Amenities of Literature Part 36

That such courageous and generous tempers as that of REGINALD SCOT should fail themselves of being the spectators of that n.o.ble revolution in public opinion which was the ripening of their own solitary studies, is the mortifying tale of the benefactors of mankind.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "De Prestigiis Demonum et Incantationibus ac Veneficiis," 1564.

[2] Webster notices the popular delusions of the country people in the following pa.s.sage, in which he is speaking of a sound judgment as necessary to a competent witness:--"They ought to be of a sound judgment, and not of a vitiated and distempered phantasie, nor of a melancholic const.i.tution; for these will take a bush to be a bugbear, and a black sheep to be a demon; the noise of the wild swans, flying high in the night, to be spirits--or, as they call them here in the north, _Gabriel Ratchets_; the calling of a daker hen, in the meadow, to be the _whistlers_; the howling of the female fox in a gill or clough for the male, to be the cry of fairies." "The _Gabriel Ratchets_," in our author's time, seem to have been the same with the German _Rachtvogel_, or _Rachtraven_. The word and the superst.i.tion are well known in Lancas.h.i.+re, though in a sense somewhat different; for the _Gable-Rachets_ are supposed to be something like litters of puppies yelping (gabbling) in the air. _Ratch_ is certainly a dog in general.

The _whistlers_ are the green or whistling plovers, which fly very high in the night uttering their characteristic note.--Whitaker's "History of Whalley."

[3] In a correspondence I have read between Dr. More and one of his enthusiastic disciples, the Rev. Edmund Elys, the letters usually turn on the reality of apparitions and magical incantations; both these learned men were hunting about all their lifetimes to find a true ghost. Elys often breaks out in triumph that he has at length discovered an authentic ghost; in subsequent letters the evidence gradually diminishes, and finally the apparition and evidence vanish together. The following pious doubts, addressed to the philosophic More, may amuse the reader:--

"Most honoured dear Sir,

"I should be troublesome to you if I did not repress many strong inclinations to write to you, for I do not take greater comfort in anything than in the thoughts of _you_ and the _notions_ you have communicated to the world.

"I now entreat you to tell me one of your arguments why this act is unlawfull, viz., to inquire by this black art (as I am sure it is, though I am told some preachers allow it), whether such or such a _suspected person_ has stolen a thing; viz., by putting a key into the midst of a Bible, and clasping or tying the Bible on it, and then hanging the key upon some man's finger put into the hollow of the handle; and then one of the company saying these words--Ps. 1. 19, 20, 'When thou a thief dost see,' &c., to these words, 'To use that life most vile.' If the Bible turn upon the finger (holding it by the key) when such or such a person is named, then he is judged to be the thief. Some persons that dined at the same table with me had an humour to try this trick. I declared it was very _wicked_, &c., but, however, they would do it. And a gentleman of great acquaintance in the world said that a learned divine a.s.serted it was no hurt, &c. I thought it might not be a sin for me to stay in the room, after I had made that profession of my dissent, &c. They tried what would be done; and, upon the naming of one or two, the key did not move, but on the naming of one (who afterwards was known to be an accomplice in the theft) the Bible turned on the finger very plainly in the sight of divers persons, myself being one. The gentleman that was most eager to have the _experiment_ holds that there never were any _apparitions_, &c. I told him that this was equivalent to _an apparition_; for here was an _ocular demonstration_ of the existence and operation of an intelligent invisible being, &c."

[4] In his "Exposition of the Church Catechism."

[5] Remarks upon a late "Discourse of Free-Thinking," 1743, p. 47.

THE FIRST JESUITS IN ENGLAND.

The fate of the English Protestants, exiles under the Marian administration, was, as the day arrived, to be the lot of the English Papists under the government of Elizabeth. These opposing parties, when cast into the same precise position, had only changed their place in it; and in this revolution of England, in both cases alike, the expatriated were to return, and those at home were to become the expatriated.

During the short reign of Edward, conformity was not pressed; and notwithstanding two statutes, the one to maintain the queen's supremacy, and the other strictly to enjoin the use of the Book of Common Prayer, through the first ten or twelve years of Elizabeth Romanist and Protestant entered into the same parish church. "The old Marian priests," whom the rigid papists indeed afterwards scornfully decried, were wont to inquire of any one, to use their own term, "whether they were _settled_?" and were satisfied to lure from the seduction of a protestant pulpit some lonely waverer, if by chance they found an easy surrender. There were, indeed, many who would neither "settle" nor "waver," and these were called "Occasionalists;" they insisted that "Occasional conformity" had nothing _per se malum_--that human laws might be complied with or neglected according to circ.u.mstances; so learned doctors had opined! The old religion seemed melting into the new, when the Romanists, of another temper than "the old Marian priests," protested against this pacific toleration, and procured from the fathers of the Council of Trent a declaration against schismatics and heretics: this was but the prelude of what was to come from a final authority; but this was sufficient to divide the Romanists of England, and to alarm the Protestants, yet tender in their reformation.

The sterner Romanists gradually seceded from their preferments in the church or their station in the universities, and at length forsook the land. Two eminent persons effected a revolution among their brother-exiles, of which our national history bears such memorable traces. These extraordinary men were Dr. ALLEN, of Oriel College, a canon in the cathedral of York, and who subsequently was invested with the purple as the English cardinal, and ROBERT PARSONS, of Baliol, afterwards the famous Jesuit. They left England at different periods, but when they met abroad, their schemes were inseparable--and possibly some of their writings; though it may be doubted whether the subtile and daring genius of Parsons, which Cardinal Allen declared equalled the greatest whom he had known, ever acted a secondary part.

Allen abandoned his country for ever in 1565. He soon projected the gathering of his English brothers, scattered in foreign lands; he conceived the formation for the fugitive Romanists of England of another Oxford, ostensibly to furnish a succession of Romish priests to preserve the ancient papistry of England, which was languis.h.i.+ng under "the old Marian priests." In 1568 an English college was formed at Douay; in twenty years Allen witnessed his colleges rise at Rheims, at Rome,[1] at Louvain and St. Omer, and at Valladolid, at Seville, and at Madrid. From these cradles and nurseries of holiness to Rome, and of revolt to England, issued those seminary priests whose political religionism elevated them into martyrdom, and involved them in inextricable treason.[2]

In these labours Allen had, as early as 1575, a.s.sociated himself with Parsons, who in that year had entered into the order of the Jesuits.

Allen sought the vigorous aid of the "soldiery of Jesus," alleging "that England was as glorious a field for the propagation of faith as the Indies." From that time the more ambiguous policy and deeper views of that celebrated Society gave a new character to the Romish missionaries to England, and were the cause of all their calamities; a history written in blood, at whose legal horrors our imagination recoils, and our sympathy for the honourable and the hapless may still dim our eyes with tears.

Parsons, pensioned by Spain and patronised by Rome--wide and deep in his comprehensive plans--slow in deliberation, but decisive in execution--of a cold and austere temper, yet flexible and fertile in intrigue--with his working head and his ceaseless hand--once at least looked for nothing less than the dominion of England, ambitious to restore to Papal Rome a realm which had once been her fief. This daring Machiavelian spirit had long been the subtle and insidious counsellor, conjointly with Allen, of the cabinets of Madrid and of Rome. From Rome came the denunciatory bull of 1569, renewed with an artful modification in 1580, and again in 1588; and from Spain the Armada.

It has been ascertained by his own writings that the Jesuit Parsons, who had obtained free access to the presence of the Spanish monarch, left Madrid in 1585, about the time when the preparations for the Armada began, and returned to Madrid in 1589, the year after its destruction; so that the English Jesuit, whose sanguine views had aided the inspiration, had also the fort.i.tude to console and to a.s.sure the Spanish monarch that "the punishment of England had only been deferred." Of this secret intercourse with the Court of Madrid we have the express avowal of the English Cardinal, Allen, in that infuriated "Admonition to the n.o.bility and People of England," the precursor of the Armada; in which this Italianated Englishman, contrary to those habits and that language of amenity to which he had been accustomed, suddenly dropped the veil, and, at the command of his sacerdotal suzerain, raged against Elizabeth more furiously than had the Mar-prelate Knox.

In the year 1580 PARSONS and CAMPIAN came the first Jesuit missionaries to their native soil. Camden was acquainted with both these personages at college. The contrast of their personal dispositions might have occasioned their selection; for the chiefs of this noted order not only exercised a refined discernment in the psychology of their brothers and agents, but always acted on an ambidextrous policy. Campian, with amenity of manners and sweetness of elocution, with a taste imbued with literature, was adapted to win the affections of those whom Parsons sometimes terrified by his hardihood. They landed in England at different ports; and, though at first separated, subsequently they sometimes met. They travelled under a variety of disguises, sure of concealment in the priests' secret chamber of many a mansion, or they haunted unfrequented paths. A tradition in the Stonor family still points at a tangled dell in the park where Campian wrote his "Decem Rationes," and had his books and his food conveyed to him.

We have an interesting account of the perilous position which he occupied; his devoted spirit, not to be subdued by despair, but tinged with the softest melancholy, is disclosed in a letter to the general of the order. He tells him that he is obliged to a.s.sume a most antick dress, which he often changes as well as his name; but his studious habits were not interrupted amid this scene of trouble; he says, "Every day I ride about the country. Sitting on my horse, I meditate a short sermon, which coming into the house I more perfectly polish. Afterwards, if any come to me I discourse with them, to which they bring thirsty ears." But notwithstanding that most threatening edicts were dispersed against them, he says, that "by wariness and the prayers of good people, we have in safety gone over a great part of the island. I see many forgetting themselves to be careful for us." He concludes, "We cannot long escape the hands of heretics, so many are the eyes, the tongues, and treacheries of our enemies. Just now I read a letter where was written, 'Campian is taken.' This old song now so rings in mine ears wheresoever I come, that very fear hath driven all fear from me; my life is always in my hand. Let them that shall be sent hither for our supply bring this along with them, well thought on beforehand."

Our Jesuits in some respects betrayed themselves by their zeal in addressing the nation through their own publications. Parsons, under the lugubrious designation of John Howlet, that is, Owlet, sent forth his "screechings;" and Campian, too confident of his irrefutable "Decem Rationes," was so imprudent as to publish "A Challenge for a Public Disputation" in the presence of the queen. The eye of Walsingham opened on their suspected presence. A Roman Catholic servant unwittingly betrayed Campian, who suffered as a state victim.[3] Parsons saw his own doom approaching, and vanished! This able Jesuit was confident that the great scheme was to be realised by means more effective than the martyrdom of young priests. His awful pen was to change public opinion, and nearly forty works attest his diligence, while he mused on other resources than the pen to overturn the kingdom.

The history of the order records that, thirty years afterwards, Father Parsons, lying on his death-bed, ordered to be brought to him the cords which had served as the instruments of torture of his martyred friend, and, having kissed them fervently, bound round his body these sad memorials of the saintly Campian.[4]

Two of the numerous writings ascribed to Parsons, one before the Armada, and the other subsequent to it, are remarkably connected with our national history; the ability of the writer, and the boldness of the topics, have at various periods influenced public opinion and national events. The first "A Dialogue between a Scholar, a Gentleman, and a Lawyer," was printed abroad in 1583 or 1584, and soon found a conveyance into England. The first edition was distinguished as "Father Parsons'

Green Coat," from its green cover. It is now better known as "Leicester's Commonwealth," a t.i.tle drawn from one of its sarcastic phrases.

To describe this political libel as a mere invective would convey but an imperfect notion of its singularity. The occasion which levelled this artful and elaborate scandalous chronicle at Leicester, and at Leicester alone, remains as unknown as this circ.u.mstantial narrative descends to us unauthenticated and unrefuted. That the whole was framed by invention is as incredible as that the favourite of Elizabeth during thirty years could possibly have kept his equal tenor throughout such a criminal career, besides not a few atrocities which were prevented by intervening accidents with which the writer seems equally conversant as with those perpetrated. The mysterious marriages of Leicester--his first lady found at the foot of the stairs with her neck broken, but "without hurting the hood on her head"--husbands dying quickly--solemnised marriages reduced to contracts--are remarkable accidents. We find strange persons in the earl's household; Salvador, the Italian chemist, a confidential counsellor, supposed to have departed from this world with many secrets, succeeded by Dr. Julio, who risked the promotion. We are told of the lady who had lost her hair and her nails--of the exquisite salad which Leicester left on the supper-table when called away, which Sir Nicholas Throgmorton swore had ended his life--of the Cardinal Chatillon, who, after having been closeted with the queen, returning to France, never got beyond Canterbury--of the sending a casuist with a case of conscience to Walsingham, to satisfy that statesman of the moral expediency of ridding the state of the Queen of Scots by an Italian philtre--all these incidents almost induce one to imagine the existence of an English Borgia, drawn full-length by the hand of a Machiavel.

If this strange history were true, it would not be wanting in a moral; for if Leicester were himself this poisoner, there seems some reason to believe that the poisoner himself was poisoned. "The beast," as Throgmorton called this earl, found but a frail countess in the Lady Lettice, whose first husband, the Earl of Ess.e.x, had suddenly expired.

The Master of the Horse had fired her pa.s.sion--a hired bravo, in cleaving his skull, did not succeed in despatching the wounded lover: where the blow came from they did not doubt. Leicester was conducting his countess to Kenilworth; stopping at Cornbury Hall, in Oxfords.h.i.+re, the lady was possibly reminded of the tale of c.u.mnor Hall. To Leicester, after his usual excessive indulgence at table, the countess deemed it necessary to administer a cordial--it was his last draught! Such is the revelation of the page, and latterly the gentleman, of this earl.

Certain it is that Leicester was suddenly seized with fever, and died on his way to Kenilworth, and that the Master of the Horse shortly after married the poisoning countess of the great poisoner.[5]

Had the writer unskilfully heaped together such atrocious acts or such ambiguous tales the libel had not endured; the life of this new Borgia is composed of richer materials than extravagant crimes. It furnishes a picture of eventful days and busied personages; truth and fiction brightening and shadowing each other. Some close observer in the court circle, one who sickened at the queen's insolent favourite, was a malicious correspondent. Some realities lie on the surface; and Sir Philip Sidney was baffled or confounded when he would have sent forth his chivalric challenge to the veiled accuser.

The adversaries of the Jesuits referred to Busenbaum, a favourite author with the order, to inform the world that among the artifices of the political brotherhood was inculcated the doctrine of systematic calumny.

"Whenever you would ruin a person or a government, you must begin by spreading calumnies to defame them. Many will incline to believe or to side with the propagator. Repet.i.tion and perseverance will at length give the consistency of probability, and the calumnies will stick to a distant day." A nickname a man may chance to wear out; but a system of calumny, pursued by a faction, may descend even to posterity. This principle has taken full effect on this state-favourite. The libel was most diligently spread about--"La Vie Abominable" was read throughout Europe. This story of the "subject without subjection," who "shoots at a diadem" in England or Scotland, and turns England into a "Leicesterian commonwealth," raised princely anger: the queen condescended to have circular letters written to protest against it, considering the libel as reflecting on herself, in the choice of so princ.i.p.al a counsellor: and though her majesty discovered that the author was nothing less than "an incarnate devil," yet to this day the state-favourite Leicester remains the most mysterious personage in our history; nor is there any historian from the days of Camden who dares to extenuate suspicions which come to us palpable as realities. In truth, the life of Leicester is darkness; his political intrigues probably were carried on with all parties, which probably he adopted and betrayed by turns: at last his caprice stood above law. And even in his domestic privacy there were strange incidents, dark and secret, which eye was not to see, nor ear to listen to; and we have a remarkable chance-evidence of this singular fact in that mysterious sonnet of Spenser, prefixed to his version of Virgil's "Gnat," whose sad tale was his own, dedicated "to the deceased lord;"

his "cloudy tears" have left "this riddle rare" to some "future Oedipus"

who has never arisen.[6]

The Armada flying from our coasts evinced to Spain and Rome that Elizabeth was not to be dethroned. What then remained to hold a flattering vision of the English crown to Philip, and to cast the heretical land into confusion? The genius of this new Machiavel rose with the magnitude of the subject and the singularity of the occasion.

The policy or the weakness of Elizabeth never consented to settle the succession; and as the queen aged, all Europe became more interested in that impending event. This was a cause of national uneasiness, and an implement for political mischief.

In 1594 was printed at Antwerp "A Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England." The purpose of this memorable tract is twofold. The first part inculcates the doctrine that society is a compact made by man with man for the good of the commonwealth; that the forms of government are diverse, and therefore are by G.o.d and nature left to the choice of the people; that kings do not derive their t.i.tle from any birthright, or lineal descent, but from their coronation, with conditions and admissions by the consent of the people; and that kings may be deposed, or the line of succession may be altered, as many of our own and other monarchs have suffered from various causes, being accountable for their misgovernment or natural incompetency.

"Commonwealths have sometimes chastised lawfully their lawful princes, though never so lawfully descended." This has often been "commodious to the weal-public," and "it may seem that G.o.d prospered the same by the good success and successors that hence ensued."[7]

This theory of monarchical government was opposed to those "absurd flatterers who yield too much power to princes," and was not likely, as we shall see, to be only a work of temporary interest. Let us, however, observe that this advocate of the people's supremacy over their sovereign's was himself the vowed slave to pa.s.sive obedience, and the indefeasible and absolute rule of the sacerdotal suzerain.

The second division is a very curious historical treatise on the t.i.tles and pretensions of ten or eleven families of the English blood-royal, "what may be said for them, and what against them." From its topics it was distinguished as "The Book of t.i.tles." It was well adapted to perplex the nation or raise up compet.i.tors, while, however, it reminded them "of the slaughter and the executions of the n.o.bility of England."

In this uncertainty of the succession, Isabella of Spain, whose ancestry is drawn from the Conquest through many descents, is shown to have the best t.i.tle, and James of Scotland the worst.

The book appeared in London with a dedication to the Earl of Ess.e.x--this was a stroke of refined malice, and produced its full effect on the queen. In this panegyric on the earl's "eminence in place and in dignity, in favour of the prince and in high liking of the people," the wily Jesuit intimated that "no man is like to have greater sway on deciding of this great affair (the succession), when time shall come for that determination, and those that shall a.s.sist you and are likest to follow your fame and fortune." The jealous alarm of Elizabeth had often been roused by the imprudence of the earl, and on this occasion it thundered with all her queenly rage; she herself showed him the dangerous eulogiums of the insidious dedicator, till the hapless earl was observed to grow pale, and withdrew from court with a mind disturbed, and was confined by illness till the queen's visit once more restored him to favour.

The immediate effect of the "Conference" appears by an act of Parliament of the 35th of Elizabeth, enacting that "whoever was found to have it in his house should be guilty of high treason;" but its more permanent influence is remarkable on several national occasions. This tract contributed to hasten the fate of the hapless Charles. The doctrine of cutting off the heads of kings, "the whole body being of more authority than the only head," was too opportune for the business in hand to be neglected by the Independents. The first part, licensed by their licenser, was printed at the charge of the Parliament, disguised as "Several Speeches delivered at a Conference concerning the Power of Parliament to proceed against their King for Misgovernment." The nine chapters of the Conference were turned into these nine pretended speeches![8] These furnished the matter of the speech of Bradshaw at the condemnation of the monarch; and even Milton, in his "Defence of the English People," adopted the doctrines. Never has political pamphlet directed an event more awful, and on which the destiny of a nation was suspended. Even an abstract of it served for the nonce, under the t.i.tle of "The Broken Succession of the Crown of England," at the time that Cromwell was aiming at restoring the English monarchy in his own person.

It was again renovated in 1681, at the time of agitating the bill of exclusion against James the Second. I believe it has appeared in other forms. Nor was the fortune of "Leicester's Commonwealth" less remarkable in serving the designs of a party. It was twice reprinted, in 1641, as a melancholy picture of a royal favourite, and again, probably with the same political design, in 1706.

Parsons' claim to these two memorable tracts has been impugned. My ingenious friend Dr. Bliss has referred to two letters of Dr. Ashton, Master of Jesus College, and Dean Mosse, on the subject of "Leicester's Commonwealth," which he considers "fully prove" that it was not the work of Parsons. I give these letters.

_Dr. Ashton to Dean Mosse._

"There is nothing in the book that favours the Spanish invasion, and all the treason is only against Leicester. Parsons has been esteemed the author of it; but I can't yet believe that 'twas his, for several reasons.

"First; there's nothing in it of the fierce and turbulent spirit of that Jesuit; but a tender concern for the Queen and government both in church and state.

"Secondly; the book makes a papist own that several of the priests and others were traitors, and often commends Burleigh, who was the chief persecutor, and ordered the writing of 'The Book of Justice,' &c., which certainly Parsons would not have done, whose errand into England not long before was to renew the excommunication of the Queen, and declare her subjects freed from their allegiance, nay bound to take up arms against her; especially since Campian, his brother missionary, was one of those martyrs, and he himself very narrowly escaped.

"Thirdly; when Parsons and Campian came into England in '80, it was to further the designs of the King of Spain, and persuade the people that upon the Queen's forfeiture he had a right to take possession of her crown. But there's nothing looks that way in the book, unless defending the t.i.tle of the Queen of the Scots and her son be writing for the invasion. There was a book written a little before this, for the Scotch succession, by Lesly, bishop of Rosse, under the name of Morgan, even by the connivance of Queen Elizabeth, as Camden tells us; but the seminary priests and Jesuits were all upon the Spanish right by virtue of the Pope's bull of excommunication; and upon this foot Parsons afterwards wrote his 'Andr. Philopater,' and 'Book of t.i.tles,' in the name of N. Doleman.

"Fourthly; I can't think Parsons capable of writing this book; for how could a man that from '75 to his dying day (bating a few months in the year '80) lived at Rome, be able to know all the secret transactions, both in _court_ and _country_, in England, which perhaps were mysteries to all the nation except a few statesmen about the Queen?