Constitutional History of England Volume II Part 5

[96] P. 178.

[97] P. 60.

[98] Vol. i. p. 420.

[99] P. 246; see also p. 370.

[100] The unfavourable physiognomy of Strafford is noticed by writers of that time. _Somers Tracts_, iv. 231. It did not prevent him from being admired by the fair s.e.x, especially at his trial, where, May says, they were all on his side. The portraits by Vand.y.k.e at Wentworth and Petworth are well known; the latter appears eminently characteristic.

[101] See the cases of Workman, Peter Smart, etc., in the common histories: Rushworth, Rapin, Neal, Macauley, Brodie, and even Hume, on one side; and for what can be said on the other, Collier, and Laud's own defence on his trial. A number of persons, doubtless inclining to the puritan side, had raised a sum of money to buy up impropriations, which they vested in trustees for the purpose of supporting lecturers; a cla.s.s of ministers to whom Laud was very averse. He caused the parties to be summoned before the star-chamber, where their a.s.sociation was dissolved, and the impropriations already purchased were confiscated to the Crown. Rushworth Abr. ii. 17; Neal, i. 556.

[102] This originated in an order made at the Somerset a.s.sizes by Chief Justice Richardson, at the request of the justices of peace, for suppressing these feasts, which had led to much disorder and profaneness. Laud made the privy council reprove the judge, and direct him to revoke the order. Kennet, p. 71; Rushw. Abr. ii. 166. Heylin says, the gentlemen of the county were against Richardson's order, which is one of his habitual falsehoods. See Rushw. Abr. ii. 167. I must add, however, that the proclamation was perfectly legal, and according to the spirit of the late act (1 Car. I. c. 1) for the observance of the Lord's day. It has been rather misrepresented by those who have not attended to its limitations, as Neal and Mr.

Brodie. Dr. Lingard, ix. 422, has stated the matter rightly.

[103] Neal, 569; Rushworth Abr. ii. 166; Collier, 758; Heylin's _Life of Laud_, 241, 290. The last writer extenuates the persecution by Wren; but it is evident by his own account that no suspension or censure was taken off till the party conformed and read the declaration.

[104] Neal, p. 546. I do not know how he makes his computation.

[105] A proclamation, dated May 1, 1638, reciting that the king was informed that many persons went yearly to New England in order to be out of the reach of ecclesiastical authority, commands that no one shall pa.s.s without a licence, and a testimonial of conformity from the minister of his parish. Rymer, xx. 223. Laud, in a letter to Strafford (ii. 169), complains of men running to New England, when there was a want of them in Ireland. And why did they so, but that any trackless wilderness seemed better than his own or his friend's tyranny? In this letter he laments that he is left alone in the envious and th.o.r.n.y part of the work, and has no encouragement.

[106] In thirteen years, ending with 1640, but 4080 was levied on recusants by process from the exchequer, according to Commons'

Journals, 1 Dec. 1640. But it cannot be denied that they paid considerable sums by way of composition, though less probably than in former times. Lingard, ix. 424, etc., note G. Weston is said by Clarendon to have offended the catholics by enforcing penalties to raise the revenue. One priest only was executed for religion, before the meeting of the long parliament. Butler, iv. 97. And though, for the sake of appearance, proclamations for arresting priests and recusants sometimes came forth, they were always discharged in a short time. The number pardoned in the first sixteen years of the king is said to have amounted, in twenty-nine counties only, to 11,970. Neal, 604. Clarendon, i. 261, confirms the systematic indulgence shown to catholics, which Dr. Lingard seems, reluctantly and by silence, to admit.

[107] Strafford Letters, i. 505, 524; ii. 2, 57.

[108] Heylin, 286. The very day of Abbot's death, an offer of a cardinal's hat was made to Laud, as he tell us in his Diary, "by one that avowed ability to perform it." This was repeated some days afterwards (Aug. 4th and 17th, 1633). It seems very questionable whether this came from authority. The new primate made a strange answer to the first application, which might well encourage a second; certainly not what might have been expected from a steady protestant.

If we did not read this in his own Diary, we should not believe it.

The offer at least proves that he was supposed capable of acceding to it.

[109] _Clarendon State Papers_, ii. 44. It is always important to distinguish dates. By the year 1639, the court of Rome had seen the fallacy of those hopes she had previously been led to entertain, that the king and church of England would return to her fold. This might exasperate her against him, as it certainly did against Laud; besides which, I should suspect the influence of Spain in the conclave.

[110] Proofs of this abound in the first volume of the collection just quoted, as well as in other books. The catholics were not indeed unanimous in the view they took of the king's prerogative, which became of importance in the controversy as to the oath of allegiance; one party maintaining that the king had a right to put his own explanation on that oath, which was more to be regarded than the sense of parliament; while another denied that they could conscientiously admit the king's interpretation against what they knew to have been the intention of the legislature who imposed it. A Mr. Courtney, who had written on the latter side, was imprisoned in the Tower, on pretext of recusancy, but really for having promulgated so obnoxious an opinion. P. 258, _et alibi_; _Memoirs of Panzani_, p. 140. The jesuits were much against the oath, and, from whatever cause, threw all the obstacles they could in the way of a good understanding between the king and the pope. One reason was their apprehension that an article of the treaty would be the appointment of a catholic bishop in England; a matter about which the members of that church have been quarrelling ever since the reign of Elizabeth, but too trifling for our notice in this place. More than half Panzani's _Memoirs_ relate to it.

[111] _Id._ p. 207. This is a statement by Father Leander; in another place (p. 140), they are reckoned at 360. There were about 180 other regulars, and five or six hundred secular priests.

[112] Kennet, 73; Harris's _Life of Charles_, 220; Collier, 772; Brodie, ii. 224 note; Neal, p. 572, etc. Laud, in his defence at his trial, denies or extenuates some of the charges. There is, however, full proof of all that I have said in my text. The famous consecration of St. Catharine's Creed church in 1631 is mentioned by Rushworth, Welwood, and others. Laud said in his defence, that he borrowed the ceremonies from Andrews, who had found them in some old liturgy.

[113] In Bishop Andrews's answer to Bellarmine, he says: Praesentiam credimus non minus quam vos veram; de modo praesentiae nil temere definimus. And soon afterwards: n.o.bis vobisc.u.m de objecto convenit, de modo lis omnis est. De hoc est, fide firma tenemus quod sit, de hoc modo est, ut sit Per, sive In, sive c.u.m, sive Sub, sive Trans, nullum inibi verb.u.m est. I quote from Casaubon's _Epistles_, p. 393. This is, reduced to plain terms: We fully agree with you that Christ's body is actually present in the sacramental elements, in the same sense as you use the word; but we see no cause for determining the precise mode, whether by transubstantiation or otherwise.

The doctrine of the church of England, as evidenced by its leading ecclesiastics, underwent a change in the reign of James through Andrews, Casaubon, and others, who deferred wholly to antiquity. In fact, as I have elsewhere observed, there can be but two opinions, neglecting subordinate differences, on this famous controversy. It is clear to those who have attended to the subject, that the Anglican reformers did not hold a local presence of Christ's human body in the consecrated bread itself, independent of the communicant, or, as the technical phrase was, extra usum: and it is also clear, that the divines of the latter school did so. This question is rendered intricate at first sight, partly by the strong figurative language which the early reformers employed in order to avoid shocking the prejudices of the people; and partly by the incautious and even absurd use of the word _real presence_ to mean _real absence_; which is common with modern theologians.

[114] Heylin's _Life of Laud_, p. 212. He probably imbibed this, like many other of his prejudices, from Bishop Andrews, whose epitaph in the church of St. Saviour's in Southwark speaks of him as having received a superior reward in heaven on account of his celibacy; coelebs migravit ad aureolam coelestem. _Biog. Britannica._ Aureola, a word of no cla.s.sical authority, means, in the style of popish divinity, which the author of this epitaph thought fit to employ, the crown of virginity. See Du Cange _in voc._

[115] See "Life of Hammond," in Wordsworth's _Eccles. Biography_, vol.

v. 343. It had been usual to study divinity in compendiums, chiefly drawn up in the sixteenth century. King James was a great favourer of antiquity, and prescribed the study of the fathers in his Instructions to the Universities in 1616.

[116] Andrews gave scandal in the queen's reign by preaching at court, "that contrition, without confession and absolution and deeds worthy of repentance, was not sufficient; that the ministers had the two keys of power and knowledge delivered unto them; that whose sins soever they remitted upon earth, should be remitted in heaven.--The court is full of it, for such doctrine was not usually taught there." _Sidney Letters_, ii. 185. Harrington also censures him for an attempt to bring in auricular confession. _Nugae Antiquae_, ii. 192. In his own writings against Perron, he throws away a great part of what have always been considered the protestant doctrines.

[117] Hall, Bishop of Exeter, a very considerable person, wrote a treatise on the _Divine Inst.i.tution of Episcopacy_, which, according to an a.n.a.lysis given by Heylin and others of its leading positions, is so much in the teeth of Hooker's _Ecclesiastical Polity_, that it might pa.s.s for an answer to it. Yet it did not quite come up to the primate's standard, who made him alter some pa.s.sages which looked too like concessions. Heylin's _Life of Laud_, 374; Collier, 789. One of his offences was the a.s.serting the pope to be Antichrist, which displeased the king as well as primate, though it had been orthodox under James.

[118] Collier, 764; Neal, 582; Heylin, 288.

[119] Collier, 753; Heylin, 260.

[120] Clarendon, iii. 366; _State Papers_, i. 338. "Lord Scudamore, the English amba.s.sador, set up an altar, etc., in the Laudean style.

His successor, Lord Leicester, spoke to the archbishop about going to Charenton; and telling him Lord Scudamore did never go thither, Laud answered, 'He is the wiser.' Leicester requested his advice what he should do, in order to sift his disposition, being himself resolved how to behave in that matter. But the other would only say that he left it to his discretion. Leicester says, he had many reasons to think that for his going to Charenton the archbishop did him all the ill offices he could to the king, representing him as a puritan, and consequently in his method an enemy to monarchical government, though he had not been very kind before. The said archbishop, he adds, would not countenance Blondel's book against the usurped power of the pope."

Blencowe's _Sydney Papers_, 261.

"To think well of the reformed religion," says Northumberland, in 1640, "is enough to make the archbishop an enemy; and though he cannot for shame do it in public, yet in private he will do Leicester all the mischief he can." Collins's _Sydney Papers_, ii. 623.

Such was the opinion entertained of Laud, by those who could not reasonably be called puritans, except by such as made that word a synonym for protestant. It would be easy to add other proofs. The prosecution in the star-chamber against Sherfield, recorder of Salisbury, for destroying some superst.i.tious pictures in a church, led to a display of the aversion many of the council entertained for popery, and their jealousy of the archbishop's bias. They were with difficulty brought to condemn Sherfield, and pa.s.sed a sentence at last very unlike those to which they were accustomed. Rushworth; _State Trials_. Hume misrepresents the case.

[121] Heylin's _Life of Laud_, 390.

[122] Heylin's _Life of Laud_, 388. The pa.s.sage is very remarkable, but too long to be extracted in a work not directly ecclesiastical. It is rather ambiguous; but the _Memoirs_ of Panzani afford the key.

[123] The Spanish amba.s.sador applies to Windebank, 1633, to have a case of books restored, that had been carried from the custom-house to Archbishop Abbot.--"Now he is dead, I make this demand upon his effects and library, that they may be restored to me; as his majesty's order at that time was ineffectual, as well as its appearing that there was nothing contraband or prohibited." A list of these books follows, and is curious. They consisted of English popish tracts by wholesale, intended, of course, for circulation. _Clar. State Papers_, 66.

[124] _Id._ 197, etc.

[125] _Clarendon State Papers_, 249. The _Memoirs of Panzani_, after furnis.h.i.+ng some materials to Dodd's _Church History_, were published by Mr. Berington, in 1794. They are, however, become scarce, and have not been much quoted. It is plain that they were not his own work, but written by some dependant, or person in his confidence. Their truth, as well as authenticity, appears to me quite beyond controversy; they coincide, in a remarkable manner, with all our other information; the names and local details are particularly accurate for the work of a foreigner; in short, they contain no one fact of any consequence which there is reason to distrust. Some account of them may be found in Butler's _Engl. Cath._ vol. iv.

A small tract, ent.i.tled "The Pope's Nuncio," printed in 1643, and said to be founded on the information of the Venetian amba.s.sador, is, as I conceive, derived in some direct or indirect manner from these _Memoirs_. It is republished in the _Somers Tracts_, vol. iv.

Mr. Butler has published, for the first time, a long and important extract from Panzani's own reports to the pope concerning the state of the catholic religion in England. _Mem. of Catholics_, iv. 55. He reckons them at 150,000; many of them, however, continuing so outwardly to live as not to be known for such, among whom are many of the first n.o.bility. From them the neighbouring catholics have no means of hearing ma.s.s or going to the sacraments. Others, more bold, give opportunity, more or less, to their poorer neighbours to practise their duty. Besides these, there are others, who, apprehensive of losing their property or places, live in appearance as protestants, take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, frequent the churches, and speak occasionally against catholics; yet in their hearts are such, and sometimes keep priests in their houses, that they may not be without help, if necessary. Among them he includes some of the first n.o.bility, secular and ecclesiastical, and many of every rank. While he was in London, almost all the n.o.bility who died, though reputed protestants, died catholics. The bishops are protestants, except four, Durham, Salisbury, Rochester, and Oxford, who are puritans. The latter are most numerous among the people, and are more hated by moderate protestants than are the catholics. A great change is apparent in books and sermons, compared with former times; auricular confession praised, images well spoken of, and altars. The pope is owned as patriarch of the West; and wishes are expressed for re-union. The queen has a public chapel besides her private one, where service is celebrated with much pomp; also the amba.s.sadors; and there are others in London. The laws against recusants are much relaxed; though sometimes the king, being in want of money, takes one-third of their incomes by way of composition. The catholics are yet molested by the pursuivants, who enter their houses in search of priests, or sacred vessels; and though this evil was not much felt while he was in London, they might be set at work at any time. He determined, therefore, to obtain, if possible, a general order from the king to restrain the pursuivants; and the business was put into the hands of some counsellors, but not settled at his departure. The oath of allegiance divided the ecclesiastics, the major part refusing to take it. After a good deal about the appointment of a catholic bishop in England, he mentions Father Davenport or Sancta Clara's book, ent.i.tled _Deus, Natura, Gratia_, with which the king, he says, had been pleased, and was therefore disappointed at finding it put in the Index Expurgatorius at Rome.--This book, which made much noise at the time, was an attempt to show the compatibility of the Anglican doctrines with those of the catholic church; the usual trick of popish intriguers. See an abstract of it in Stillingfleet's Works, vol. v. p.

176.

[126] If we may believe Heylin, the queen prevailed on Laud to use his influence with the king that Panzani might come to London, promising to be his friend. _Life of Laud_, 286.

[127] P. 246. It may seem extraordinary that he did not mention Williams; but I presume he took that political bishop's zeal to be insincere. Williams had been, while in power, a great favourer of the toleration of papists. If, indeed, a story told of him, on Endymion Porter's authority, in a late work, be true, he was at that time sufficiently inclined to have accepted a cardinal's hat, and made interest for it. Blencowe's _Sydney Papers_, p. 262. One bishop, Goodman of Gloucester, was undoubtedly a Roman catholic, and died in that communion. He refused, for a long time, to subscribe the canons of 1640, on account of one that contained a renunciation of popery; but yielded at length for fear of suspension, and charged Montagu with having instigated his refusal, though he subscribed himself. Nalson, i. 371; Rushw. Abr. iii. 168; Collier, 793; Laud's defence on his trial.

[128] Henrietta Maria, in her communication to Madame de Motteville, has the following pa.s.sage, which is not undeserving of notice, though she may have been deceived: "Le Roi Jacques ... composa deux livres pour la defense de la fausse religion d'Angleterre, et fit reponse a ceux que le Cardinal du Perron ecrivit contre lui. En defendant le mensonge, il concut de l'amour pour la verite, et souhaita de se retirer de l'erreur. Ce fut en voulant accorder les deux religions, la notre et la sienne; mais il mourut avant que d'executer ce louable dessein. Le Roi Charles Stuard, son fils, quand il vint a la couronne, se trouva presque dans les memes sentimens. Il avoit aupres de lui l'archeveque de Cantorberi, qui, dans son coeur etant tres-bon catholique, inspira au roi son maitre un grand desir de retablir la liturgie, croyant que s'il pouvoit arriver a ce point, il y auroit si peu de difference de la foi orthodoxe a la leur, qu'il seroit aise peu a peu d'y conduire le roi. Pour travailler a ce grand ouvrage, que ne paroissoit au roi d'Angleterre que le retabliss.e.m.e.nt parfait de la liturgie, et qui est le seul dessein qui ait ete dans le coeur de ce prince, l'archeveque de Cantorberi lui conseilla de commencer par l'Ecosse, comme plus eloignee du coeur du royaume; lui disant, que leur remuement seroit moins a craindre. Le roi, avant que de partir, voulant envoyer cette liturgie en Ecosse, l'apporta un soir dans la chambre de la reine, et la pria de lire ce livre, lui disant, qu'il seroit bien aise qu'elle le vit, afin qu'elle st combien ils approchoient de creance." _Mem. de Motteville_, i. 242. A well-informed writer, however, says Charles was a protestant, and never liked the catholic religion. P. Orleans, _Revolut. d'Anglet._ iii. 35. He says the same of Laud, but refers to Vittorio Siri for an opposite story.

[129] Cardinal Barberini wrote word to Panzani, that the proposal of Windebank, that the church of Rome should sacrifice communion in one kind, the celibacy of the clergy, etc., would never please; that the English ought to look back on the breach they had made, and their motives for it, and that the whole world was against them on the first-mentioned points. P. 173. This is exactly what any one might predict, who knew the long discussions on the subject with Austria and France at the time of the council of Trent.

[130] "Begets more malice" is obscure--perhaps it means "irritates the puritans more." _Clar. Papers_, ii. 44.

[131] Heylin, p. 338; Laud's Diary, Oct. 1637; _Strafford Letters_, i.

426. Garrard, a dependent friend whom Strafford retained, as was usual with great men, to communicate the news of the court, frequently descants on the excessive boldness of the papists. "Laud," he says (vol. ii. p. 74), "does all he can to beat down the general fear conceived of bringing on popery." So in p. 165 and many other places.

It is manifest, by a letter of Laud to Strafford in 1638, that he was not satisfied with the systematic connivance at recusancy. _Id._ 171.

The explanation of the archbishop's conduct with respect to the Roman catholics seems to be, that, with a view of gaining them over to his own half-way protestantism, and also ingratiating himself with the queen, he had for a time gone along with the tide, till he found there was a real danger of being carried farther than he intended. This accounts for the well-known story told by Evelyn, that the jesuits at Rome spoke of him as their bitterest enemy. He is reported to have said, that they and the puritans were the chief obstacles to a re-union of the churches. There is an obscure story of a plot carried on by the pope's legate Con and the English jesuits against Laud, and detected in 1640 by one Andrew Habernfield, which some have treated as a mere fiction. Rushworth, iii. 232.

[132] Heylin, in his _Life of Laud_, p. 340, tells this story, as if Hales had recanted his opinions, and owned Laud's superiority over him in argument. This is ludicrous, considering the relative abilities of the two men. And Hales's letter to the archbishop, which is full as bold as his treatise on schism, proves that Heylin's narrative is one of his many wilful falsehoods; for, by making himself a witness to the pretended circ.u.mstances, he has precluded the excuse of error.

[133] It appears by the late edition at Oxford (1826) that Lord Clarendon twice altered his intention as to the nature of his work, having originally designed to write the history of his time, which he changed to memorials of his own life, and again returned to his first plan. The consequence has been, that there are two ma.n.u.scripts of the _History_ and of the _Life_, which in a great degree are transcripts one from the other, or contain the same general fact with variations.

That part of the _Life_, previous to 1660, which is not inserted in the _History of the Rebellion_, is by no means extensive.

The genuine text of the _History_ has only been published in 1826. A story, as is well known, obtained circulation within thirty years after its first appearance, that the ma.n.u.script had been materially altered or interpolated. This was positively denied, and supposed to be wholly disproved. It turns out, however, that, like many other anecdotes, it had a considerable basis of truth, though with various erroneous additions, and probably wilful misrepresentations. It is nevertheless surprising that the worthy editor of the original ma.n.u.script should say, "that the genuineness of the work has rashly, and for party purposes, been called in question;" when no one, I believe, has ever disputed its genuineness; and the anecdote to which I have alluded, and to which, no doubt, he alludes, has been by his own industry (and many thanks we owe him for it) perfectly confirmed in substance. For though he endeavours, not quite necessarily, to excuse or justify the original editors (who seem to have been Sprat and Aldrich, with the sanction probably of Lords Clarendon and Rochester, the historian's sons), for what they did, and even singularly a.s.serts, that "the present collation satisfactorily proves that they have in no one instance added, suppressed, or altered any historical fact" (Advert. to edit. 1826, p.v.); yet it is certain that, besides the perpetual impertinence of mending the style, there are several hundred variations which affect the sense, introduced from one motive or another, and directly contrary to the laws of literary integrity. The long pa.s.sages inserted in the appendixes to several volumes of this edition contain surely historical facts that had been suppressed. And, even with respect to subordinate alterations, made for the purpose of softening traits of the author's angry temper, or correcting his mistakes, the general effect of taking such liberties with a work is to give it an undue credit in the eyes of the public, and to induce men to believe matters upon the writer's testimony, which they would not have done so readily, if his errors had been fairly laid before them. Clarendon indeed is so strangely loose in expression as well as incorrect in statement, that it would have been impossible to remove his faults of this kind without writing again half the history; but it is certain that great trouble was very unduly taken to lighten their impression upon the world.