Henrietta Maria Part 8

The Queen's workmen, whom she encouraged by kind words and good pay, must have worked with energy, for by the middle of December in the same year the church was ready for use. It was modelled on that begun for the Spanish Infanta at St. James's, though, perhaps in view of possible developments, it was of a larger size than the original. The opening ceremonies were comparable in splendour to those of the foundation. Many Protestants were attracted thither by curiosity to admire its beautiful furnis.h.i.+ngs, among which perhaps was already to be seen the splendid specimen of the art of Rubens, which is known to have adorned the high altar in later days. Even the King came in to see the great attraction, a construction about forty feet high, which the ingenuity of a young Roman architect who happened to be in London had fas.h.i.+oned into a representation of Paradise, wherein, guarded by sculptured angels and prophets, and blazing with innumerable lights, reposed the Sacred Host. Taking into account these splendours, it is not perhaps surprising that those who on this happy day turned their eyes toward the kneeling figure of the royal foundress saw stealing down her cheeks the happy tears of an emotion she could not restrain. She had indeed cause for self-congratulation, for already the hopes which had cheered her in her dark days were beginning to be realized.

Henrietta never laid aside the devout habits which Berulle had taught her, and which--no doubt with much anxiety in his mind--he again inculcated in 1627 in a pious letter which he wrote and to which the Queen-Mother put her name.[127] She was indeed sometimes inclined to lie in bed in the morning so late that Ma.s.s could not be said till midday, but her excellent husband, who desired her to be as precise in her religious duties as he was in his own, was not slow to chide gently this laxity, so that her regularity of attendance became the admiration of all. At each festival she received the Sacrament of Penance, and communicated with such devotion that her fervour astonished not only her fellow-wors.h.i.+ppers, but her spiritual advisers. In matters of fasting she was very strict, only asking for a dispensation when there was real need, in spite of the specious advice of her heretic physician Mayerne, who urged her to take meat on Fridays and Sat.u.r.days, "an indulgence," as a Frenchman justly remarked, "which would be of little account in France, but in England, and in the person of the Queen, appearances must be kept up."[128]

To all these virtues she added a zeal for her faith which, if still checked by the girlish levity which easily turned from religious as from political matters, was sufficiently urgent both to champion her faith in Protestant circles and to plead for her oppressed co-religionists, so that with the growth of her influence over her husband grew their peace and prosperity.

It is true that for a year or two after the expulsion of the French the persecution continued, and was, particularly in Scotland, at one time very fierce,[129] so that it was noted with malicious satisfaction that the Queen fell into her premature travail on the very day that her husband had signed a decree against the Catholics of his northern kingdom; but it so quickly and thoroughly abated that in 1633 a Roman correspondent in London was able to declare that never before had Catholics been less molested.[130] Not only were priests permitted to live undisturbed in the capital, but English Catholics were allowed to attend the chapels of the Queen and the amba.s.sadors, a privilege which Richelieu had vainly endeavoured to win for them at the time of the royal marriage, and which the King had angrily refused to the Queen's entreaties only a year or two before. "I permit you your religion," he had said to her on that occasion, "with your Capuchins and others. I permit amba.s.sadors and their retinue, but the rest of my subjects I will have them live that I profess and my father before me." The Catholics were so encouraged by the lenity now shown that in the course of this same year, on the occasion of Charles'

coronation in Scotland, they presented to him a pet.i.tion pleading for toleration and urging him to follow the example of his father-in-law, Henry the Great, who, by granting religious liberty, had won for himself the t.i.tle of Pater Patriae et Pacis Rest.i.tutor.[131]

That the softening of Charles' heart was due to his wife is indisputable, though her unfortunate hostility to Portland prevented her from utilizing the influence of that statesman, who was a Catholic at heart.[132] "The Queen is not unmindful to press the Catholic cause with the King as often as opportunity permits," writes a Catholic reporter[133] as early as 1632.

The mere turning over of the State papers of these years reveals ample evidence of her activity. A priest who had languished seven years in the Clink prison, Catholic prisoners at York, another priest who for five years had lain in Newgate, these are some of the recipients of her mercy, taken from the records of little more than a year. "A great Princess," wrote Du Perron of her in a letter which he dispatched to Rome in 1635, "by whom religion exists in this Kingdom, and who is the refuge of the poor Catholics, who, thanks to G.o.d and by the clemency of the King, whom this virtuous Princess has inclined in our favour, have enjoyed during the four years I have been here a greater liberty than has ever been seen since the change of religion, and which we hope will continually increase, provided that it please G.o.d to preserve the King and to favour the good designs of our Mistress."[134]

In London Catholicism became almost fas.h.i.+onable. The Queen's new chapel at Somerset House,[135] where an urbane sermon by the eloquent du Perron might sometimes be heard, was often visited by Protestants, of whom some, like the astrologer Lilly, were drawn by curiosity, while others came from more mixed motives. The Capuchin Fathers and their rivals the Oratorians received many visitors who came to discuss religious matters, not a few of whom were inclined by the engaging arguments of their hosts to abjure the heresy of their birth, so that little by little an imposing list of converts was compiled.[136] Sometimes the good Capuchins would open their monastery to the Protestant public, and, arranging it a little more ascetically[137] than usual, to impress the heretics, would thus help on the cause of the faith among those who flocked to see them as if, says Father Cyprien pathetically, they had been Indians, Malays, or savages. At the chapels of the amba.s.sadors and at Somerset House English sermons were preached for the edification of the English Catholics and of the more interesting Protestant visitors. Dispensations from the action of the recusancy laws were given by the Crown in such numbers as to alarm the Puritans.[138] The recusants were relieved of part[139] of the financial burden which the law bound upon them, and, above all, it began to be whispered that the King, whose devotion to his wife was well known, was beginning to look with favour upon the Catholics. His objection to them had always been political rather than religious, and was based upon his suspicion of their loyalty and upon his dread of the deposing power claimed by the Pope. Henrietta's constant endeavour was to disabuse her husband's mind of this, perhaps not unreasonable, prejudice. She met with fair success, so that a Catholic writer felt able to describe Charles as a "Prince of most milde and sweet disposition," who suffered the partial execution of the recusancy laws rather from political and financial than from religious reasons, and whose "great ornaments of G.o.d and Nature doe in a manner foretell that one day he shall restore this country to its former happiness, and himself become the most glorious and most renowned Monarch that ever did governe among us."[140] There was, of course, only one way by which this happy consummation could be attained, and already some sanguine spirits were beginning to think of another and happier Pole reconciling England anew to the Holy See.

And there were other and perhaps more solid grounds for hopes in the changing character of the Anglican Church, which about this time was attracting great attention among a certain school of Catholics. The results of the Elizabethan settlement were becoming apparent, and the two great parties, known then as Protestant and Puritan, now as High Church and Low Church, were beginning to stand out clearly. Liberal-minded Catholics, some of them converts from the English Universities, were learning, what the narrower type of Seminarist refused to recognize, the wide gulf which yawned between an Anglican "Protestant" and a continental Sectary. Already in the days of James a French priest[141] of Ville-aux-clercs' train was surprised by the decorum of the liturgy at Westminster Abbey, and roundly abused as liars the English Catholics of the Continent who had drawn fancy pictures of Anglican services. The religious revival, with which the name of Laud is a.s.sociated, emphasized every Catholic element yet remaining in the Church of England. It was barely a century since the schism. Berulle, living in London or at the Court, regarding all with unfriendly and prejudiced eyes, might be surprised at the total absence of all sign or memory of the old religion. But had a man of sympathy gone about among the people, or sought the lonely valleys of Yorks.h.i.+re and the remote villages of Devon and Cornwall, he would have told another tale of lingering superst.i.tions, of ancient customs which had their root in Catholic practices. Such a man as Bishop Andrewes, who died in old age in 1626, and who was the master of Laud, is a witness that the Church revival of the seventeenth century was no more a complete innovation than that of the nineteenth century, which is a.s.sociated with the names of the Tractarians, to which, in many respects, it bears so close a resemblance. But under the patronage of the King and the Archbishop the movement developed rapidly.

Altars were set up, decked in Catholic fas.h.i.+on, in most of the cathedrals and in many parish churches; Latin services were read at Oxford and Cambridge; books were published, such as Anthony Stafford's _Female Glory_, which might have been written by Catholic pens; a desire for a return to Catholic discipline, of which perhaps the most interesting manifestation was the Protestant nunnery at Little Gidding, was apparent in earnest Churchmen; and, above all, not only did a considerable number of conversions take place, but some of those who remained in the Anglican fold, like Bishop Goodman of Gloucester and Bishop Montague of Chichester, became enamoured of the haunting dream of corporate reunion. It is not surprising that Catholics and Puritans alike should have seen in the whole movement a tendency to a reversal of the Reformation settlement, and should equally have failed to distinguish between the staunch Anglicans, of whom Laud was the leader, and the advance-guard which really was looking to Rome. The Queen herself believed that Laud[142] was a good Catholic at heart, and there is no doubt that overtures were made to him by Catholics, while the more liberal-minded of that communion, recalling to the Pope the example of his great predecessor St. Gregory, who "did yeeld somewhat to the Britans before he could work their conversion," urged upon him the expediency of meeting half-way those erring children who already believed "the Pope of Rome to be cheefe and supreame Pastor," and of a little condescending "unto their weakness, whome unhappy errors have made infirme."[143]

Urban VIII, to whom this appeal was addressed, was one of those decorous ecclesiastics whom the counter-reformation had subst.i.tuted for the more picturesque figures of Renaissance Rome. He had a kindness for Henrietta, whom he had seen when she was a baby and he was Nuncio in the French capital, on which occasion the Queen-Mother had replied to his courteous augury that the little Princess would one day be a great Queen in the prophetic words, "That will be when you are Pope." He felt a real interest in England, which he had shown in a somewhat equivocal way when, incited by Berulle, he had urged France and Spain in 1628 to unite in attacking the faithless King of England. Circ.u.mstances, however, were now changed, and he was anxious to commend himself to Charles and Henrietta. His nephew Frances...o...b..rberini, the Cardinal Protector of England, who shared with him the considerable, if misdirected, artistic taste of the family,[144] was equally alive to the opportunities of the hour, and he showed the King of England from time to time such attentions as were most acceptable to a monarch who was not only the patron of Rubens and Van Dyck, but was himself one of the best judges of art in Europe. Barberini allowed a large number of statues and pictures to be exported from Rome to England, while he sent over as gifts choice pictures painted by Leonardo and Correggio and other masters of the Renaissance, together with a Bacchus by the hand of the still living Guido Reni, "understanding that His Majesty was a great admirer of such curiosities."[145] Finally, he induced the haughty Bernini to sculpture the busts of the King of England and of his Queen, in which task the great sculptor is said to have read a tragic fate in the long, melancholy lines of the countenance of Charles Stuart.

But the more serious results of the intercourse between Rome and England--results which had no small influence on future events--touched another side of Henrietta's dealings with the English Catholics.

The history of the Catholic Church in England, from the Reformation onwards, is a curious mixture of heroic endurance and of sordid squabbles among those who, in the face of a common enemy, should have shown above all an united front. The disputes which raged between the secular clergy and the religious Orders on the subject of Episcopal jurisdiction were at an acute stage when Henrietta came into England, and in the course of the next few years the feeling became so bitter on both sides that the seculars did not scruple to accuse the Jesuits, the protagonists of the regulars, of heinous crimes, such as the instigation of the Powder Plot,[146] while these latter, in their turn, are said to have taken their revenge by disseminating information important to the Government which led to the banishment of the Bishop of Chalcedon.[147]

It was only natural that each party should desire the favour of the young Queen. The Jesuits, who commanded the larger following among the English Catholics, were the more objectionable to the Government and the nation, who considered them meddlers in matters of State, and who remembered, with a vividness not decreased by the Powder Plot, the career and the writings of Father Robert Parsons. Charles' dislike of them[148] was inherited from his father, who on one occasion broke off a conversation most favourable to the Catholics to a.s.sert that never should a daughter-in-law of his be under Jesuit direction. Another person whose opinion was likely to weigh with Henrietta, Father Berulle, had so Protestant a hatred of the Society that in 1628 he used his powerful influence to prevent the dispatch to England of a Grand Almoner[149] who was believed to regard it with favour. The daughter of Henry IV must surely have felt an antipathy as strong as that of any Stuart for those whom many held responsible for her father's murder.

In short, the secular clergy had some reason for hope, even setting aside the fact that the Jesuits were the soul of the pro-Spanish party which dominated English Catholicism, while they, under their pro-French Bishop, had a certain leaning to France, of which they were prepared to make the most now that a French Queen sat upon the throne of England.

It was a blow to these worthy men that they were not permitted to serve the Queen's chapel, for which office they possessed, certainly in their own eyes, every qualification.[150] It was a greater blow when, owing doubtless to the machinations of the Jesuits, the Bishop of Chalcedon was banished.[151] But, after all, this untoward event took place while the Queen's influence was still small. As it grew, and with it the general prosperity of the Catholics, the secular clergy took heart again.

Henrietta cared little or nothing for Bishop Smith personally, and his connection with Richelieu was by this time small recommendation to her. But it galled her pride that whereas there had been a Bishop in England on her arrival now there was none, and she probably believed, what even the cautious Du Perron on one occasion admitted, that the regulars were jealous of her as a Frenchwoman, and unwilling that she should have too great honour as a mother in Israel. It was whispered among the secular clergy that the Queen was "all for the Bishop and his jurisdiction" in spite of the efforts of the Jesuits to win over not only her, but Father Philip.

Their hopes were not unfounded. Henrietta was so far roused as to write a strongly worded letter to the Pope on behalf of the Bishop, who was out of favour not only with the English Government, but with the authorities at Rome. She begged the Holy Father to restore "this good father to his children,"[152] and she entreated him, in words that are no obscure hit at the Jesuits and their friends the English Catholics, not to allow so good a prelate to be oppressed by those who regarded their own interest rather than the good of religion and the union of Catholics. To strengthen her appeal she dispatched a letter at the same time to her brother's amba.s.sador in Rome, asking him[153] to use his influence in the matter. She knew that the Bishop was a _persona grata_ at the French Court, where his elevation to the Cardinalate was at one time desired.

Henrietta's intervention effected nothing, and Richard Smith lived and died in an exile which was due at least as much to his fellow-Catholics as to his Protestant oppressors. But in the year following she was engaged in negotiations with the Papacy as fruitful as these had been abortive.

In 1633 a Scotch gentleman, by name Sir Robert Douglas,[154] appeared in Rome. He was a cousin of the Earl of Angus, a noted Scotch Catholic, and he was the bearer of letters from that n.o.bleman to the Pope. But there were other and greater people responsible for his presence. Behind Angus stood the Queen of England, and behind the Queen stood her husband the King, though, as the emissary carefully explained, the latter could not openly appear in the affair, as he was not yet reconciled to the Catholic Church.

Douglas was one of those sanguine Catholics who believed Charles'

conversion to be a matter of a short delay, and that then the whole nation, weary of heresy, would be only too glad to walk contentedly in the path to heaven in obedience to the Holy See. He drew a rosy picture of these prospects and of the Queen's virtues and piety as he proceeded to unfold the object of his mission, which was to induce the Pope to bestow a Cardinal's hat upon a subject of the King of England. He was even kind enough to spare the Holy Father the trouble of selection by indicating a certain George Con, a Scotch gentleman in the service of Barberini, as a worthy recipient of the honour. The nationality of this person, he hastened to point out, was all in his favour. Not only was the King's partiality for his own countrymen well known, but the English Catholics were so torn asunder by their internal feuds that they would welcome the elevation of a Scotchman which would not give rise to the jealousies which would inevitably attend the promotion of a member of either of the rival parties.

Such at least was the view of the Scotch envoy. It would be interesting to hear the comments of the English Catholics, who a few years earlier had described their northern brethren as almost barbarians, unable to speak the English tongue, and in every way inferior to themselves.[155]

There is no doubt that Henrietta's heart was much set upon this project, nor did she ever relax her efforts in Con's behalf until his death. It is possible that she felt the danger, which Douglas pointed out to the Pope, of her position as an uncrowned Queen in case of her husband's death, and that she thought that a Cardinal devoted to her service would be a support in such a strait. It is improbable that at this time she had ever set eyes on her candidate, though she had heard accounts which were not unfounded of his goodness and learning, and she, as well as her husband, no doubt was aware that he had given a pleasing proof of judiciously mingled loyalty and piety by writing a sympathetic biography of Charles' grandmother, Mary of Scotland.[156] But beyond any personal feeling, Henrietta always believed, though why it is a little difficult to say, that the creation of a Cardinal who was a native of Great Britain would help forward in the highest degree the cause of the Catholic Church in England. Thus she wrote to Cardinal Barberini at this time and thus she wrote several years later to the Pope, expressing herself on the latter occasion very strongly and a.s.suring the Holy Father that by complying with her wishes in the matter he would not only oblige her personally, but would give the greatest possible impetus to the cause of religion in England.[157]

The King's att.i.tude is more difficult to determine, but there seems no reason to distrust Douglas' a.s.sertion that the project had his royal support and concurrence. Such intrigues were indeed only too congenial to his tortuous mind. Nor is the knight's statement without corroboration.

Another Scot, the Earl of Stirling, who as Sir William Alexander had won a considerable reputation both as poet and statesman, and who had formerly been concerned in certain cryptic negotiations between James I and the Holy See, wrote to Rome[158] expressing his pleasure that the son was following in his father's footsteps, and urging Con's candidature on the ground that his elevation would be a matter of great satisfaction to the King.

It might be thought that the Roman authorities would welcome with _empress.e.m.e.nt_ an emissary who came under such distinguished patronage.

But, as a matter of fact, the reception accorded to Sir Robert Douglas was distinctly cool. The King of England's conduct had not been such as to inspire confidence, and the Jesuits in Rome and elsewhere were still busily representing him "as the greatest persecutor that ever was."[159] It was suggested that his friendly att.i.tude to the Papacy was only a ruse to secure the restoration of the Palatinate to his sister's husband. Even the Queen was not regarded with great favour. It was believed in certain quarters that she was rather indifferent to Catholic interests, an impression which may have arisen partly from the favour which she showed to a Puritan clique, of which the Earl of Holland was the princ.i.p.al member,[160] and partly from her acquiescence in her husband's wish that their children should receive Anglican baptism.[161] Perhaps the Pope and Cardinal Barberini did not share this view, as they had read with great interest an account of the laying of the foundation-stone of the new chapel at Somerset House, which the judicious Du Perron had written to a compatriot in Rome, who with equal tact pa.s.sed it on to the Holy Father.[162]

But there is no doubt that the Queen's insistent requests for the creation of a Cardinal did her no service, either now or later, with Urban VIII and his nephews. Many surmises were rife in Rome as to Douglas and his mission.

He might be an agent of the secular clergy. The whole thing might be a deep-laid plan of Richelieu to secure the Cardinalate for his creature the Bishop of Chalcedon, who was certainly an English subject, and on whose behalf the Queen of England had written only a year earlier. There seems to have been no intention of granting Henrietta's request, and the kind letters which the Pope wrote to her and to Father Philip, saying how pleased he was to hear of their piety and virtue, were more lavish of compliments than of promises.

Nevertheless Douglas' mission was not unsuccessful. The Pope talked over English affairs with him freely, and the result was that in the spring of 1634 Gregorio Panzani set out for England.

Panzani was a priest of the Italian Oratory, and his ostensible mission in England was to heal the long-standing feud between the secular clergy and the religious Orders, and to remedy certain irregularities of morals and discipline which specially affected the younger religious and the London clergy who were unable to resist the seductions of heretical society. It is probable that the Pope and Cardinal Barberini desired these ends. It is certain that they saw in the state of affairs a convenient cloak to cover different and more important designs.

For Panzani was not in London without the connivance of the King and the express desire of the Queen, who had arranged the matter with her husband.

"I have no objection," said Charles, "as long as things are done quietly and matters of State are not meddled with; but I do not wish it said that the Pope has sent an agent to the King of England."[163]

This was said, of course, and perhaps not altogether to the dissatisfaction of Panzani and those who sent him. Nevertheless he behaved with great discretion, and was liked by everybody, except the Jesuits, to whose pretensions he was greatly opposed, and whose ill opinion was an advantage to him rather than otherwise in dealing with the King and the people. On the advice of the sage Father Philip he refused to express any opinion on the th.o.r.n.y question of the lawfulness of taking the oath of allegiance[164]

to the King, thus following the example of the Capuchin Fathers, who were wont to tell inquirers that they knew nothing of the matter, and that it would be well to seek other advisers; altogether so judicious was his conduct that he was described as "a person greatly to be esteemed for his many vertues and religious life and great zeale and industry for the advancem^t of the Catholick cause in this Country."[165] He was able, towards the end of his stay, to do the Catholics a notable service by persuading the King to dismiss the pursuivants, the most odious instruments of the recusancy laws, comparable to the familiars of the Spanish Inquisition, and to leave the prosecution of recusants in the hands of the justices of the peace.

About this time the hopes of the Catholics were rising high, both at home and in the Eternal City. They believed, with touching simplicity, that the wise policy of the King had almost destroyed the hated sect of the Puritans, "which formerly was stronger."[166] The centenary of the schism was not allowed to pa.s.s without meaning allusions. From the pulpit of the Queen's chapel at Somerset House, Du Perron commented on the occasion with even more than his wonted suavity. Continual accounts were sent to Rome of the mildness of the King, of the changing character of the Church of England, and, above all, of the piety and zeal of the Queen. She was described as "a Princess on whom G.o.d and nature have bestowed most rare gifts," whose "sweete and vertuous carriage, her religious zeale and constant devotions have purchased unto herselfe love and admiration from all the Court and Kingdome, and unto the Catholique Religion (which she piously pfesseth) great respect and honor. She is," added the writer in a glow of enthusiasm, "Una beata de Casa, for whose sake Heaven, I hope, doth intend many blessings towards our Country."[167] Cardinal Barberini rewarded these s.h.i.+ning qualities by writing flattering letters to Henrietta, and by sending to her some relics of an obscure Roman lady named Martina, whose martyred body had recently been dug up in an ancient church dedicated to her memory.

Nor were Panzani's accounts less satisfactory; the King received him with great kindness, and openly expressed his regret for the schism between the Churches. "I would rather have lost my hand than it had happened," he said on one occasion. He showed an unexpected reverence for relics, and much interest in a remarkable book[168] written by a liberal-minded Catholic, Father Santa Clara, of the Order of S. Francis, which foreshadowed the famous "Tract 90" of later days. "The book pleases the King and some of the n.o.bles of this Kingdom very much,"[169] wrote the envoy, and he begged on this ground that it might not be condemned at Rome, where (as well as in certain Catholic circles in England) its liberality had given offence. Nor were others more backward than the King. These were the days of the hopes of reunion, at which Santa Clara's book had not obscurely glanced; the days in which the appeal to the Pope, described above, was drawn up. Panzani was less sanguine than some of the English Catholics, and, in particular, seems to have appreciated Laud's real att.i.tude towards the Church of Rome.[170]

But he had much to tell of interesting conversations on religious subjects with Windbank, who a.s.sured him that the Jesuits and the Puritans were the only real obstacle in the path of unity, and with Anglican clergy of advanced views such as Bishop Montagu, who appeared a little surprised that the Roman ecclesiastic did not agree very warmly to his a.s.sertion that there could be no doubt of the validity of his Orders.

And the Holy See was to have another proof of Henrietta's zeal and of her husband's compliance. It was not enough that an agent of the Pope should dwell in London; an agent of the Queen of England was to go to Rome, and in dispatching him she was to realize a long-cherished wish.

The first person selected for this delicate post was a gentleman named Brett, who died on his journey to Italy. He was succeeded by a Scotchman, Sir William Hamilton, brother of the Earl of Abercorn, who arrived in Rome in the early summer of 1636. The Queen had given him a letter of introduction to Barberini, which ensured him a good reception at the Papal Court, thus described in a private letter:--

"Last Monday Sir William Hamilton had his first audience of his Holiness who receaved him with very greate signes of joy, he is exceeding well liked of here by all and indeed I think he will give as good satisfaction as any that could have been sent from England. Cardl. Barberini hath presented him with tow very faire horses for his coache. He keeps correspondence with the Secretarye of State Winebanck ... and useth F. Jhon the Benedictine his meanes to conveye these letters, but this must be kept secrett to yourself only."[171]

It appears that the Queen was obliged to exercise a good deal of pressure before her husband would consent to the establishment of this agency. Blind as Charles was to the dangers surrounding him on all sides, he may well have been aware of some of the difficulties attendant on a course of action which led to such communication between an English Secretary of State and an agent accredited to the Court of Rome.

The success which attended these first bold attempts to establish relations between the Holy See and the Court of England encouraged further efforts.

It was felt that Panzani, after all, had obvious disadvantages for the post which, nevertheless, he had filled with such promising results. He was an Italian, and foreigners were not liked in the British Isles. He could talk no English, and this was a drawback to one whose work was, in a sense, missionary. He had done his part in spying out the land. He must now yield his place to a successor, who, not handicapped by race and language, would be able to reap the fields already ripe to harvest.

That successor was none other than the candidate of the King and the Queen for the Cardinalate, George Con, the Scot, Canon of S. John Lateran in Rome, who arrived in England in the early part of 1636.

In a sense, no better appointment could have been made. The new envoy was a singularly fascinating person, whose long residence in the country which was still the intellectual and artistic centre of Europe had added an urbane culture to the prudence and moderation which were the gifts of his Scottish birth. Less opposed to the Jesuits than Panzani, he was better able to deal with the pro-Spanish English Catholics, who still had a lurking distrust of the Queen, while he was too wise to be drawn into their schemes. A scholar and a courtier, he knew how to commend himself to the Protestants of the Court, and, above all, to the King, who evinced a real liking for him. "I hope," said the envoy to him upon one occasion, "that my being a good servant to the Pope and to Cardinal Barberini will not prejudice me with your Majesty." Charles quickly gave him his hand, and said earnestly, "No, Giorgio, no, always be a.s.sured of this."[172] The Queen's feeling to him was even warmer. Indeed, it may be said that George Con took his place among the little group of her personal friends. His Scotch birth was no less a recommendation to her than to Charles himself, for she so well remembered the ancient tie between her own land and the northern kingdom that she was wont to show an injudicious partiality, which did not tend to her popularity in England, for those who came from beyond the Tweed. She was prejudiced in his favour before his arrival, and she found him even more pious and charming than she had antic.i.p.ated, so that both she and the King gradually received him to such intimacy and confidence that he seemed almost like one of the royal household.

It is not surprising that, under the spell of this fascinating personality, Henrietta's Catholic zeal should have attained to a fervour unknown before, which annoyed and alarmed even her own Protestant servants, such as Sir Theodore Mayerne, who expressed his views on the matter to Con himself. The envoy, indeed, had come at a fortunate moment. Already Portland was dead, and the Queen was beginning to tread the path of influence and intrigue.

She found in him not only a friend who warmly encouraged her efforts, but an efficient helper in her schemes, for what had become, in her own words, her "strongest pa.s.sion, the advancement of the Catholic religion in this country."[173] Moreover, he showed himself a true friend by attempting to correct the opinion which was rife in Rome as well as in France, that the quiet enjoyed by the Catholics was due rather to political reasons than to her influence.[174] Perhaps he had some success; certainly prayers were offered for her in Rome, and a beautiful golden heart studded with gems, which she sent by the hands of one of her Capuchin Fathers to the Holy House of Loretto, was looked upon in papal circles "as the pledge of the greatness of the devout and pious heart"[175] that was doing so much for the Catholics of England.

Con's dispatches are written in much the same strain as those of Panzani.

They tell of kindness, of religious sympathy, of even greater royal favour, of the King's evident sympathy with Catholicism--how on one occasion he said, "I, too, am a Catholic," how on another his talk with the Queen on religious subjects was such that it would hardly be credited at Rome; of the success which attended the distribution among the ladies of the Court of the pretty religious trifles such as rosaries and pictures, which the care of Cardinal Barberini had sent over; of the Queen's delight in a cross sent to her by the Pope--how she always wore it, and how she said that it was the most precious thing she possessed; of the favour shown to Father Sancta Clara at Court, and by Windbank--how it had even been proposed that he should preach a sermon in the Queen's chapel about the anniversary of the Powder Plot, "to exculpate the Catholics from treason against Princes"; how even the Jesuits acknowledged that never since the days of the negotiation for the Spanish match had the Catholics enjoyed such peace.

Nevertheless, Con was too sagacious not to be able to read in some measure the signs of the times. "G.o.d only knows how long this calm will last," he wrote.[176]

It was unfortunate that a person who seemed so admirably fitted for his post should have been obliged to relinquish his task half done. But the rigours of the northern climate told so severely on a const.i.tution long accustomed to the suns of Italy that in 1639 Con was obliged to think of turning his steps southward, for not even the distinguished attentions he received in his sickness from the King, the Queen, and the n.o.bility availed to cure him. He reached Rome, but he only recrossed the Alps to die before he could place on his head the Cardinal's hat, which had been so much striven for. On his death-bed he thought of Henrietta, and begged Cardinal Barberini, who was by his side, to send her a little picture of the Virgin as a recognition of his grat.i.tude for her kindness, and as a memorial of their friends.h.i.+p.

But already the shadows of the Civil War were beginning to close about the Queen. The bright hopes which had marked the days of Con's sojourn in England were becoming haunting fears, which, in their turn, were to give place to feelings as like despair as such natures as Henrietta's can know.

It was probably a sad surprise to the Queen when, on the eve of the war, she discovered the intensity of the hatred with which her faith was regarded by a large section of her husband's subjects. Sagacious foreigners knew something of it. "The Puritans hate the Catholics as much as the Devil,"[177] wrote Tillieres frankly as early as 1624. But in the Queen's Court all mention of such ill-bred persons and factions was avoided, unless some wit cracked a joke at their expense. It is true that a few of the great n.o.bles were Puritans, but during the years of Charles' triumph their opinions were expressed with moderation, and most of the courtiers appeared rather inclined to the fas.h.i.+onable Protestant variety of faith which the King, the Ministers, and the higher clergy professed. The real strength of Puritanism was in the lower middle-cla.s.s, a section of the community with which the Queen was not likely to come in personal contact, and which, partly perhaps for this very reason, she was never able to conquer. Her refusal to be crowned with her husband gave bitter offence, and was to cost her dear in the future. Discontented spirits muttered to themselves that the King might be murdered as Henry IV had been, "and then the Queen might mar all."[178] When in 1629 prayers were offered in the Church for the birth of an heir to the throne, scarcely a man could be found to answer Amen; and even after the birth of a Prince there were mutterings that G.o.d had already provided for the nation in the hopeful issue of the Queen of Bohemia. Ill-bred Puritan ministers, in the outspoken theological language of the day, prayed for the conversion of the Popish Queen; and as the Catholic revival developed, to dislike and disapproval was added the more potent force of fear.

The language of the _Grand Remonstrance_ and of many other contemporary doc.u.ments leaves no doubt that there was a widespread belief in the existence of a plot managed by the "engineers and factors of Rome," of whom the Queen was one of the chief,[179] to capture the country and the Church of England. The signs in the national establishment which raised the hopes of the Catholics became a terror to the Puritans. It was no wonder. As Du Perron said from the other point of view, it was but a century since the schism, and the Anglican Church had not yet the stability which comes from time, so that the idea of its reconciliation to Rome was less chimerical than in later times. Nor had the attempts to make Protestantism co-extensive with the nation been altogether successful. It is probable that Richelieu overrated the importance of the English Catholics, but, nevertheless, the trouble he took to conciliate them bears witness to the light in which they were regarded in the best-informed circles on the Continent. Not a few of them were men of position and wealth, and their number was certainly considerable; it probably reached at least 150,000,[180] or three in every hundred,[181] and one Catholic reporter says that in Lancas.h.i.+re and Yorks.h.i.+re as many as a third of the population adhered to the old faith.[182] The Archbishop of Embrun, who was in England in the latter days of James, is said to have confirmed in London as many as 10,000 persons. Another witness,[183] who had some opportunities for forming a judgment, believed that a third of the nation was either openly or secretly Catholic, and that another third, the Protestant part of the Church of England, only remained in schism from fear of the recusancy laws, and though this estimate is of course grossly exaggerated, it is significant as showing the opinions which were prevalent. The loudly expressed hopes of the Catholics reacted upon the fears of the Puritans, who saw in them not only the proof of the power of their open foes, but a confirmation of their worst suspicions regarding their more secret enemies in the Church of England. Laud, the most loyal of Anglican Churchmen, did not recognize his mistake until it was too late. Charles, who was always a good Protestant, or in modern parlance a High Churchman, perhaps never recognized his even when it led him to the scaffold.

The recklessness with which the King gave colour to the suspicions of the Puritans is indeed remarkable. The husband of a Catholic Queen, the son of a lady whose Protestantism was far from unimpeachable, he had recognized in early life the necessity of caution; he had no belief in the claims of the Church of Rome, and probably felt its attraction less strongly than his father, whose grandiose imagination was struck by its great claims and long history. Yet he showed marked favour to Roman ecclesiastics such as Du Perron, he allowed the triumphant ceremonies of Somerset House, and he sanctioned the almost open exercise of Catholic wors.h.i.+p, only from time to time showing a feeble concession to the feeling of the country by such measures as forbidding the English Catholics to frequent the chapels of the amba.s.sadors, and by issuing a proclamation which at the Queen's prayers he deprived of most of its force. There is, of course, only one sufficient explanation of his conduct. He was, it is true, like others of his family, a believer in a certain kind of toleration. He thought it a base thing for a man to change his religion, and he considered that any Christian might be saved. He was also, except when actuated by feelings of revenge, a merciful man to whom persecution was distasteful, and there were probably moods in which he imagined himself a second Henry IV, under whose paternal sway the rival religions could live at peace; but the real reason of his tenderness to the Catholics was his love for his wife. As in the old days Buckingham could make him do anything, so in later times could Henrietta Maria. Her tears, her smiles, her caresses won boon after boon for her co-religionists, until she wrung from him the last, the most disastrous concession of all. No single act was more fatal to his throne or more prejudicial to the ultimate interests of the Catholics than the establishment of the agency which brought into England Panzani, Con, and later Rosetti; as these worthy men rolled about London in their fine carriages, secure in the royal favour, and none daring to make them afraid, they believed that they were helping forward the conversion of England. In reality, they were riveting for more than a century longer the chains of the English Catholics.

As for Henrietta herself, she was unfortunate in religious as in other matters. It is hardly too much to say that she pulled down her husband's throne to help her co-religionists, and yet in the light of future events it must be gravely questioned whether the progress of Catholicism under her protection was not too dearly bought by the terror and hatred which it inspired in the English mind, and whether in the end the Church was advanced by her coming into England. On the other hand, she had just sufficient moderation (which showed itself particularly in her recognition of the impossibility of bringing up her children in her own faith) to render her slightly suspect to the more fanatical Catholics in Rome and elsewhere. When the hour of need came the English Catholics, recalling her benefits and dreading above all things the domination of the Puritans, did indeed for the most part rally loyally round her; but on the Continent it was chiefly remembered that she was the devoted wife of a heretic King, whose qualified mercy so prized at home seemed abroad but a mockery of the hopes of the royal marriage.[184]

[Footnote 104: _Continuation of Weekly Newes_, No. 43, 1624.]