason; but
the latter, who was becoming very sceptical as to the friendship of the
French,[342] was not likely to listen. The chance was lost, and Charles
soon found himself a prisoner in the hands of the English Presbyterians.
His countrymen, to whom in the days of his power he had shown favour not
always in accordance with his own interests, had sold him to his enemies.
Once again, a year later, there was a lifting of the clouds. In 1647 it
became evident that the Puritan party was growing weary of the Presbyterian
tyranny. As is commonly the case in revolutions, wilder and stronger
spirits were crowding out the more moderate reformers who had begun the
battle. The Independents, to whom in large measure the victories of Marston
Moor and Naseby were due, had control of the army, and the great figure of
Cromwell, which soon was to bestride England like a Colossus, was coming to
the front. In the late spring it seemed as if Charles and the Presbyterians
might come to terms. On June 4th a deputation from the army waited on the
King at Holmby House, where he was imprisoned, took possession of his
person, and carried him off to Newmarket.
The Independents showed great respect for their royal prisoner, and it
seemed as if they would be willing to make an accommodation with him.
Henrietta, in Paris, whither all news was quickly carried, thought with her
usual hopefulness that at last, at the darkest hour, the day was dawning.
There happened to be at her Court two gentlemen who seemed well fitted to
act as intermediaries between Charles and the Independents; one of them,
Sir John Denham, the bearer of a name which is still remembered in English
literature, had improved a sojourn in prison by making friends with that
worthy army chaplain Hugh Peters, who was closely connected with the
Independent leaders; the other, Sir Edward Ford, was Ireton's
brother-in-law. These two slipped across the Channel, and they were
permitted to see the King; but whether the Queen did not feel much
confidence in her envoys (and, indeed, Denham was a rash and headstrong man
who died insane), or whether her restlessness would not permit her to cease
from fresh attempts to improve her husband's position, she determined to
send another emissary of higher standing to intermeddle in this delicate
negotiation.
Just at this time Sir John Berkeley, who had distinguished himself during
the war as Governor of Exeter, was returning from Holland, whither he had
been to express the Queen's condolences on the death of the Prince of
Orange. He was almost unknown to Henrietta personally, but she was aware of
his reputation for loyalty and good sense, and she knew also perhaps that
he was regarded with respect by the enemy; he had hardly arrived at S.
Germain-en-Laye, where she was keeping her Court, when he accidentally fell
in with one of her servants, Lord Culpepper.
"You must prepare for another journey, Sir John," said the latter; "the
Queen designs to send you into England."
Berkeley, as is not surprising, was rather taken aback. England was the
last place to which he desired to go; he knew none of the Independent
leaders, and, as he justly remarked, it was a pity to send over too many of
the King's servants to share in the places and preferments which those
worthies hoped to keep for themselves; but Culpepper waived these
objections aside. "If you are afraid, Sir John," he said contemptuously,
"the Queen can easily find some one else to do her business."
No man of spirit could bear such an imputation. Berkeley, against his
better judgment, set off to add another to the long list of the Queen's
diplomatic failures.[343]
Another failure more personal and even more bitter was awaiting her.
In the first days of 1646 Sir Kenelm Digby appeared in Paris; he was
immediately received by the Queen, and "he got three hours' conference with
her and in end she seemed to be verie well pleased."[344] It appears that
he brought with him for the Queen's consideration and the King's
confirmation a document which he had drawn up in Rome and which had been
provisionally accepted by the Pope, though a copy had been sent to
Rinuccini for such emendations as he might think fit. By these articles
Innocent agreed, in return for the abolition of the Penal Laws in England
and the public establishment of Catholicism in Ireland, to make a grant,
100,000 crowns; but in his distrust of Charles he provided that the money
should not be paid to the Queen until the King had carried out the
provisions with regard to Ireland. It was further agreed that Irish troops
under Catholic leaders should be taken into the King's service in
England.[345]
It is hardly likely that either Charles or Henrietta relished these
articles, which showed plainly enough how deeply they were distrusted at
Rome, and which required so much before they could touch a penny of the
coveted money. Perhaps the King was indignant with Sir Kenelm for
suggesting such terms, for it was probably against his wishes that the
knight, after the failure of his negotiations, was again dispatched to Rome
in the autumn. He carried with him, however, the undiminished confidence of
the Queen,[346] and by October he was fixed at the Papal Court waiting for
the help which never came.
And, indeed, his chances of success were even slighter than before; he was,
it is true, the most accomplished cavalier of his time--"the Magazine of
all arts," as he was called. Distinguished foreigners who visited the
Eternal City came to see him, and went away quite fascinated by his stores
of learning and by his agreeable conversation; had he been dropped from the
clouds on to any part of the world he would have made himself respected,
said his admirers. Yes, retorted the Jesuits, who did not love him, but
then he must not remain above six weeks; the trouble was that he had been
in Rome a good deal more than six weeks. The Pope was tired of his endless
talk and was beginning to think that he was mad, which perhaps was not far
from the truth; his folly in mixing up matters of high policy concerning
the King and Queen of England with an affair of purely ecclesiastical
interest, such as the recognition of the Chapter, was commented on, and the
extraordinary bitterness which both he and his friends displayed towards
their opponents, among whom were the powerful religious Orders, was not in
his favour; his position was further injured by his intimacy with Thomas
White, a learned but eccentric priest then in Rome, who, afterward the
elaborator of a theory of government which, like that of Hobbes, was
believed to be a bid for the favour of Cromwell,[347] was already regarded
with suspicion by the orthodox as unsound both in theology and philosophy;
finally, the envoy suffered by the absence of Francesco Barberini, who had
withdrawn from Rome. The Cardinal had not, it is true, been a very faithful
friend[348] to the Queen of England, but in spite of occasional lapses he
felt a certain interest in English affairs which might have counteracted in
some measure the Irish influence brought to bear upon the Pope. Nor was it
only Sir Kenelm who was out of favour; his cousin George Digby, through
whose hands passed the negotiations of the King and Queen with the Irish,
was industriously misrepresented by Rinuccini, while there were those who
did not scruple to insinuate that the Queen required money for her private
purposes, and that Jermyn, the heretic Jermyn, would have the spending of
it. So greatly was the Pope influenced by these scandals that even those
who favoured Henrietta and who would gladly have seen the Holy See unite
with France to restore the King of England thought that Digby's best policy
would be to plead for a grant of money for Ireland; but this course was
prevented by the extraordinary conduct of Rinuccini, which has been already
referred to, and which caused great wrath in the school of Catholics to
which Digby belonged. It would be well, wrote White bitterly to Sir Kenelm,
if the Pope could send into Ireland "such orders, or rather such a man,
that may conserve the peace and seek more after the substance than after
the outside of religion."[349]
Thus affairs stood in Rome at the crisis of 1647.
As early as 1645 it was believed that the Queen was inclined towards the
Independents through the influence of Henry Percy and of Father Philip, who
were suspected of communication with the leaders of that party;[350] in
matters of religion they were less rigid than the Presbyterians; they
possessed some glimmering of the idea of toleration, and they even showed
some disposition to favour the Catholics. When in 1647 they gained the
upper hand, Henrietta believed that the moment had come at last when the
Catholics would be able to hold the balance between the King, the
Presbyterians, and the Independents, and with the favour of the latter to
win the long-hoped-for liberty of conscience, carrying with it the repeal
of the penal laws. Never, it was thought, had the Catholics had such a
chance since the days of Mary. Charles, characteristically, wished to keep
out of sight in the negotiations. "You must know," wrote an English
Catholic to Sir Kenelm Digby in August, 1647, "at last not only the
Independents, but the King himself do give us solid hopes of a liberty of
conscience for Catholics in England in case we can but gain security that
our subjection to the Pope shall bring no prejudice to our allegiance
towards his Majesty or that state; it is true the King will not appear in
it, but would have the army make it their request unto him; and so I
understand he hath advised the Catholics to treat with the army about it,
and the business will be to frame an oath of allegiance."[351]
The Catholics carried on negotiations with Sir Thomas Fairfax;[352] the
rationale of the penal laws had always been the suspicion that the
recusants held opinions subversive of the State and indeed of all social
life, and it was to overcome this difficulty that Three Propositions were
drawn up by the Catholics "importing that the Pope and Church had no power
to absolve from obedience to civil government or dispense with word or oath
made to heretics or authorize to injure other men upon pretence of them
being excommunicated."[353] It was intimated that if the Catholics, by
subscribing these opinions, could "vindicate these principles from
inconsistency with civil government,"[354] the penal laws would be repealed
and liberty of conscience granted.[355]
It is no wonder that the English Catholics were in high spirits. The more
moderate of them who were weary of being considered bad subjects for
principles which they did not hold were glad to testify their loyalty not
only to the Independents, but to the King, who had always been suspicious
of it; a large number of Catholics came forward to sign the negative of the
Three Propositions,[356] among whom were members of the religious Orders,
even of the Society of Jesus, and well-known laymen, such as the Marquis of
Winchester, whose defence of Basing House had won the admiration of the
whole Royalist party, and Walter Montagu, who, though he was still in
prison, was allowed to intermix in the negotiation.
Out in Paris the Queen, who had spent her life trying to persuade her
husband of the unimpeachable loyalty of her co-religionists, was doing her
part. In July, even before the Three Propositions were drawn up, she put
further pressure upon Rome for aid; there were men, there were munitions,
all that was needed was money; surely in such a crisis to gain all that was
at stake the Holy Father would supply it. She sent her instructions to
Digby and waited in hope.
Sir Kenelm pressed with all his eloquence the needs of the Catholics and
their great opportunity. Perhaps the Pope was a little overwhelmed by his
flow of words, for he requested him to put his arguments on paper; Digby,
nothing loath, drew up memorials, of which the burden was always the need
of money to enable the Catholics to take an influential part in the
settlement which was believed to be pending. He descanted upon the hopes
raised by the unexpected revolt of the Independents, who wished to destroy
the Presbyterians and to favour the Catholics. The latter were exhausted by
years of war and persecution, but if the Holy Father would only show a
timely liberality they could so intervene as to bring about not only their
own salvation, but that of their co-religionists in Ireland, thus saving
the Pope the great expenses he was incurring on behalf of the Confederate
Catholics. Moreover, by such conduct he would give proof that by sending
Rinuccini to Ireland he had had no desire but the good of religion; if he
refused the Queen's request, added Digby impressively, it would mean the
ruin of religion, both in England and Ireland.
Innocent may have given some attention to Digby's arguments, but probably
at no time did he think of acting upon them. The reputation of the envoy,
which was not improved by his disrespectful, if just, criticisms of the
methods of the Papal Court, told heavily against his requests. Moreover,
the Queen herself was little trusted, particularly in Irish affairs, for
she was believed to put the interests of her husband above those of
religion, and to favour unduly Lord Ormonde, to whom (in the vain hope of
bringing about an accommodation between him and the Confederates) she had
recently sent an agent, by name George Leybourn,[357] who, though a
Catholic priest, belonged to a very different school of thought from that
of the fierce Rinuccini. Besides, the recent events in England were
prejudicial to Henrietta's interests in Rome.
The negotiation of the Three Propositions was considered a private matter,
but it came to the ears of the Pope. Innocent probably was aware that it
was to a great extent managed by a section of the secular clergy, who,
perhaps from their close connection with the intellectual society of Paris,
held Gallican views of so extreme a type that they would gladly have
settled the matter without reference to Rome, and who saw in the whole
affair a nice opportunity of getting rid of their enemies the Jesuits, whom
they thoughtfully suggested should be excluded from the general toleration;
indeed, one of the chief supporters of the scheme was a priest named
Holden, who was a great friend of Sir Kenelm Digby and Thomas White, and
who had long been noted for the extravagance of his opinions.[358] This
gentleman, now resident in Paris, wrote encouraging letters to his
co-religionists in England, assuring them that their attitude on the
questions raised by the Three Propositions was that of all the learned and
judicious men of France. It is true that some of the more timid English
Catholics, notwithstanding such encouragement, became alarmed, and wrote an
exculpatory letter to the Holy Father, in which they informed him that the
denial they had given to the Three Propositions was "in, the negative to
theyr affirmative who presented them unto us, not absolutely in theyr
negative, for that had indeed intruded further upon the Pope's authority
than the subscribers were willing to doe."[359] But even such refinements
could not save the conduct of the English Catholics from condemnation at
Rome, where the deposing power was not so lightly to be parted with. Thus
it is not surprising that Henrietta waited for a reply from the Pope with
the heart-sickness of hope deferred. She did not know, what had long been
confessed among the initiated, that the Holy Father's chief object was the
success of the Confederate Catholics,[360] to whom in the spring of that
same year he had sent, together with his paternal benediction, the sum of
50,000 crowns. In September she took up her ever-ready pen and wrote
herself to Innocent, a sad letter, in which she speaks of her devotion to
the Catholic faith, and of the good intentions which had not been seconded
as they should have been. It is not known whether the Pope replied to these
reproaches, but a month later he received Sir Kenelm Digby once again,
though he was probably aware of the fact that that gentleman was
hand-in-glove with those whom he had censured in England.
That gentleman's temper had not been improved by his long trials; the last
memorial[361] which he drew up, which was to a great length, is extremely
acrid in tone. It dwells with justice upon the services which the Queen had
rendered to the Catholic Church, upon the fair hopes which had been
blighted by the war. It speaks of the ill reception accorded to her
friends--among whom are mentioned Richard Crashaw and Patrick Cary, the
brother of Lord Falkland--at the Papal Court. Finally, it dwells with
particular and not unmerited bitterness upon the conduct of Rinuccini, who,
it was believed, had a secret commission to separate Ireland from England.
It happened that just about the time of the presentation of this memorial
the hopes of toleration for the Catholics in England disappeared as
suddenly as they had arisen, for the two Houses of Parliament voted that
religious liberty should not extend to the toleration of Papists;[362] but
even had this untoward incident not occurred, Digby can hardly have
expected much from the Pope. The answer came at last in March, 1648, and it
was cold and decisive. The Holy Father would have liked to help the Queen
of England, but seeing no hope of the success of the Catholics, he felt
that he could not indulge his inclination.[363] Sir Kenelm shook the dust
of Rome off his feet and left it more convinced than ever of what he had
written a year previously, that no one could succeed at the Papal Court
without money and influence, and that "piety, honour, generosity, devotion,
zeal for the Catholic faith and for the service of God, with all other
vertues, heroic and theological,"[364] were banished thence. Henrietta
would perhaps hardly have endorsed this comprehensive indictment; but she
was bitterly disappointed, and she was incapable of perceiving that from
his own point of view Innocent was right in refusing money, of which such
Catholics as Sir Kenelm Digby[365] and his friends would have had the
spending. On larger principles also the papal policy was justified. The
idea of founding a solid toleration for Catholics upon the basis of a union
of the King and the Independents was chimerical, for those among the
Puritans who favoured the scheme were but a small minority of advanced
views, and even they, it seems, soon repented of their liberality. Even had
Charles been trustworthy (and in this, as in other cases, he paid the
penalty of his incurable shiftiness), the anti-Catholic feeling of the
nation, which had been one of the chief causes of the war, would never have
permitted the antedating by more than a century of the repeal of the penal
laws, and had the guarantees been given they would assuredly have been
broken. With regard to Ireland, the Queen is perhaps less to be blamed. She
knew that the Confederate Catholics hoped much from her, and she could not
know that Rinuccini, the envoy of the Holy Father, was using all his
influence against her, or fathom the depth of the malice which led him to
write that "from the Queen of England we must hope nothing except
propositions hurtful to religion, since she is entirely in the hands of
Jermyn, Digby, and other heretics."[366]
* * * * *
"He perished for lack of knowing the truth," said Henrietta once of her
husband, with a flash of insight not often given to her. That which was
true of Charles was true of her also; she was her father's daughter, and
she desired to know the truth, and she was accustomed to say that the chief
need of princes was faithful counsellors who would declare it to them; but
to such knowledge she could not reach. Her schemes, with all their
ingenuity, failed one after another because she was unable to grasp the
conditions in which she worked, or to read the motives and characters of
the people with whom she had to deal. She lived in a world of unreality
built up of the love which she bore to her husband, which made her as
unable to understand that the restoration of Charles Stuart to the throne
he had lost was not the main object of the diplomacy of Europe, as she was
to appreciate the fact that such negotiations as those which she, the Queen
of a Protestant country, carried on with the Pope and the Catholics of
Europe were more fatal to him than the swords or the malice of his enemies.
[Footnote 308: Loret: _La Muse Historique_ (1859), t. II, p. 393.]
[Footnote 309: One of them was René Chartier, an elderly man, who had
attended several members of the royal family; he was the translator of
Galen and Hippocrates. G. Patin: _Lettres._]
[Footnote 310: Green: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, p. 253.]
[Footnote 311: Birchley: _Christian Moderator_ (1652), p. 20.]
[Footnote 312: In 1642 the Queen accepted the dedication of _The Flaming
Heart, or the Life of the Glorious S. Teresa_, published at Antwerp; it is
a translation of the saint's autobiography.]
[Footnote 313: A. à Wood: _Fasti Oxonienses_ (1691), II, p. 688.]
[Footnote 314: See Appendix VII.]
[Footnote 315: Green: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, p. 264.]
[Footnote 316: Sabran Negotiations, Add. MS., 5460.]
[Footnote 317: This letter is found _in extenso_. MS. Dupuy, 642.]
[Footnote 318: The Earl of Bristol and George, Lord Digby.]
[Footnote 319: The relations between Henrietta and Goring, on the one hand,
and the discontented French on the other, are mentioned in the _Carnets de
Mazarin_, published in V. Cousin: _Mme de Chevreuse._]
[Footnote 320: Mazarin, in a letter of 1651, speaks of "plus de trois mille
livres prestées à la reyne d'Angleterre des occasions où elle étoit reduite
en grandes necessitez."--Chéruel: _Lettres de Mazarin_, IV, p. 221.]
[Footnote 321: 1,500,000 francs is the sum named in the letter from Paris
read in the English Parliament in January, 1646 (Tanner MS., LX); this
present is not mentioned in the official account of the assembly of clergy,
and it is possible that the writer of the above letter listened to a
baseless rumour and that no such gift was made at the time.]
[Footnote 322: The official report of this speech is in the "Proces Verbal
de l'assemblée du clergé, 1645"; the only copy which the present writer has
seen is in the _Bibliothèque Magasin_ in Paris. The Roundheads printed a
translation of the speech (with comments) in pamphlet form, entitled: "A
warning to the Parliament of England. A discovery of the ends and designs
of the Popish party both abroad and at home in the raising and fomenting
our late war and still continuing troubles. In an oration made to the
general assembly of the French clergy in Paris by Mons. Jacques du Perron,
Bishop of Angoulesme and Grand Almoner to the Queen of England. Translated
out of an MS. copy obtained from a good hand in France. 1647."]
[Footnote 323: This was denied by the Roundheads. See "A warning to the
Parliament of England," etc.; but it was apparently generally believed in
France. See Sabran Neg., Add. MS., 5460.]
[Footnote 324: Document VI in the Appendix seems to refer to the
negotiations between the King and the Catholics at this time.]
[Footnote 325: The King's letter to the Queen was one of those taken at
Naseby and published in _The King's Cabinet Opened_. The passage runs thus:
"I have thought of one means more to furnish thee with for my assistance
than hitherto thou hast had. It is that I give thee power to promise in my
name to whom thou thinkest most fit that I will take away all the penal
laws against the Roman Catholics in England as soon as God shall enable me
to do it, so as by their means, or in their favours, I may have so powerful
assistance as may deserve so great a favour and enable me to do it." Du
Perron's reference to this letter proves that it was not a forgery of the
Puritans.
In a letter from Paris "presented by Mr. Speaker," January 29th, 164-5/6,
is the following passage: "For these causes and further help (iff need
shall be) the queene has obliged herselff solemnlie that the King shall
establishe frie liberty of conscience in all his three kingdomes, and shall
abolishe utterlie all penal statutes made by Queene Elizabeth and King
James of glorious memorie against Poperie and papists."--Tanner MS., LX.]
[Footnote 326: _Moderate Intelligencer_, July, 1646. "The clergy conveaned
in favour of her Majesty of England's designs finding that there was little
hopes to bring about at present either the recovery or increase of the
Catholic religion and so to no end to advance monies unless to exasperate
and bring ruin upon those of the Roman religion there, have agreed to give
and directed to be presented unto her some few thousands of crowns, a somme
fitter to buy hangings for a chamber than prosecute a war: are risen and
have dismissed this assembly."]
[Footnote 327: The Confederate Catholics were a body formed after the Irish
rebellion of 1641; there were at this time (1645) three parties in Ireland,
the Confederate Catholics, the Protestants--whose army was commanded by
Ormonde, the King's Viceroy--and the Puritans: the two former, though
nominally enemies, had a common ground in their hatred of the latter.]
[Footnote 328: O'Hartegan records with great glee that while he was
received in audience by Mazarin and even invited to dine in his palace,
Jermyn, "His Holiness, His Nuntius," and other ambassadors, were unable to
obtain an audience even after many days' solicitation. Mazarin's real
object was to prevent the Confederate Catholics from "casting themselves
wholly into the armes of the King of Spain." Tanner MS., LX.]
[Footnote 329: As early as 1635 she said that she had not corresponded with
Elizabeth for ten years, as the latter said she could not write freely.
Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 45.]
[Footnote 330: See Appendix V.]
[Footnote 331: It is said that Bishop Smith, who was still alive, was
opposed to Sir Kenelm Digby's undertaking this mission, but was overborne.]
[Footnote 332: The same misfortune occurred a few months later when George
Digby was defeated at Sherborne (October, 1645) and his correspondence,
much of which concerned the intrigues of the King and Queen, fell into the
hands of the enemy, and was afterwards read in Parliament; and again at
Sligo (October, 1645), when the Glamorgan Treaty was found in the coach of
the Archbishop of Tuam.]
[Footnote 333: In this letter the Queen thanks the Pope for "des armes et
munitions de guerre qu'elle a fourni, de la promesse qu'elle m'a donné
d'une nouvelle assistance d'argent et de la restitution des pensions à ceux
de la nation écossaise tant à Rome qu'à Avignon."--P.R.O. Roman
Transcripts.]
[Footnote 334: Rinuccini: _Embassy in Ireland_, p. lviii.]
[Footnote 335: He was the founder of S. Isidore's College in Rome.]
[Footnote 336: Nevertheless in 1642 Urban sent an agent by name Scarampi to
Ireland at the request of Cardinal Francesco Barberini.]
[Footnote 337: _Il Cappuccino Scozzese_ (1644). Before the end of the
seventeenth century it was translated into French, Spanish, and Portuguese,
during the eighteenth century into English.]
[Footnote 338: Her husband warned her in January, 1645, not to give "much
countenance to the Irish agents in Paris."--_King's Cabinet Opened_. She
replied, "That troubles me much, for I fear that you have no intention of
making a peace with them [the Irish] which is ruinous for you and for
me."--Green: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, p. 290. February 28th,
164-4/5.]
[Footnote 339: _King's Cabinet Opened._]
[Footnote 340: "... D. Baro Germanus qui in maxima apud Reginam Angliae
gratia nec minore quam Cardinalis Mazarinus apud Reginam
Galliae."--Grotius: _Epistolae ineditae_ (1806), p. 71.]
[Footnote 341: There is little doubt that Henrietta would have been willing
to cede to France the Channel Islands, the last remains of the great
heritage of the Conqueror, in return for help.]
[Footnote 342: See _Letters of Charles I to Henrietta Maria in 1646_, ed.
Bruce. Camden Society.]
[Footnote 343: This is Berkeley's own account taken from his memoirs.
Clarendon's is very different, and says that Berkeley was a vain man who
was delighted to undertake the mission.]
[Footnote 344: Tanner MS., LX.]
[Footnote 345: These articles are published among the documents at the end
of Rinuccini's _Embassy in Ireland_, p. 573; among the Roman Transcripts
P.R.O. are very similar articles endorsed "in the handwriting of Sir Kenelm
Digby." They are among the papers of 1647, and very possibly belong to the
later date.]
[Footnote 346: In May, 1647, the Queen wrote to the Pope asking him not to
receive communications from unauthorized persons who approached him in her
name, but only from Digby. P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]
[Footnote 347: "The grounds of obedience and government by Thomas White,
gentleman (1635), dedicated 'to my most honoured and best friend Sir Kenelm
Digby.'" White knew Hobbes, but his political theory is rather an
anticipation of that of Locke and the eighteenth-century Whigs.]
[Footnote 348: Later it was even believed that he was favourable to the
Roundheads. An English gentleman who was in Rome in 1650 complained of his
discourtesy, "who was the English (I say rebels') Protector."--John
Bargrave: _Pope Alexander VII and the College of Cardinals_.]
[Footnote 349: _Blacklo's Cabal Discovered_, p. 6. This curious book, which
was published in 1679, consists of a collection of letters which throws
much light upon Sir Kenelm Digby's mission and the events of 1647.]
[Footnote 350: The writer of an unsigned letter in the Bibliothèque
Nationale in Paris says that he was charged "de representer à la serieuse
consideration de la Reyne et de Mgr. le Cardinal le trois que prennent les
Independants qui va à la ruine totale du Roy et des siens et directement à
charger le gouvernement et combien cela regarde la France; que les chefs de
cette faction sont le Comte de Northumberland My lord Saye et les deux
Vaines qui font agir auprès de notre Roy et au dela auprès de notre Reyne
par My lord Percy et autres qui ont toutes leurs confidence au Père
Philipes; ceux la ont contre eux tous les Escossais et les meuilleurs
Anglois si bien que si notre Reyne ne veut recevoir et assister ces bons
Anglois et les Escossais il se trouvera quelle fera bien de ne penser plus
a repasser en Angleterre."--MS. Français, 15,994.]
[Footnote 351: _Blacklo's Cabal Discovered_, p. 21; the suggested oath is
printed, p. 49.]
[Footnote 352: These negotiations were of the nature of a private
understanding based on the twelfth article of the Heads of the Proposals
offered by the army, which provided for "the repeal of all Acts or clauses
in any Act enjoining the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and imposing any
penalties for neglect thereof; as also of all Acts or clauses of any Act
imposing any penalty for not coming to Church or for meetings elsewhere for
prayer or other religious duties, exercises or ordinances and some other
provision to be made for discovery of Papists and Popish recusants and for
disabling of them and of all Jesuits or Priests found disturbing the
State."--Gardiner: _Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution_, p.
321.]
[Footnote 353: "The controversial Letter on the great controversie
concerning the pretended temporal authority of Popes over the whole earth.
1673."]
[Footnote 354: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 355: The Three Propositions were printed several times in the
latter half of the seventeenth century, among other places (together with
the suggested oath of allegiance) in _Blacklo's Cabal Discovered_. There
are several MS. copies among the archives of the See of Westminster, at the
end of one of which it is said that it was signed by fifty Catholic nobles,
but was condemned by the Congregation at Rome. See Appendix VIII.]
[Footnote 356: The Three Propositions are statements of the opinions
objected to, and which the Catholics were required to subscribe in the
negative.]
[Footnote 357: He travelled under the pseudonym of Winter Grant. He was an
old friend of the Queen, having been her chaplain before the war; he had
been a friend of Father Philip. His own memoirs give the best account of
his unsuccessful mission.]
[Footnote 358: Con, years earlier, in one of his letters from England,
writes of Holden's extravagant opinions.]
[Footnote 359: Archives of the See of Westminster. It seems that the
censure was of a private nature; it is printed in Jouvency: "Receuil de
pièces touchant l'histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus" (1713), where it is
ascribed to the influence of the Jesuits.]
[Footnote 360: Those less sanguine than Henrietta had long known this; "the
Pope cannot doe much, all he can is promised for Ireland," occurs in a
letter of the beginning of 1646 from Robert Wright to "Mr. Jones of the
Commons." Tanner MS., LX.]
[Footnote 361: Among the Roman Transcripts in the P.R.O. are five memorials
drawn up by Sir Kenelm Digby, dated respectively July 14th, July 26th,
August 3rd, August 12th, and October 20th, 1647. Of the latter there is a
duplicate dated 1648 among the Chigi Transcripts (P.R.O.), and there is an
old English translation among the archives of the See of Westminster.]
[Footnote 362: Whitelocke: _Memorials of English Affairs_, p. 274.]
[Footnote 363: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]
[Footnote 364: Digby to Barberini, April 28th, 1647. P.R.O. Roman
Transcripts.]
[Footnote 365: Sir Kenelm Digby somewhat later entered into negotiations
with Cromwell in the hope of obtaining toleration for the Catholics.
Henrietta Maria (if a story, which on the authority of Cosin found its way
into a letter written from Paris, may be believed) grew suspicious at last
of the man she had trusted so long; one of his friends was telling her of
his arrival in Paris, "but she suddenly interrupted him as he was
commending the knight and said openly in the hall, 'Mr. K. Digby, c'est un
grand cochin [knave].'" Tanner MS., 149. George Davenport to W. Sancroft,
Paris, January 15th, 165-6/7. Sir Kenelm died in 1665.]
[Footnote 366: Rinuccini: _Embassy in Ireland_, p. 367. Digby is George
Digby, afterwards the second Earl of Bristol; he became a Catholic in later
days, but Rinuccini seems to have disliked him rather more after his
conversion than before.]