In the meanwhile, the Archduchess Magdalen had given notice that the

whole machinery of her court would be broken up in six months. Those of

her ladies, ladies' maids, and attendants who desired to do so might

follow her and her two sisters into their spiritual solitude at Hall,

no longer as servants, but as companions in the service of God.

Accordingly, by the end of October 1569, all was in readiness, and the

three princesses, accompanied by six of their suite who had resolved to

share their penance, removed to Hall, where they themselves performed

nearly the whole of the housework, two servants only being engaged for

the roughest portion of the labour. Hereupon, a storm of abuse broke

over the heads of the Innsbruck Jesuits, who had, of course, originated

the whole affair, seeking their own advantage. It was they who had

persuaded Magdalen to found a novitiate, and it was their fault that

the "queens" washed the clothes, plates, and dishes of the new

community with their own imperial hands, cooking also the meals of

which they partook. Rumours were afloat to the effect that the emperor

and the archdukes were furious.* All this was, however, but the

malicious invention of enemies, and the facts communicated to the

General by the Fathers at Innsbruck reveal nothing but satisfaction on

all sides. The archduke concurred in all that was done, and the

princesses were brought to acquiesce in the arrangement by which the

Fathers were to live at some distance from their house, and the Jesuits

rejoiced, inasmuch as they were left free to use the building handed

over to them as a school or a novitiate, or to put it to any use they

thought fit. Father Hoffaus wrote that the archduke had accorded him a

long and very gracious audience, and had assured him of his affection

and esteem for the Society. On the 5th December, High Mass had been

sung in their church at Innsbruck, and on the preceding day he had

announced a plenary Indulgence to all who should assist at it, on

account of the departure of the "queens." The archduke, the "queens,"

and the whole of the nobility had been present. The archduke had shown

himself extremely gracious and kind, and had paid a visit to Father

George Scharich, who was sick, and had sent him costly waters. By his

kindness he had consoled the whole community. The same day he had

conducted the "queens," his sisters, solemnly to their retreat at Hall,

and on the next had left for Prague, upon which Father Hoffaus had

taken possession of the new college.

* Orig. G. Epist., 9, 133.

On the 31st January 1570, the same Father wrote from Innsbruck:--

"The college at Hall is going on quietly. The queen scarcely worries us

at all; she has not yet entered our house since we went there, and she

seldom sends for us. In short, she leaves us in peace, and if this

continues, no one can complain of her, except that she generally

detains her confessor for nearly two hours after Mass. But this can be

borne, as there is no danger, and as I have often called her attention

to it and have blamed her for it, she is now rather more considerate."

The following extracts from "Queen" Magdalen's statutebook for her

community show somewhat amusingly that the continual exhortations of

the superiors of the Society had made some impression:--

"Jesuits are to be chosen as confessors. Out of confession none must

speak with her confessor without the permission of her superioress, who

shall not give leave unless there be sufficient reason for it. For

although one may have a scruple or a temptation, this can be deferred

to the next confession. An exception must be made for the superioress

herself, for it is needful that she speak often with him, but not

always necessary for her to take him up to the house; sometimes she can

confer with him in the lodge or in the lower corridor. They must not

make acquaintance with any other of the Fathers, or invite them to the

house, neither must they send food to any sick Father, except in cases

of great need, and only for a short time, say for a week, but not

longer. Neither must they give them money daily to buy milk, butter,

and such like things, but now and again, if necessary, they may give

them the wherewithal to procure cheese and lard."

Notwithstanding these regulations, none must suppose that the

archduchess is devoid of confidence or regard for the Fathers or for

priests in general. All her life she has "loved them in God, and will

continue to do so to the end; but there are many things good in

themselves, and agreeable to God, which must nevertheless be avoided

for the sake of a better thing still." If her spiritual daughters are

careful to avoid exaggeration, and observe her precepts faithfully,

they will find the Society better disposed towards them, will help them

to save their souls, and will be less likely to change their confessors.

But in spite of her naivete, and of the excellent advice she gave to

others, there were, for several years, innumerable difficulties with

regard to the Archduchess Magdalen's confessor, Father Hezcovaus. He

was infirm in health, and needed much waiting upon, day and night.

Moreover, he observed the rule as little as possible, and his august

penitent unwisely took his part against his superior far more than was

desirable. It was at last decided that he should be dispensed

altogether from keeping the rule, that he need only obey the General,

and his confessor, and that he might receive from the Archduchess

Magdalen all that he needed for his support. But even this was not

enough, and sometimes it was debated whether Father Hezcovaus should

still be included in the list of those belonging to the college.

On the 12th October 1584, the provincial, Father Bader, ordered that

the servants of this Father should not come and go, and run in and out,

as he and they pleased. If he required anything in the night, the other

Fathers should be ready to assist him charitably and patiently.

But there were still other difficulties at Hall, in connection with the

quasi-religious community, such as St. Francis Borgia had predicted,

and these rose to such a pitch, that in 1596, Father Hoffaus expressed

his opinion to the General, that it would be better to give up their

college there, and so once for all get rid of the burden imposed on the

Society by "Queen Magdalen."

The whole trend of this correspondence shows the tremendous obstacles

which the Jesuits encountered, not merely at Innsbruck but throughout

Austria and Bavaria, in their efforts to abstain from all that was

alien to their vocation. It is curious in these days to note how much

the old Society suffered from a superabundance of favour on the part of

princes. And far from being stereotyped reproductions of one unvarying

pattern or spiritual automata turned out of one mould, the Jesuits, as

represented in their own private correspondence, which was never

intended for the public eye, reveal a considerable amount of

individuality. The interpretation of the rule was elastic enough to

give scope to much diversity of opinion, and if superiors were jealous

guardians of the Institute, they encountered sufficient idiosyncrasy

among their subjects to prevent any rigidity in applying it.

It seems more than likely that if Lacordaire had had his wish, and had

been able to dedicate ten years of his life to the study of the Jesuit

character, he would have found on the whole that he had, after all, set

himself the very ordinary task of watching a perpetual conflict between

a high ideal and that frailty which is inseparable from human nature.

VI. GIORDANO BRUNO IN ENGLAND

The revolt from Scholasticism in the sixteenth century, led by Erasmus

of Rotterdam, John Colet, and other apostles of the new learning,

reached farther, and was productive of other results than these had

intended or anticipated.

Erasmus was called an infidel by the friars, but he always stoutly

protested his adherence to the Church of which the Pope was the head;

and Colet has been considered by many as a herald of the Reformation,

although he died a Catholic. Erasmus, by his own showing, was no

infidel, and there are sufficient indications that Colet, even had his

life been prolonged, would never have gone over to the enemy; but both

had given cause for apprehension by opening doors to a profound

dissatisfaction, to novel theories and extravagant systems, which many

friends of Erasmus carried on to a denial of all revealed religion.

In throwing discredit on the schoolmen, Erasmus had prepared the way

for a contempt of Aristotle himself, and when the ex-friar Giordano

Bruno of Nola appeared as a leader of revolt, distinct from Luther and

Calvin, he found in Italy and France a small band of intellectual

revolutionists clamouring for a philosophy that should emancipate them

from the thraldrom of Christianity, and yet save them from the

dishonourable name of atheists.

They wished to be called deists; not because they favoured any

particular form or system of religion, but as a sign that they

acknowledged, in some vague and undefined sense, a Supreme Being, and

were content to follow the light and law of nature, rejecting

revelation, and placing themselves in opposition to Christianity.

Bruno gave them a philosophical system that was neither platonic nor

peripatetic, nor was it mystic, but a confused jumble of all three

systems, and, according to Bayle, "the most monstrous that could be

devised, and directly opposed to all the most evident ideas of our

intelligence." He goes on to say that Bruno, in his war against

Aristotle, invented doctrines a thousand times more obscure than the

most incomprehensible things written by the disciples of Aquinas or

Scotus.*

* Bayle, Dictionnaire, Historique et Critique, article "Bruno," vol. i.

Doc. XII.

The new philosopher was accused among other heresies of teaching that

there is no such thing as punishment for sin; that the soul of man is a

product of nature differing in no sense from the soul of a brute, and

that God is not its author. In his deposition at his trial, Bruno

begged the question of the immortality of the soul in these words: "I

have held and do hold that souls are immortal, and that they are

subsisting substances (that is the intellectual souls), and that

speaking in a Catholic manner, they do not pass from one body to

another, but they go either to Paradise, to Purgatory, or to Hell.

Nevertheless, in philosophy I have reasoned that the soul subsisting

without the body, and non-existent in the body, may in the same way

that it is in one body be in another; the which, if it be not true, at

least appears to be the opinion of Pythagoras."*

* Bayle, Dictionnaire, Historique et Critique, article "Bruno," vol. i.

Doc. XII.

His disciples aver that, although Bruno did not enforce the doctrine of

metempsychosis, he held it to be very well worthy of consideration.

There is perhaps a distinction without a difference between the terms

"immortality of the soul," and the "indestructibility of the monad," an

expression dear to Bruno's followers, and frequently to be met with in

his writings; but we are accustomed to associate the latter term with

the worship of nature according to the pantheistic gospel which

recognises a soul in every leaf that stirs; and (this brings us to the

very essence of Bruno's philosophy, in so far as it is possible to

arrive at any definite conclusion, amid the obscure maze of words with

which he surrounded his ideas.

None of his disciples repudiate for him the title of pantheist, but

Mrs. Besant,* an ardent defender of the Nolan philosopher, went a step

further, and declared pantheism itself to be "veiled atheism."

Moreover, she says, "So thoroughly does pantheism strike at the root of

all idea of God, as taught by theists, that we can scarce think that

Bruno was unfairly judged when called atheist by his contemporaries;

the conception of the pantheist cannot be called a God in the commonly

accepted sense of that term."

* In her Giordano Bruno, p. 5. London, 1877.

Having arrived thus far, the panegyrist breaks out into eulogy of "the

grandest hero of free-thought," and claims for Bruno the proud

distinction of materialist.

Others of his admirers, and notably his English biographer, Frith,

declare that the aim of the Nolan philosophy is to overcome the fear of

death, and to fill the soul with noble aspirations, while they maintain

that its author forestalled Darwin and Herbert Spencer in their theory

of evolution. "Nobody is to-day the same as yesterday. All things, even

the smallest, have their share in the universal intelligence, or

universal thinking power. For without a certain degree of sense or

cognition, the drop of water could not assume the spherical shape which

is essential to the preservation of its forces. All things participate

in the universal intelligence, and hence come attraction and repulsion,

love and hate. Nature shows forth each species before it enters into

life. Thus each species is the starting-point for the next." These are

some of the ideas, the conception of which is supposed to shadow forth

Bruno's anticipation of modern thought.

Landseck, his principal German biographer, makes him the link between

antiquity and the celebrated thinkers of the nineteenth century. He

considers the doctrine of the indestructibility of the monad to be that

belief in the immortality of the soul which was professed by the

Druids, the Egyptians, the Brahmins, and the Buddhists, the belief of

Pythagoras and Plato, of Plotinus, of Lessing, and of Goethe, in unison

with the evolution of Darwin and Haeckel.*

* Landseck, Bruno der Martyrer der neuen Weltanschauung, p. 37.

It is not our purpose to consider here all Bruno's articles of faith or

unfaith, but rather to show the general tendency of his teaching, in

order to trace its effect upon his contemporaries in England. His

philosophy, itself a travesty of various systems, was in its turn

caricatured and vulgarised in a manner which would, perhaps, had he

lived to see it, have gone far to persuade him of the risk to popular

order and morality which he incurred, in taking from people their

belief in a personal God, and fear of the consequences of sin.

Some years ago a statue was raised to his honour on the Campo dei Fiori

in Rome, on the alleged spot of his execution, as a vindication of

those principles for which he chose to die. In his own day they were

held to be dangerous to the State, and subversive of public morality,

and he was forced to fly before the opposition they aroused from almost

every place in which he attempted to propagate them. The enmity of the

Calvinists drove him from Geneva; at Toulouse the Huguenots made his

life unbearable; the Oxford of Elizabeth, as intolerant as Rome, proved

no agreeable sojourn, but he left traces of his passage through

England, which Elizabeth, however much she favoured him at the time of

his visit, was afterwards at great pains to efface.

The period of his stay in this country extended over two years, from

1583 to 1585, and although in general he met with little encouragement

from the learned, he succeeded in making some proselytes. In London, he

lodged at the house of the French ambassador, and went frequently to

court, where he maintained his footing by pretending to be smitten by

the mature charms of the queen. Among his English friends were Sir

Philip Sidney, Sir Fulke Greville, Dyer, Spenser, and Temple, and it

has even been asserted that his system to a certain degree influenced

Bacon, and may be traced in the Novum Organon.* This is, however, an

erroneous view, for Bacon's term "form" means no more than law, for the

form of a substance is its very essence, whereas with Bruno, form and

matter are expressions which stand for forces.** According to St.

Thomas Aquinas, who followed Aristotle, form is the DETERMINING

PRINCIPLE in the constitution of bodies.

* Book ii., Aphors. 1, 4, 13, 15, 17.

** Frith, Life of Giordano Bruno, p. 107. London, 1887.

Sidney's biographer,* while jealous lest any taint of error should be

supposed to infect his hero, nevertheless admits unwillingly that

Giordano Bruno, Sir Fulke Greville, and Sir Philip Sidney, were wont to

discuss philosophical and metaphysical subjects "of a nice and delicate

nature with closed doors."

* Zouch, Memoirs of Sir Philip Sidney, p, 337, note.

Dr. Joseph Warton, editor of Pope's works, says that, among many things

related of the life of Sir Philip Sidney, it does not seem to be much

known that he was the intimate friend and patron of the famous atheist,

Giordano Bruno, who was in a secret club with him and Sir Fulke

Greville in 1587. The date is incorrect, but the intimacy is confirmed

by Bruno's dedication to the English poet of two of his works, the one

being entitled Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfaute, a book which is

admittedly blasphemous and obscene, where it is not so obscure as to be

unintelligible, the other the no less notorious Heroici Furori.

Soon after Bruno's departure from England, the result of his teaching

began to appear in many places throughout the country. Elizabeth's

Council became alarmed. State indifferentism to religion was as yet

unknown, and the new sectarianism appealing strongly to the ignorant

and the profane, politicians were not slow to take cognisance that

questions of the highest moment were being introduced into tavern

brawls and gutter oratory. Others besides Catholics began to absent

themselves from the new English Church service and sermons; and

fragments of conversation that savoured of "atheism" were frequently

reported to the local magistrates. An investigation into the causes and

authors of the disturbances was set on foot, and it was felt that a

scapegoat was needed to create a wholesome fear of the long arm of the

law in the minds of would-be atheists among the people.*

* Bruno's latest biographer, Mr. L. McIntyre (Giordano Bruno, London,

1903), entirely ignores the effect of his hero's teaching in England.

Sir Philip Sidney was too much the world's darling, too elegant a

figure in the Elizabethan pageant, too ethereal a poet, to be burdened

with the brunt of so serious an accusation, and he was passed by for

one who, with all his brilliant gifts and attainments, had ever been

the child of misfortune.

Perhaps no one ever excited more jealousy and ill-will among his

contemporaries than Sir Walter Raleigh. His life at court alternated

between magnificent success and the most crushing defeat. He was

successively the friend, the rival, the enemy of Essex, and when that

favourite's star was in the ascendant, his waned, until a change in the

queen's fickle fancy made him again, for a short period, an object of

admiration and envy. A soldier of fortune, a planter of colonies, an

admiral, a courtier, a statesman, a wit, a scholar, a chemist, an

agriculturist, he was eminent as each of these, and his exploits in

Guiana read like some fantastic tale of fictitious adventure. His

History of the World, although but a fragment of what he intended it to

be, is nevertheless a monument of prodigious learning, sobriety, and

patience.

Edwards, in his Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, says that in his graver

hours he had strong theological convictions which agreed in many points

with those of the leading Puritans. Such was probably in all sincerity

his frame of mind towards the end of his strange career; but up to the

time of his trial in 1603, he seems to have been active in

disseminating the doctrines which had become popular since the baneful

sojourn of Bruno in this country. Raleigh's biographer admits that his

attempt on his own life in the Tower, subsequent to his trial, is in

favour of the unhappy prisoner's atheism at that time.*

* "Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have declared that his design to kill

himself arose from no feeling of fear, but was formed in order that his

fate might not serve as a triumph to his enemies whose power to put him

to death, despite his innocency, he well knows" (The Count of Beaumont

to Henry IV., 13th August 1603, Copy in Hardwick MS., p. 18).

The first apparently to accuse Raleigh of atheism in a formal manner

was the Jesuit provincial, Robert Parsons, who, in a book published in

1592 and now very rare, mentions "Sir Walter Raleigh's school of

atheism . . . and of the diligence used to get young gentlemen to this

school, wherein both Moses and our Saviour, the Old and New Testament,

are jested at, and the scholars taught among other things to spell God

backwards.* Cayley treats this accusation as a calumny,** and Birch

describes its author as the "virulent but learned and ingenious Father

Parsons";*** but Osborn, in the preface to his Miscellany of Sundry

Essays, Paradoxes, etc., in speaking of Raleigh, says that Queen

Elizabeth "chid him who was ever after branded with the title of an

atheist, though a known asserter of God and Providence."

* An advertisement concerning the Responsio ad Elizabethae edictum,

1592.

** Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, i. 140.

*** Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, i. 140.

The year after the appearance of Father Parsons' little book, steps

were taken for proving the truth of the reports which had now become

common, and it is remarkable that none of Sir Walter Raleigh's

biographers seem to have been aware of an elaborate interrogatory that

was drawn up and administered for the purpose of eliciting from sworn

witnesses evidence concerning his religious opinions, and those of his

family, dependents, and friends. The original seems to have

disappeared, but a contemporary copy of this document is to be found

among the Harleian papers in the British Museum, together with the

evidence obtained by means of the interrogatory. As it is extremely

pertinent to the subject in question, and has hitherto escaped notice,

the nine questions administered with a selection of the most

interesting depositions of the witnesses are here given in detail. For

a complete account of the examinations the reader is referred to the

manuscript.*

* Harl. 6849, f. 183.

Dorset.

Interrogatory to be ministered unto such as are to be examined in her

Majesty's name, by virtue of her Highness's commission for causes

ecclesiastical.

1. Imprimis. Whom do you know or have heard to be suspected of atheism

or apostasy? And in what manner do you know or have heard the same? And

what other notice can you give thereof?

2. Whom do you know or have heard that have argued or spoken against,

or as doubting the Being of any God, or what or where God is, or to

swear by God, adding if there be a God or such like; and when and where

was the same? And what other notice can you give of any such offender?

3. Whom do you know or have heard that hath spoken against God, His

Providence over the world? or of the world's beginning or ending? or of

predestination, or of Heaven or of Hell, or of the Resurrection, in

doubtful or contentious manner? When and where was the same? and what

other notice can you give of any such offender?

4. Whom do you know or have heard that hath spoken against the truth of

God His holy Word, revealed to us in the Scriptures of the Old and New

Testament, or of some places thereof? or have said those Scriptures are

not to be believed and defended by her Majesty for doctrine, and faith,

and salvation, but only of policy or civil government, and when and

where was the same? And what other notice can you give of any such

offender?

5. Whom do you know or have heard hath blasphemously cursed God; as in

saying one time (as it rained when he was ahawking), "if there be a

God, a pox on that God which sendeth such weather to mar our sport," or

such like? or do you know or have heard of any that hath broken forth

into any other words of blasphemy, and where was the same?

6. Whom do you know or have heard to have said that when he was dead,

his soul should be hanged on the top of a pole and "run God, run Devil,

and fetch it that would have it," or to like effect, or that hath

otherwise spoken against the being or immortality of the soul of men,

or that a man's soul should die and become like the soul of a beast, or

such like, and when and where was the same?

7. Whom do you know or have heard hath counselled, procured, aided,

comforted, or conferred with any such offender? When, where, and in

what manner was the same?

8. Do you know or have heard of any of those offenders to affirm all

such that were not of their opinions touching the premises, to be

schismatics and in error. And whom do you know hath so affirmed? And

when and where was it spoken?

9. What can you say more of any of the premises, or whom have you known

or heard can give any notice of the same? And speak all your knowledge

therein.

Hereupon follows the report of the Royal Commissioners on the

depositions of witnesses examined by them with the above formulary:--

"Examinations taken at Cearne, co. Dorset, 21 March, 36 Eliz., before

us, Tho. Lord Howard, Viscount Howard of Bindon, Sir Ralph Horsey,

knt., Francis James, Chancellor, John Williams, and Francis Hawley,

esquires, by virtue of a commission to us and others, directed from

some of her Majesty's High Commissioners in causes ecclesiastical."*

* On the last page is written: "These examinations are the trew copies

taken at Cearne, 21 March 1593."

From the two first witnesses examined, John Hancock, parson of South

Parrot, and Richard Bagage, churchwarden of Lo, no information was

obtained. The third witness, John Jesopp, minister, of Gillingham,

"said nothing of his own knowledge, but had heard that one Herryott, of

Sir Walter Rawleigh his house, had brought the Godhead in question, and

the whole course of the Scriptures, but of whom he so heard it he did

not remember. (Thomas Harriot was an acknowledged deist, and Raleigh

had taken him into his house to study mathematics with him.] He heard

his brother, Dr. Jesopp, say that Mr. Carew Rawleigh, reasoning with

Mr. Parry and Mr. Archdeacon about the Godhead [as he conjectureth],

his said brother, thinking that Mr. Archdeacon and Mr. Parry would take

offence at that argument, desired the Lord Bishop of Worcester [then

being there] that he might argue with the said Mr. Rawleigh, for, said

he, your Lordship shall hear him argue as like a pagan as ever you

heard any. But the matter was so shut up, as this examinate heard his

brother say, and proceeded not to argument, and further he saith that

he hath heard one Allen, now of Portland Castle, suspected of atheism,

but of whom he heard it he remembereth not."

William Hussey, churchwarden of Gillingham, corroborated the report of

Sir Walter Raleigh's suspected atheism.

John Davis, curate of Motcomb, "to the first interrogatory saith that

he knoweth of no such person directly, but he hath heard Sir Walter

Raleigh, by general report, hath had some reasoning against the deity

of God and His omnipotence; and hath heard the like of Mr. Carew

Raleigh, but not so directly. Also he saith he heard the like report of

one, Mr. Thinn, of Wiltshire, which he heard from a barber in

Warminster, dwelling in a by-lane there, who told this deponent he did

marvel that a gentleman of his condition should deliver words to so

mean a man as himself, tending to this sense, as though God's

Providence did not reach over all creatures, or to like effect.

"To the second, third, fourth, and fifth interrogatory he saith he hath

heard that Sir Walter Raleigh hath argued with one Mr. Ironside, at Sir

George Trenchard's, touching the being or immortality of the soul, or

such like; but the certainty thereof he cannot say further, saving

asking the same of Mr. Ironside upon the report aforesaid; he hath

answered that the matter was not as the voice of the country reported

thereof, or to the like effect."

The next witness, Nicholas Jefferies, declared that he did not know

personally any atheist in the county of Dorset, but testified to the

report of many "that Sir Walter Raleigh and his retinue are generally

suspected of atheism," and he quoted the above-mentioned Allen,

Lieutenant of Portland Castle, as "a great blasphemer and light

esteemer of religion, and thereabout cometh not to divine service or

sermons." He also mentioned the circumstance that "Herryott, attendant

on Sir Walter Raleigh, hath been convened before the Lords of the

Council for denying the resurrection of the body."

This witness also gave a circumstantial account of the conversation

between Sir Walter, his brother Carew, and Mr. Ironside at Sir George

Trenchard's table, but as Mr. Ironside was himself subsequently sworn

and examined, it is better to quote his own words. It is significant of

the credibility of these witnesses, that the evidence of Jefferies,

although he merely reported what Mr. Ironside had told him of the

conversation, and could not remember all that had been said, tallies

completely with the evidence of the other witnesses.

Ironside's examination comes last in the manuscript, but it is more

convenient to insert it here:--

"Ralph Ironside, minister of Winterbor, sworn and examined. To the

first interrogatory, he saith that for his own knowledge he will

answer, but for that he hath heard and knoweth no author to justify the

same, he is persuaded by counsel that he is in danger to be punished,

and therefore refuseth to say anything upon uncertain report, unless he

could bring in his author in particular.

"The relation of the disputation had at Sir George Trenchard's table,

between Sir Walter Raleigh, Mr. Carew Raleigh, and Mr. Ironside,

hereafter followeth, written by himself and delivered to the

commissioners upon his oath.

"Wednesday, sevennight before the Assizes, summer last, I came to Sir

George Trenchard's in the afternoon, accompanied with a fellow-minister

and friend of mine, Mr. Whittle, vicar of Forthington. There were then

with the knight Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Ralph Horsey, Mr. Carew

Raleigh, Mr. John Fitzjames, etc. Towards the end of supper, some loose

speeches of Mr. Carew Raleigh's being gently reproved by Sir Ralph

Horsey with the words Colloquia prava corrumpunt bonos mores, Mr.

Raleigh demanded of me what danger he might incur by such speeches,

whereunto I answered--'The wages of sin is death'--and he, making light

of death as being common to all, sinner and righteous, I inferred

further that as that life which is the gift of God through Jesus Christ

is life eternal, so that death which is properly the wages of sin is

death eternal both of the body and of the soul also.

"'Soul,' quoth Mr. Carew Raleigh, 'what is that?' Better it were, said

I, that we would be careful how the soul might be saved, than to be

curious in finding out the essence.

"And so, keeping silence, Sir Walter requested me that for their

instruction, I would answer to the question that before by his brother

was proposed unto me. 'I have been,' saith he, 'a scholar sometime in

Oxford; I gave answer under a bachelor of arts, and had talk with

divers; yet hitherunto in this point (to wit, what the reasonable soul

of man is) have I not by any been resolved. They tell me it is primus

motor, the first mover in a man, etc.' Unto this, after I had replied

that howsoever the soul were fons et principium, the fountain,

beginning and cause of motion in us, yet the first mover was the brain

or heart, I was again urged to show my opinion, and hearing Sir Walter

Raleigh tell of his dispute and scholarship some time in Oxford, I

cited the general definition of Anima out of Aristotle (De Anima, cap.

2), and thence a subjecto proprio, deduced the special definition of

the soul reasonable, that it was Actus Primus corporis organici agentis

humanam vitam.

"It was misliked of Sir Walter as obscure and intricate. And I withal,

that though it could not unto him, as being learned, yet it might seem

obscure to the most present, and therefore had rather say with divines

plainly, that the reasonable soul is a spiritual and immortal

substance, breathed into man by God, whereby he lives and moves and

understandeth, and so is distinguished from other creatures. 'Yea, but

what is that spiritual and immortal substance breathed into man?' saith

Sir Walter. The soul, quoth I. 'Nay then,' said he, 'you answer not

like a scholar.' Hereupon I endeavoured to prove that it was

scholarlike, nay, in such disputes as this, usual and necessary to run

in circulum, partly because definitio rei was primum et immediatum

principium, and seeing primo non est Prius, a man must of necessity

come backward, and partly because definitio and definitum be naturae

reciprocae, the one convertible, answering unto the question made upon

the other. As for example, if one asked: 'What is a man?' you will say:

'He is a creature reasonable and mortal'; but if you ask again: 'What

is a creature reasonable and mortal?' you must of force come backward

and answer: 'It is a man,' et sic de caeteris. 'But we have principles

in our mathematics,' saith Sir Walter, 'as totum est majus qua libet

sua parte; and ask me of it, and I can show it in the table, in the

window, in a man, the whole being bigger than the parts of it.'

"I replied first that he showed quod est, not quid est, that it was,

but not what it was; secondly, that such demonstration was against the

nature of a man's soul, being a spirit; for as a thing, being sensible,

was subject to the sense, so man's soul, being insensible, was to be

discerned by the spirit. Nothing more certain in the world than that

there is a God, yet being a spirit, to subject him to the sense

otherwise than perfectum. It is impossible.

"'Marry!' quoth Sir Walter, 'these two be like, for neither could I

learn hitherto what God is.'

"Mr. Fitzjames answering that Aristotle should say he was Ens Entium, I

answered, that whether Aristotle, dying in a fever, should cry: Ens

Entium, miserere mei; or drowning himself in Euripum, should say: Quia

ego to non capio, to me capies, it was uncertain, but that God was Ens

Entium, a thing of things, having being of Himself, and giving being to

all creatures, it was most certain, and confirmed by God Himself unto

Moses.

"'Yea, but what is this Ens Entium?' saith Sir Walter.

"I answered it is God, and being disliked as before, Sir Walter wished

that grace might be said, 'for that,' quoth he, is better than his

disputation.' Thus supper ended and grace said, I departed to

Dorchester with my fellowminister, and this is to my remembrance the

substance of that speech with Sir Walter Raleigh I had at Wolverton."

"Ralph Ironside."

Turning to the remaining depositions, we find that Francis Scarlett,

minister of Sherborne, sworn and examined, relates how that "a little

before Christmas, one Robert Hyde, of Sherborne, shoemaker, seeing this

deponent passing by his door, called him, and desired to have some

conversation with him, and after some speeches, he entered into these

speeches. "Mr. Scarlett, you have preached unto us that there is a God,

a Heaven, a Hell, and a resurrection after this life, and that we shall

give an account of our works, and that the soul is immortal; but now,

saith he, here is a company about this town that say that Hell is no

other but poverty and penury in this world, and Heaven is no other but

to be rich and enjoy pleasures; and that we die like beasts, and when

we are gone there is no more remembrance of us, and such like.

But this examinate did neither then demand who they were, neither did

he deliver any particulars unto him, and further saith that it is

generally reported in Sherborne, that the said Allen and his men are

atheists. And also he saith there is one Lodge, a shoemaker in

Sherborne, accounted an atheist."

John Deuch, churchwarden of Weeke Regis: "To the sixth interrogatory

this deponent saith that he hath heard one Allen, Lieutenant of

Portland Castle, when he was like to die, being persuaded to make

himself ready to God for his soul, to answer that he would carry his

soul to the top of an hill, and run God, run devil, fetch it that will

have it, or to that effect. But, who told this deponent of it, he

remembereth not. To the rest of the interrogatory he can say nothing."

What punishment followed on these examinations does not appear. A fine

was probably imposed on all those convicted of speaking and propagating

atheism; but in spite of the investigations and the discredit thrown on

the sect, it did not by any means die out.

Essex was accounted at that time the only nobleman who cared for

religion. His manner was to censure all men as "cold professors,

neuters, or atheists." In the declaration of W. Masham before the Lord

Treasurer Buckhurst, he said that Essex told the people when he incited

them to rise, that he acted "for the good of the Queen, city, and crown

which certain atheists, meaning Raleigh, had betrayed to the Infante of

Spain." At his execution he thanked God that he was never atheist nor

papist."*

* Dom. Eliz., February 1601, Vol. 278; R.O.

On the accession of James I. the Catholics presented a petition to

parliament, begging to be allowed to practise their religion, at least

in secret, and they went on to say that there were "four classes of

religionists in England Protestant who domineered all the late reign:

Puritans who have crept up amongst them, atheists, who live on brawls;

and Catholics."*

* Dom. James I., vol. i., 1603; R.O.

The stigma of atheist clung to Raleigh long after he had ceased to

deserve it. In his trial for high treason in 1603, it considerably

damaged his cause, and gave another handle to his many enemies. The

king's attorney, in addressing him, exclaimed: "O damnable atheist!"

and the Lord Chief Justice Coke, in his address to the prisoner after

his condemnation, harangued him in these words:--

"Your case being thus, let it not grieve you if I speak a little out of

zeal and love to your good. You have been taxed by the world with the

defence of the most heathenish and blasphemous opinions, which I list

not to repeat, because Christian ears cannot endure to hear them, nor

the authors and maintainers of them be suffered to live in any

Christian commonwealth. You know what men said of Harpool.* You shall

do well before you go out of the world to give satisfaction therein,

and not to die with these imputations upon you. Let not any devil

persuade you (the Harleian version adds, 'Hariot or any such doctor')

to think there is no eternity in Heaven; for if you think thus, you

shall find eternity in hell-fire."**

* A mistake probably for Harriot. The name is variously spelt. Edwards,

in his Life of Raleigh, corrects it and says, "Either he applied to the

illustrious mathematician Thomas Harriot, the epithet 'devil,' or he

said that Harriot's opinions were devilish" (p. 436). The judge's words

are variously reported, but their purport is always the same. Stebbing,

in his monograph Sir Walter Raleigh, says that Harriot was accused by

zealots of atheism, because his cosmogony was not orthodox, and that

his ill-repute for free-thinking was reflected on Raleigh, who hired

him to teach mathematics (probably in what Father Parsons termed his

school of atheism) and engaged him in his colonising projects. Harriot

was the friend whose society he chiefly craved when he was in the

Tower, and is doubtless the "Herryott" of the examinations.

** Dom. James I., vol. 4, f. 83.

Between Raleigh's sentence and its execution fifteen years were allowed

to elapse, during which time the prisoner in the Tower occupied himself

with the compilation of his famous History of the World, and with

chemical experiments. And as if all should be exceptional in the life

of this remarkable man, he was allowed an interval during this period

in which to flash once more upon the world in another expedition to

Guiana, in search of the gold mine which he had declared to be there.

After the ill-fated voyage he returned into durance vile, and when at

last the time came for the axe which had so long hung over him, to

fall, his words showed that at least in adversity he had learned, like

the great Arian chieftain Clovis, to burn what he had adored, and to

adore what he had burned. His device, Ubi dolor ibi amor is significant

of the change that suffering had wrought in him. His last words on the

scaffold were these: "I have many sins for which to beseech God's

pardon. Of a long time my course was a course of vanity. I have been a

seafearing man, a soldier, and a courtier, and in the temptations of

the least of these there is enough to overthrow a good mind and a good

man." Presently he added, "I die in the faith professed by the Church

of England. I hope to be saved and to have my sins washed away by the

Precious Blood and merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ."

Then, says his biographer,* he asked to be shown the axe, and kissing

the blade, he said: "This gives me no fear. It is a sharp and fair

medicine to cure me of all my disease."

* Edwards, Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, i. 704.

After Raleigh's death, the Archbishop of Canterbury, writing to Sir

Thomas Roe, ambassador of Great Britain with the Great Mogul, 10th

February 1618, said: "Sir Walter Raleigh amongst us did question God's

being and omnipotence, which that just judge made good upon himself in

overtumbling his estate, but last of all in bringing him to an

execution by law, where he died a religious and Christian

death, God testifying his power in this, that he raised up of a stone a

child unto Abraham."

His doom had been from the first a foregone conclusion. James having

been fatally prejudiced against him before that royal pedant ever set

foot in England, to which fact the secret correspondence of Sir Robert

Cecil with James VI. of Scotland amply testifies.

But curiously enough Sir Walter's brother Carew, although more deeply

dyed in atheism, never ceased to be a Persona grata with the

government. He was knighted in 1601, on the occasion of the visit to

England of the French Marshal de Biron.* He held several honourable and

lucrative public offices under James I., and was Lieutenant of the Isle

of Portland in 1608. During his brother's long imprisonment in the

Tower, Sir Carew Raleigh was living in prosperity at Dounton.**

* Stebbing, Sir Walter Raleigh, p. 157.

* Ibid, p. 248.

Atheists did not as a sect entirely disappear from England after the

execution of their scapegoat, but they do not seem to have been further

molested for their opinions. The persecution of the Catholics was at

its height, and at no time did professed atheism provoke the fierce

hatred that Catholicism inspired. For obvious reasons many Catholics at

this period were but indifferently instructed in their religion. Some

to escape attendance at the English Church service unlawfully feigned

infidelity. One man having written a seditious book, called Balaam's

Ass, against the king, for which he was condemned to death, was accused

at his execution of having professed atheism. He denied being an

infidel, expressed contrition for his "saucy meddling in the king's

matter," and declared himself a Catholic.*

* Dom. James I., vol. 109, May 1619; R.0.

The Bishop of Exeter reported that "John Lugge, organist, retains none

of his popish tendencies, though his religion is as the market goes,"

and he added that there were very few papists in his diocese, but an

infinity of sectaries and atheists.

Many of these latter may have been secret Catholics, either extremely

ignorant, or too timid to suffer for their faith. A book published in

1602, entitled The Unmasking of the Politique Atheist is a violent

attack upon Catholicism. Another, called A Perfect Cure for Atheists,

Papists, Arminians, etc., published in 1649, is of a like nature. It is

a far cry from Aristotle to atheism, but no sooner did the votaries of

the new learning discard a system of philosophy which, however

exaggerated by pedants, was still a guarantee of exact reasoning, than

their disciples and followers fell a prey to the vagaries of their own

bewildered intellects.

It was the reductio ad absurdum of the reformed religion, when

weak-kneed Catholics sheltered themselves from its pains and penalties

under the fairly secure roof-tree of atheism.

VII. CHARLES THE FIRST AND THE POPISH PLOT

"A fine rare show arrives from Rome, and it is all a present for the

Queen, and the news of it reaches London, and the King is impatient to

see it; and the Queen is lying in, and Mr. Panzani brings all the fine

things to the Queen's bedchamber; and all the ladies of quality crowd

in to see them; and the King with all his nobles hastens to the Queen's

palace; and the boxes are opened, and the pieces are viewed one by one;

and Mr. Conn comes in (though still without a red hat) to satisfy the

Queen's curiosity, and Mr. Conn brings more fine pictures . . . and

sees the King, and the Queen of France; and Mr. Panzani takes leave of

the Queen of England (for how could he omit it?) and the Queen begs a

red hat for Mr. Conn, and Mr. Conn must first do some signal service to

the Church; and the King talks about Mr. Conn's red hat; and the Queen

gives Mr. Panzani a fine diamond ring; and Mr. Panzani takes leave of

all the ministers; and he pays his respects to all the ladies of the

court; and the ladies send their compliments to the Pope, and they all

beg Mr. Panzani's blessing. It was the end of the year 1636."

This Sevigne-like description was written in 179-, by the Rev. Charles

Plowden, in his "Remarks on a Book entitled Memoirs of Gregorio

Panzani." Panzani, a priest of the Roman Oratory, had been about two

years in England, with a secret mission to report to Cardinal

Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII., on the condition of the

Catholics, the condition of the court, and on the prospects regarding

an ultimate reunion of the Anglican Church with Rome. He was to pave

the way for an openly accredited envoy to the queen, was to conciliate

the ministers, disarm the Puritans, and to do what he could for the

Catholics, who were still smarting severely under the penal laws.

Executions, it is true, had become less frequent, but the royal coffers

were still replenished with the fines imposed on Catholics for their

pertinacity in assembling to hear Mass by stealth. If a priest were

caught, he was thrown into prison, tried, and punished with death. In

dealing with the Catholic laity, Charles I. was never in favour of

enforcing the extreme rigour of the law, but he was so often in want of

money that he found it useful to be very severe in the matter of fines.

Panzani's mission to England falls about midway between the domestic

storms which had troubled the early days of the royal marriage, and the

Revolution which finally cost the most shifty of monarchs his throne

and his life. Henrietta Maria had ceased to resent the expulsion of her

French favourites, had consented at last to learn English and to

tolerate the English people. She had thrown herself heart and soul into

her husband's interests, and since the death of Buckingham was in

possession of his entire confidence. If, later on, any cloud arose over

their mutual relationship, it was the king's half expressed suspicion

that she thought little of his powers of governing, and that however

much she loved her husband, she did not admire his policy or trust his

royal word as implicitly as he could wish. This is evident from one or

two affectionate but querulous letters which he wrote to her when he

was in the hands of the Parliamentarians.

Of the court, as well as of the private life of the king and queen,

Panzani could report but favourably. The Catholics were to-be helped by

the queen's influence, and as to reunion with Rome, he thought he had

some reason to be sanguine. A letter from Panzani to Cardinal

Barberini, of which the following is a translation, is to be found

among the Stevenson and Bliss transcripts of Vatican documents in the

Record Office. It is dated June 10/25, 1635:

"According to your Eminence's instructions, I have had a long talk with

Father Philip (an English Capuchin and the Queen's confessor),

regarding the reconciliation of this kingdom with Rome, and the means

of bringing it about. He told me that there were unmistakeable signs of

a desire for such a reconciliation, not only in the King, but among the

clergy and laity as well, and the question is mooted almost daily. It

is well, however, to be slow in drawing inferences, because those who

are most in favour of a reunion do not venture to manifest their

desire, but rather dissemble it under the appearance of a contrary way

of thinking, on account of the severity of the law against Catholics.

This same fear possesses the King also, he being of a timid nature;

hence the great misfortune of not being able to count on his prudence

and judgment, seeing how changeable and uncertain he and his advisers

are. Moreover, if by ill-luck the present rumours of war oblige the

King to arm himself, we may expect some persecution of the Catholics,

for money being required, before he can go to war, it will be necessary

to assemble Parliament, and the Lower House, composed mainly of

Puritans, will grant no supplies unless the King makes some show of

cruelty towards Catholics. For the same reason all the bishops and

ministers of moderate views, and favourable to a reunion, begin to be

harsh and intolerant when the time approaches for the meeting of

Parliament, and do nothing but inveigh against the Pope in their

sermons, solely from fear of losing their lives or their places. Father

Philip says that there is no need to be alarmed at the difficulties we

may encounter; but that we should be determined to overcome them, and

that after God, the envoys may greatly facilitate the business, if they

study with all their might how to make themselves agreeable to the King

and the State.

"He who comes here should be all things to all men, in order to win

all, and should take everything he can in good part, and find excuses

for the King and his officers, if sometimes they do not grant the

Catholics all the favours they ask. He should throw the blame on the

poursuivants and the informers, and should adroitly petition for

redress. He should keep Windebank (Secretary of State), considered by

the Puritans to be 'Popishly affected,' and others, well informed of

all that passes in Rome, and should manage to keep up communication

with the papal legates, in order to have news, and at the same time to

make himself agreeable to them, for they like above all things to

receive marks of confidence. He must be careful, however, in

publishing, the facts he thus learns, to give no offence to any of the

crowned heads, nor bring our religion into bad odour.

"The envoy should distribute some gifts, and in fine, use every means

to make himself beloved. He ought to be about thirty-five years old,

and to have attained a certain solidity rarely met with before that

age. He should also be noble and rich, and of a good presence,

furnished with all qualities proper to a gentleman; and, above all, his

life should be exemplary, without affectation or hypocrisy . . . . On

the arrival of such an agent in London, speaking French well, which

language is understood by the whole court, he should first of all

contrive to please the Queen, who, being young, delights in perfumes

and fine clothes, and likes people to be lively and merry. His next

object should be to ingratiate himself with the court ladies and

others, as much is done here by the influence of women; but he should

on no account allow familiarity with the Queen and other ladies to

degenerate into lightness or worse, for that would involve the ruin of

the whole undertaking. It is customary to say here, 'if a man's life is

good, his religion must be a good one'; but the English are shocked at

every little thing. The King is extremely modest, and the Queen such,

that Father Philip told me her conscience has never lost its baptismal

innocence.

"Having gained the good opinion of the Queen and her ladies, the agent

may aspire to greater things. The court is very accessible to bribes;

it is therefore quite possible to purchase its goodwill; and to this

end it will be well to send the Queen jewels of some value, ostensibly

as presents to her, but in reality that she may distribute them among

those ministers from whom the greatest help may be expected. The envoy

should not make very valuable presents himself, but only through the

Queen, lest he be suspected of ulterior views, or cause danger to the

recipients of them.

"When the ministers have been won over, the Queen, instructed by the

envoy how great a reputation she may acquire by the conversion of this

kingdom, must try to persuade the King to abolish poursuivants and

informers. This he may not be able to effect immediately, being

powerless to repeal parliamentary laws, but he may be able to procure

that the poursuivants and informers shall do nothing without an express

and written order from the Privy Council, and only then in a manner

conformable to the instructions of the same. In this way, Catholics

would have nothing more to fear, because as soon as the Council

resolved to proceed against any individual, the Queen would bring her

influence to bear on any one of its members already on her side, and

the threatened Catholic would be helped, either to fly or to elude the

officials.

"This point gained, an almost tacit liberty of conscience would follow;

the Catholics would take courage, and the moderate Protestants would no

longer fear to declare themselves openly their protectors. Then would

be the time to treat with the King, through the Archbishop of

Canterbury, for the concession of religious liberty, as far as

possible. This once conceded, Father Philip believes that in less than

three years the whole country would become Catholic. Parliament might

then safely be assembled to repeal the laws against Catholics, and

reunion with the Holy See would soon follow.

"But how to obtain liberty of conscience it is not easy to say at

present; neither does it yet concern us, not having arrived so far.

"This is all that Father Philip said, and whatever else he may tell me

I will write to your Eminence, having nothing further to add now,

except that the envoy should be guided in all things by Father Philip,

who has a great reputation for prudence, and is respected by the whole

court."

Nevertheless, Father Philip's ingenious structure soon proved to be

only a house of cards. He understood the Queen, and was not far wrong

in his estimation of Charles, but he was mistaken in thinking the

king's party to be in earnest about Catholicism, and was as wide of the

mark in grasping the archbishop's bent as any Puritan in the realm.

Laud was in some respects wiser than Buckingham had been; he was

content to govern through the King, throwing what power he could into

the hands of the prelates. All the great offices of State were filled

by churchmen. Far from contemplating any submission to the Pope, he

aimed at being a species of independent Pope on his own account. Both

he and Juxon, the Lord Treasurer, refused to see Panzani.

Laud's greatest passion was ambition, if anything in a nature so

contracted could be said to assume the proportions of a fullblown

passion. He had a marvellous capacity for dealing with small things,

and all that came under his ken he studied to the minutest detail. He

was a believer in dreams, and owned to being greatly troubled by them.

"Thursday, I came to London," he once wrote in his diary; "the night

following, I dreamed that I was reconciled to the Church of Rome. This

troubled me much, and I wondered exceedingly how it should happen. Now

was I aggrieved with myself (not only by reason of the errors of that

Church, but also) upon account of the scandal which from that my fall

would be cast upon many eminent and learned men in the Church of

England. Going with this resolution, a certain priest met me, and would

have stopped me. But moved with indignation I went on my way. And while

I wearied myself with these troublesome thoughts I awoke. Herein I felt

such strong impressions that I could scarce believe it to be a dream."

To a becoming gravity the archbishop failed to unite a saving sense of

humour. His temper was hasty, but also vindictive, and he never forgot

an injury, to which fact the notorious Puritan, William Prynne, was

well able to testify. Laud first incurred the enmity of this man and

his friends by his attempts to introduce some measure of ceremonial

into the churches under him. When he began his reform, the places of

public worship were nothing but buildings where discourses and

diatribes against Popery were to be heard in luxuriously upholstered

seats. "There wants nothing but beds to hear the Word of God on," said

Bishop Corbet. The notion of a priesthood had died out of people's

minds. They looked upon their clergy as preachers merely--the cure of

souls was an obsolete term.

Archbishop Grindal had caused the altars to be destroyed, and the

places where they had stood whitewashed, so that no trace of them might

remain.* Laud had the communion tables removed from the middle of the

churches into the place formerly occupied by the altar, railed in, and

distinguished by altar-like adornments. Finally, it became customary to

designate them by the ancient name of altar, while the officiating

minister resumed the name of priest. The people, now become thoroughly

Protestantised, murmured, and thought they saw indications of a return

to Rome.** Some protested that all this superabundant care for

externals was eating the life out of Protestantism; the bugbear of

others was the appeal, now becoming customary, to the Fathers of the

Church, rather than to the Protestant divines of the continent.*** St.

Augustine was suspect, Calvin they knew to be orthodox.

* Articles to be inquired of in the Archdiocese of York--"Whether in

your churches and chapels, all altars be utterly taken down and clean

removed even unto the foundation; and the place where they stood paved,

and the wall whereunto they joined whited over, and made uniform with

the rest, so as no breach or rupture appear." In case any altars

remained, the churchwardens were "to remove them and certify."

** Calendar of State Papers, 1635-36; Dom. Charles I.

*** Gardiner, Fall of the Monarchy of Charles.

The sequel proved that a very real source of danger lay among Laud's

own familiar friends. The archbishop could not restrain the lengths to

which they would go, in following up the track which he himself had

laid open. Burning questions were discussed in the pulpits. Thus,

Panzani, in a letter to Cardinal Barberini, dated March 13/23, 1636,

says:--

"Last Sunday, one of the bishops preached before the King, on the

necessity of Sacramental Confession, saying that the Church has never

been in a good state wherever it was not practised."

Panzani, continuing, went on to say that reconciliation with Rome was

an event anticipated by all, and that many people thought the clergy

refrained from marrying, in order that they might still hold their

parishes in case of reunion. "This," he adds, "is what I hear, but

whether it is true or not, God only knows, who sees the hearts of men."

In the same letter he mentioned another sermon, which had lately been

preached before the king and the court "touching confession, and the

preacher said that its origin could be traced to the Gospel better than

that of any other doctrine; wherefore he exhorted his hearers to

practise it. All the court are now talking of this sermon," he

continued, "and the King himself at supper afterwards spoke highly of

the practise of confession, saying that one ought to mention all the

circumstances of a sin. Someone who was present said he could not think

it right to take away another person's reputation by naming him, if he

were concerned in a sin. The King at once replied that it was not

permitted to name accomplices, and turning to Father Philip, who is

always present at supper, he asked him if he were not right. Father

Philip answered that he was. The Earl of Carlisle, a Puritan, who was

also there, assured Father Philip that he agreed with us in everything,

except that the Pope had power to depose kings. 'We do not believe that

either,' replied Father Philip, 'we only say that the Pope may do it in

extraordinary cases, such as heresy for instance.' The Earl of Carlisle

replied

'You are not all of the same opinion, because I know that some among

you maintain that he has.'

"Here the subject dropped. A lady conversing with Father Philip on the

same occasion said that if confession were to be practised, Protestant

ministers ought to be like ours. 'Why?' asked Father Philip. 'Because,'

answered the lady, 'if they have wives, no one will confess to them for

fear of their repeating to their wives, straight off, the sins confided

to them.'"

In a former letter, Panzani had written: "A preacher said lately that

the Pope was the true Vicar of Christ, successor of St. Peter, and

Chief Patriarch, and he proceeded to enlarge on Papal jurisdiction,

when a tumult arose among the congregation, and afterwards the preacher

was censured."

And again, "On the first day, and also the first Sunday in Lent, the

Bishop of London, preaching before the King, took for his subject the

preparation for our Lord's Passion, and said that it was not only

needful to mortify the spirit, but also the flesh, teaching which is

opposed to the doctrine of the greater number of Protestants."

Thus, the Puritans had some ground for murmuring, and it was not

altogether unnatural, that they and the Catholics also should imagine

that the Church of England had set its face Romewards. The above were

not doctrines such as Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and Hooper would have

owned, nor would they recognise the churches in which such language was

held.

Greater still would have been the wrath of such men as Prynne,

Bastwick, and Burton, had they known that the Bishop of Gloucester had

applied to Panzani for permission to have a Catholic priest in his

house secretly, to say Mass daily for him; and that he was strongly in

favour of re-union.

William Prynne, barrister-at-law by profession, by reputation a

vituperative pamphleteer, was always ready to denounce, cavil, and

rail. The list of his philippics fills nearly a whole folio volume of

the British Museum Library Catalogue. He had what Wharton, more

graphically than politely, describes as "the eternal itch of

scribbling." The subject of Sabbath-breaking to which he attributed the

fresh outbreak of the plague in 1636, was to him as a red rag to a

bull. Encouraged by his example a whole mass of literature appeared on

the observance of the Sabbath--not the modern Sunday which was decried

as an invention of Rome, but of the old Jewish Sabbath, considered by

the Puritans to have a far better claim to be observed.

Prynne had no perception of the relative value of things.

Sabbath-breaking, predestination, and the supreme wickedness of curls,

or love-locks as they were then called, were of equal importance in his

mind. Laud's innovations put him into a state of frenzy, and he

declared that the Church of England was now "as full of ceremonies" as

a dog was "full of fleas."

Giles Widdowes, entering the lists for the archbishop, argued that "men

should take off their hats on entering a church, because it was the

place of God's presence, the chiefest place of his honour amongst us,

where His ambassadors deliver His embassage, where His priests

sacrifice their own and the militant Church's prayers, and the Lord's

Supper, to reconcile us to God, offended with our daily sins." "Ergo,"

answered Prynne, "the priests of the Church of England are sacrificing

priests, and the Lord's Supper a propitiatory sacrifice, sacrificed by

those priests for men's daily sins!"

Widdowes also wrote in defence of the practice of bowing at the name of

Jesus; and considering doubtless that men should be fought with their

own weapons, took a leaf out of Prynne's book and belaboured soundly

"the lawless, kneeless, schismatical Puritan."

Prynne retorted promptly, entitling his reply, "Lame Giles his

Haltings." Soon afterwards, being cited to appear and defend himself

for having used intemperate language in a book against plays and

players, he was sentenced to have his ears shorn off. As many copies of

his book as were forthcoming were burned by his side as he sat in the

pillory. He was degraded and prevented from pleading as a lawyer. He

only wrote the more. The titles of his book are ingenious, and would

ensure their sale at any time. As for their contents, odious as was the

language he used, Prynne always hit the nail he intended, and was very

good at a blow. In Rome's Masterpiece, he declared that the archbishop

was a "middle-man, between an absolute Papist and a real Protestant,

who will far sooner hug a Popish priest in his bosom than take a

Puritan by the little finger."

Prynne's fellow pamphleteers, Bastwick and Burton, were not far behind

him in the violence of their invectives, but the lawyer must be

admitted to bear the palm for sharp sayings.

In John Bastwick's Litany, instead of "from plague, pestilence, and

famine," we have "from bishops, priests, and deacons, good Lord,

deliver us."

In 1637, Laud summoned the three men before the Star Chamber, to answer

to a charge of libel. Bastwick's crime was for writing against the

"Pope of Canterbury." They were all three found guilty, fined 5000

pounds each, condemned to lose their ears, and to be imprisoned for

life, an astoundingly heavy sentence. But in addition Prynne was to be

branded on both cheeks with the letters S L for slanderous libeller.

Chief Justice Finch ordered the scars left by his former punishment to

be laid bare. "I had thought," said he, "that Mr. Prynne had no ears

but methinks he hath ears." Three years before, the executioner had

only clipped off the outer rims; but now Prynne was to suffer the full

rigour of the sentence. A contemporary thus describes the process:--

"Having burnt one cheek with a letter the wrong way, the hangman burnt

that again, and presently a surgeon clapped on a plaster to take out

the fire. The hangman hewed off Prynne's ears very scurvily, which put

him to much pain, and after, he stood long in the pillory before his

head could be got out, but that was a chance." *

* Documents relating to Prynne, Camden Papers.

He seems to have borne this martyrdom with great coolness, for on his

way back to prison, he composed a Latin distich on the letters S L,

which he interpreted "Stigmata Laudis"--the scars of Laud.

Although the sentence had been imprisonment for life, Prynne and Burton

entered London in triumph three years later; and if revenge is sweet,

Prynne was yet to swim in a sea of sweetness. When by a strange irony

of fate he was hired to search the imprisoned archbishop for papers, he

carried off Laud's diary.

If Panzani could have seen this strange record of the archbishop's

dreams, desires, and impressions, he would doubtless have ceased to

look upon Laud as an important factor in his scheme of the corporate

re-union of the nation with Rome.

Under date 14th August 1634, Prynne read and gloated over those

remarkable entries:

"That very morning at Greenwich there came one to me seriously, and

that avowed ability to perform it, and offered me to be a cardinal,"

and two days later--

"I had a serious offer made me to be a cardinal. I was then from court,

but so soon as I came hither (21st August) I acquainted His Majesty

with it. But my answer again was that somewhat dwelt within me, which

would not suffer that, till Rome were other than it is."

No doubt, in declining the cardinalate, if indeed the offer were not a

figment of his own brain, Laud would have been diplomatic enough not to

allow his reasons to transpire, and probably the Pope never knew them.

The importance of the statement lies for posterity entirely in the

anti-Roman tendency which he expressed in his diary. For the archbishop

himself, to have committed the matter to writing, whether it were true

or imaginary, proved fatal, the entries serving his enemies as the text

of one of the chief indictments against him, when he was brought to

trial. Nothing he could plead made any impression on the minds of his

accusers. His refusal of the purple ought to have vindicated him; but

they maintained that for the offer to have been made to him at all, he

must have been friends with the Pope. Moreover, had he not objected to

the term "Idol of Rome"? and had he not expressed doubt if not denial

of the Pope's being anti-Christ? These things were more than enough for

fanatics whose piety consisted chiefly in denunciations and impolite

epithets. It was as clear as daylight to their minds that the

archbishop had "a damnable plot to reconcile the Church of England with

the Church of Rome."

Presumably, Mr. Prynne's ears were for something in the overwhelming

potency of the argument. But another and scarcely less important

article of the indictment related to some pictures of the Life and

Passion of our Lord, which Laud had once had bound up in Bibles. He had

been so greatly pleased with the result that he ordered them to be

called the Archbishop of Canterbury's Bibles. The Puritans thought they

saw in this strong proof of his "popish and idolatrous affection,"

their ignorance of human nature actually leading them to imagine that

on seeing an image or picture of a divine person men would be forthwith

moved to prostrate themselves in adoration of the material of which it

was composed, no other explanation of the word "idolatrous" being

possible in this connection.

But we must now return to the year 1636, when popular passion ran so

high that the opinion of an onlooker is our only means of arriving at a

fairly accurate appreciation of events. Panzani, who although wrong in

his inferences was correct as to facts, describes the archbishop and

his works with great moderation. In his letters to Cardinal Barberini,

he tells him that Laud is "short in stature, aged about sixty, is

unmarried, and is first in the privy council. His views are moderate,

and he is not unfriendly to the Catholic religion. He has the King's

interests thoroughly at heart; he studies to increase the revenue, and

perhaps for this reason is preferred by the King to all his other

advisers. He is ready for any amount of work, and all ecclesiastical

affairs receive his personal attention. He is reputed an Arminian, and

in nearly all dogmas approaches nearly to the Roman Church. With the

King's permission he has made innovations in the Scotch as well as in

the English churches, has erected altars, and put sacred pictures in

many places. He has the honour and glory of the clergy extremely at

heart. Many think his aim is to reconcile this Church with Rome, others

hold quite opposite views, and both extremes have some show and reason,

for on the one hand, one sees in him great ambition to imitate Catholic

rites, and on the other, what looks almost like a positive hatred of

Catholics and their religion. Sometimes he persecutes them, but this is

interpreted by many to mean only prudence, and a way of escape from the

murmurs and quarrels of the Puritans."

The Queen and Panzani were on excellent terms. Cardinal Barberini had

sent Henrietta Maria some very costly presents, and she was anxious to

show him a similar attention. Father Philip considered that English

horses would form a most suitable gift, but the Queen asked him to

consult Panzani. "If her Majesty wants to send a really acceptable

present to Rome, let her send the heart of the King," said the envoy,

smiling. Father Philip replied that this treasure she wished to keep

entirely for her own.

"I make no doubt," answered Panzani, "that in sending the King's heart

to Rome, the Queen would only possess it the more entirely, and without

danger of rivalry from conflicting religious sects."

Father Philip then told her that if it pleased the Father of Mercy, she

should send this truly precious gift, and that his Eminence cared for

no horses.

Soon after this, Panzani returned home, and was made Bishop of Miletus.

Meanwhile George Conn, a Scotchman, had been chosen to replace him, the

papal court considering that he possessed the rare qualities described

by Panzani as necessary for the delicate position of papal envoy to the

Catholic queen of a non-Catholic country.

Panzani being an Italian, and possessing no language but his own, could

only communicate with the Queen and the secretaries of State through an

interpreter. As he was a priest, he was liable to cause irritation to

such of the court and nation who were not "popishly inclined."

Conn had passed twenty-four years in Italy, had courtierlike manners

and bearing. He was a layman, although a canon of one of the great

Roman basilicas, and as we have already seen, was a candidate for a red

hat. With his brilliant parts, great capacity, urbanity, and zeal, it

is not surprising to learn that he was declared to be a Jesuit, a

generic term not only in his own days, but down to our own, for all who

have laboured diligently to restore the old religion.

We find it quite gravely asserted in the records of the reign of

Charles I., that Jesuits were of three degrees, and were to be found

among politicians, merchants, and the professed Fathers living in

religious houses. It would be obviously superfluous to refute this

ridiculous statement which seems destined to crop up at intervals to

the end of time, quite regardless of the fact that it has been

repeatedly shown to affirm an impossibility.

Conn had no sooner arrived in England than the report was spread that

he was a disguised Jesuit, come to receive the King into the Catholic

Church. Charles, in terror of the Puritans, declared that it was a

purely malicious invention, but none the less he continued to

temporise, and the court to regulate its conscience according to his

vacillating example. Some of the nobility were received into the

Church, and among them Lord Boteler and Lady Newport. Mass was again

said in the houses of the Catholic gentry.

In a letter to the Cardinal, written soon after his arrival, Conn gave

an account of along conversation he had had with Charles, in the course

of which he "remarked to his Majesty that the other powers of

Christendom were extremely jealous of the relations which had begun to

exist between the Apostolic See and Great Britain. They know," he

continued, "that a perfect union between the two must necessarily tend

to check their extravagances, and restore to Christ His lost patrimony

in the west."

To this the King replied with some emotion, saying:

"May God pardon the first authors of the rupture."

"Sire," I answered, "the greater will be your Majesty's glory, when by

your means so great an evil is remedied." To which the King made no

further response. Not long afterwards, Charles asked Conn whether he

considered it an easy thing for a man to change his religion.

"I told him," said Conn, "that when a man applied himself without

passion or prejudice to find out the truth, God never failed to

enlighten him." To which the King took in good part.

"I am obliged to proceed very cautiously," he added, "that they may not

think the rumour of my coming here to receive the King into the Church

had its origin in my presumption. It was a truly diabolical invention,

and calculated to spoil everything."

If the Puritans were angry before, Conn's sojourn in England lashed

them into fury. Rome's Masterpiece was written when his service had

come to an end, and in the first flush of Puritan triumph. On its

title-page it styles the mission "The Grand Conspiracy of the Pope and

his Jesuited instruments to extirpate the Protestant religion,

re-establish Popery, subvert laws, liberties, peace, parliaments--by

kindling a civil war in Scotland and all his Majesty's realms; and to

poison the King himself, in case he comply not with them in these their

execrable designs."

This is how the "conspiracy" is said to have been discovered:--

"Revealed out of conscience to Andreas ab Habernfeld by an agent sent

from Rome into England by Cardinal Barberini, as an assistant to Conn,

the Pope's late Nuncio, to prosecute this most execrable plot (in which

he persisted a principal actor several years), who discovered it to Sir

William Boswell, his Majesty's agent at the Hague, 6th September 1640.

He, under an oath of secrecy to the Archbishop of Canterbury, among

whose papers it was casually found by Mr. Prynne, May 31, 1643, who

communicated it to the king, as the greatest business that ever was put

to him."

Events had succeeded each other with alarming significance. Nothing was

too wild for the Puritans to invent or to believe, and it had been

found impossible to uphold Conn in the position of papal envoy to the

Queen. After nearly three years' service, he had consequently been

withdrawn, and in August 1639, Count Carlo Rosetti was sent to lead the

forlorn hope of the English Catholics. His first impression of the

state of the country and of the future of Catholicism in England was

hopeful. "I have found," he wrote to Cardinal Barberini, "in all

persons a better disposition and a readiness towards the affairs of

religion in general, and an obedience full of reverence towards the

particular person of his Holiness our Sovereign, and of your Eminence."

Windebank was fairly amenable, but Laud had pinned his faith to the

Church of England, and was no more favourable to the Catholics than to

the Puritans. He opposed Rosetti in every possible way, burned Catholic

books publicly, and threw all his weight and influence in Parliament on

the side that favoured the enforcing of the penal statutes. Meanwhile,

the Queen was not idle, and had pleaded successfully with the King for

her persecuted coreligionists, so that Rosetti was able to report,

"Through the grace of God, all the priests and Catholics are at last

released from prison, to their extreme consolation."

Nevertheless, there was scarcely any further talk of the nation's

return to the bosom of the Church; all that was now hoped for was, that

if the King could be got to act with some degree of firmness and

consistency, the cause of the unhappy Catholics might not yet be

altogether lost. Rosetti drew, as far as it went, a life-like portrait

of Charles in one of his letters:

"The King," he says, "is very high-minded; but having no sincere,

experienced, and capable persons to assist him, he is often either

agitated or changeable, and undecided in the administration of affairs.

He has great parts, and much benevolence, is by nature gentle and

moderate, and with regard to morals, is singular among princes. It is

not possible to exaggerate his love of justice; in the exercise of this

virtue he is little accessible to compassion, but at the same time, he

is no friend of capital punishment. Honesty is one of the strongest

points in his character, but not being surrounded with trustworthy

ministers, it often happens that he neglects the interests of the

State, and gives himself up to hunting, which is his favourite

occupation and amusement."

But the Puritans were fast gaining the upper hand; Parliament haggled

with the King over the supplies, and frightful scenes were enacted in

the churches.

"Last Sunday morning," wrote Rosetti, "many Protestants and Puritans

being assembled at church to celebrate their sacrament, it came to a

great contest between them; some were determined to communicate

sitting, others kneeling. From words they passed to blows, causing much

disturbance."

The other day, a large number of Puritans went into a Protestant

Church, and upset the altars which stood against the wall with rails in

front of them, where people were going to Communion in the Catholic

manner. They took possession of twelve statues representing the twelve

apostles, and carried them with cries and tumult into the Parliament."

On another occasion he wrote:--

"The Archbishop of Canterbury persecutes the Catholics more than ever.

On the vigil of Pentecost, I am told by a trustworthy person, he threw

himself at the King's feet, beseeching him to proceed against the

Catholic religion, at least from political interests, if not from

conscientious motives."

Laud was terrified. All that he had done to imitate Catholicism he now

undid, as far as he was able, in order, if possible, to pacify the

Puritans. The order to bow at the holy Name was revoked, the

communion-tables were replaced in the middle of the churches, and from

being called altars were renamed tables. The altar rails were

abolished, and the people communicated after the Calvinist manner. A

quantity of Catholic books were ostentatiously burned in a public

square, and the state of affairs looked less like reunion with Rome

than ever.

But all that Laud did availed him nothing; the disturbances continued

in the churches, and scarcely a service was held without a quarrel

arising as to the manner of conducting it, some fighting for one

posture, some for another.

Neither did the Archbishop become more popular with the multitude. A

courageous stand against the Puritans might have inspired them with

some respect for their enemy; yielding to them from fear only made them

more formidable. Sometimes the High Church party would still score a

victory here and there. A Puritan holding forth one day in Westminster

Abbey, with the usual flow of epithets, on the difference between the

Catholic religion and that of the Puritans, the Bishop of Lincoln rose,

and declared that his language was unbecoming in a pulpit, put an end

to the sermon, and forced the preacher to come down.

But these triumphs were rare; few of the king's men were as bold as the

Bishop of Lincoln. All seemed to be painfully busy in saving their

skins, while the Parliamentarians complained loudly and efficaciously

that Charles had allowed the primate to foist a new religion upon them.

Through the primate they proceeded to attack the King. Placards began

to appear all over London, with declarations to the effect that the

people were determined to enjoy the liberty with which they were born,

and to maintain the integrity of their religious worship. One of these

placards was discovered one morning nailed to the gate of the royal

palace at Whitehall. On it were these words: "Charles and Maria, doubt

not but that the archbishop must die!"

Charles's authority had disappeared with his dignity, and the parsimony

of successive Parliaments had impoverished the royal family to so great

an extent that the want of money was not the least of their troubles.

At one time they were reduced to such straits that hunger would have

stared them in the face but for the alternative of pawning their

jewels. In these circumstances it is scarcely surprising that Charles

should have turned to the Pope for help.

The following letter from Rosetti to the Cardinal, if somewhat

discursive, is interesting as the record of a kind of sommation

respectueuse which he now made to the King:--

"Oatlands, August 10/25, 1640.

"Your Eminence's letters of the 30th June and the 7th July having

reached me, I did not omit to speak to Mr. Windebank on the subject of

his Majesty's conversion, and of the succour in the shape of men and

money that will be sent to him from Rome in the event of its taking

place. After some talk about the present state of the King's affairs,

Mr. Windebank asked me whether I had received letters from Rome

relating to the proposal he had already made me. I replied that I had,

and that your Eminence was extremely well-disposed towards this

country, sympathising deeply with his Majesty in his troubles, caused

by the disobedience and faithlessness of the Puritans. This led to my

saying that a State could not possibly be either happy or secure unless

united, and that unity was impossible without one uniform religion. I

then put forward the indisputable fact, that a prince whose subjects

profess one faith alone is beyond compare more powerful than a

sovereign whose people are split up into various religions, and that

the many sects in this realm, opposed to every form of political

government, ought to make his Majesty pause, and reflect on the remedy.

"I added that in reality there was no other remedy than for the King,

with all his Protestants, to embrace our holy religion, when forming

one body with the Catholic party, they would be strong enough to keep

the Puritans in check.

"On the other hand, it was, I said, only too evident, that if measures

were not taken to repress them, they would grow so powerful as to

imperil one day the very existence of monarchy in England. Every hour

it became, I held, more apparent how little they were in touch with the

King, and how determined they were never to rest till they had

introduced popular government in some form or other.

"Here I digressed, in order to point out how often King James, his

Majesty's father, had found himself in danger of losing his life by the

machinations of the Puritans, having been menaced by them even before

he saw the light of day. I then went on to point out that King Charles

was placed in the very same danger, and his kingdom reduced to such a

state of discord and weakness, that he must fear daily to find himself

and his crown the prey of his worst enemies.

"The Puritans have always been, and ever will be, intent on upsetting

all kingly authority. Such is the rebellious spirit of their Calvinism,

that it aims at nothing less than the total destruction of the King and

of the Catholic religion.

"I then spoke of the greatness which would accrue to England if the

King's conversion were brought about, dwelling not only on the

advantageous relationships he might form, in disposing of the Prince

and Princess in marriage, but also on the disputes perpetually taking

place between France and Spain, in which his Majesty would be the

recognised arbitrator and peacemaker. Neither country would have the

temerity to offend him, on account of the power he would possess to

harm them, having the supreme Pontiff on his side."

Rosetti here proceeds to define, somewhat lengthily, the exact position

of a Catholic King of England in European politics, and the kind of

prestige he would acquire if he embraced a religion to which he was

already partially inclined. Then, speaking of the King more personally,

he went on:--

"If, having considered all these things, his Majesty comes to a decided

resolution, he should not delay putting it into effect from fear of the

consequences. Henry VIII. risked more in his unholy determination to

destroy the Catholic religion, which had flourished in this country

with such pious results for so many centuries. I insisted that it was

time his Majesty made an end of his ambiguousness and hesitation, and

that he should once for all fix his mind, there being nothing more

injurious than leisurely deliberation when a man has need of prompt

decision and action. I told Mr. Windebank further, that the King's

procrastination was simply putting the sceptre into the hands of the

Puritans, was ruining the State, his children, and himself, and that a

really wise prince not only provides for the safety of his kingdom

during his own life-time, but orders things in such a manner that at

his death he secures his inheritance to his posterity.

"His Majesty, I declared, could take no step more just and more

pleasing to God than by restoring to this country its ancient religion,

professed by his ancestors, and I believed that this King, so good, so

just, and so virtuous in many ways, was appointed by divine Providence

for the great work.

"The King was, I said, already armed; help might confidently be

expected to flow in from Ireland, through the devotion and loyalty of

that people, and his Holiness would moreover assist him with men and

money.

"Finally, I showed the necessity of this union, for the salvation of

souls, a point which I ought to have begun with, it being certain that

none can be saved out of the bosom of the Catholic Church. Of this the

Nicaean Council speaks in the great creed, in unam sanctam Catholicam

Ecclesiam et Apostolicam, in which Protestants believe as we do, and

yet it is not said that there are two or more churches.

"Confessing as they do that ours is the Catholic Church, they

contradict their own belief in the said creed; and not only this, but

the ancient Fathers, and the Holy Scriptures agree that the Church of

God is one.

"Having added many other things to this proposition, I said that if one

examined the reasons which induced Henry VIII. to give up the Church,

one would find that they had no other origin than in sensuality and

spleen--false and unworthy pretexts.

"I ended by declaring that whoever considers a matter so important as

is the salvation of souls, ought to have his eyes well open, and not

consent to the errors of that king, whose actions are condemned and

abhorred by all.

"Mr. Windebank replied that he had listened to me with pleasure, and

had weighed all my reasons, finding them very true; but that for the

accomplishment of an undertaking so momentous, a large heart and a

strong will were indispensable, and these he could not at present

promise me. He told me in confidence that never until now had

negotiations of such importance passed through his hands, to be

followed by so few results. One day the King would have recourse to an

expedient, and the next would stultify it, with the greatest

inconstancy imaginable. Nevertheless, he assured me that he would not

fail to repeat all I had said, to his Majesty at the first opportunity.

". . . The matter is indeed so grave, that one rather hopes in the

sovereign power of God than in any human help. Still, we must be ready,

for His Divine Majesty often makes use of us creatures to bring forth

works which shall redound to His service.

"I observed both with Father Philip and Mr. Windebank all the caution

that such an important undertaking demands. May God who gives and who

takes away realms, who changes and governs them as He pleases,

enlighten the King's mind, that he may know what he should do for the

salvation of his own soul and the souls of all his people."

In 1641 many letters were written and received by Count Rosetti,

relating to the freedom of conscience to be granted to Catholics, in

return for a sum of 600 scudi. But freedom of conscience was still one

of the unfulfilled conditions of the king's marriage settlement, and

the Pope, it was objected, could not treat with an heretical sovereign.

"Only in the event of the King's conversion," wrote Cardinal Barberini,

21st February 1641, "would it be possible for me to entreat His

Holiness to send a considerable sum of money."

On the 19th July of the same year, Rosetti wrote:--

"I told him (Father Philip) that the only way to obtain help from the

Holy See was by His Majesty's return to the Catholic Church. He

answered that such a step would be extremely difficult at present, not

because the King had any dislike to Catholicism, neither did he wish to

prevent Catholics from saving their souls; but that it was evident if

he changed his religion just now, he would run great risk of losing his

crown and his life. But if he were enabled to recover his power and

authority, the Catholic cause would be strengthened by supporting him,

and his conversion might then be confidently looked forward to.

"The Queen Mother told me that in speaking of certain miracles

performed by the saint in whose honour the processions are being made

just now at Antwerp, she observed the King listening attentively,

seeming to have a decided taste for the Catholic religion. She however

admitted, that although he appears to have great natural capacity, and

to understand the critical state of his affairs, he is, as they say,

timid, slow, and irresolute."

Charles I. never went any further than the cultivation of "a decided

taste for the Catholic religion," and what would have happened had he

really thrown himself into the arms of the Pope must remain one of

those curious and unsolvable historical problems with which the world

is full.

Would the Papacy, still a great force in Europe, have been able to save

him from the terrible fate that awaited him?

Obliged to act from definite, logical principles in the place of his

mischievous theory of the royal prerogative, would he have gained in

moral weight as well as in the material advantages held out to him?

It may be answered that the Puritans were as little inclined to

tolerate an infallible Pope whom they hated and feared, as an

infallible king whom they could drive into a corner; and possibly the

King would only have died in another cause.

Under a portrait of Charles I., painted in the fortieth year of his

age, in which he is represented as grave, troubled, and with a scared

and hunted look in his eyes, Prynne wrote these lines:--

"All flesh is grass, the best men vanity,

This, but a shadow, here before thine eye,

Of him whose wondrous changes clearly show

That God, not man, sways all things here below."