The Popish Plot: A study in the history of the reign of Charles II

by John Pollock

CHAPTER II

THE NATURE OF THE DESIGNS

For contemporaries the Popish Plot provided a noble field of battle. Between its supporters and its assailants controversy raged hotly. Hosts of writers in England and abroad proved incontestably either its truth or its falsehood.[23] With which of the two the victory lay is hard to determine. Discredit presently fell on the Plot, but the balance was restored by the Revolution, when Oates’ release, pardon, and pension gave again the stamp of authority to his revelations. From this high estate its reputation quickly fell. Hume pronounced belief in it to be the touchstone for a hopelessly prejudiced Whig, Fox declared the evidence offered “impossible to be true,” and before the end of the eighteenth century Dalrymple accused Shaftesbury of having contrived and managed the whole affair. Since that time little serious criticism, with the notable exception of Ranke’s luminous account, has been attempted. Historians have generally contented themselves with relying on the informers’ certain mendacity to prove the entire falsehood of the plot which they denounced. The argument is patently unsound. As Charles II himself declared, the fact that Oates and his followers were liars of the first order does not warrant the conclusion that all they said was untrue and that the plot was wholly of the imagination.[24] The grounds upon which judgment must be based deserve to be more closely considered.

On November 8, 1675 a remarkable debate took place in the House of Commons. Mr. Russell and Sir Henry Goodrick informed the House of an outrage said to have been committed by a Jesuit upon a recent convert from Roman Catholicism. Amid keen excitement they related that one Luzancy, a Frenchman, who, having lately come over to the Church of England, had in the French chapel at the Savoy preached a hot sermon against the errors of Rome, had been compelled at peril of his life to retract all he had said and sign a recantation of his faith. The man guilty of this deed was Dr. Burnet, commonly known as Father St. Germain, a Jesuit belonging to the household of the Duchess of York.[25] The Commons were highly enraged. “This goes beyond all precedents,” cried Sir Charles Harbord, “to persuade not only with arguments but poignards!” He never heard the like way before. Assurance was given by Mr. Secretary Williamson that strict inquiry was being made. The king was busy with the matter. Luzancy had been examined on oath before the council, and a special meeting was now summoned. A warrant was out for St. Germain, but the Jesuit had fled. The House expressed its feeling by moving that the Lord Chief Justice be requested to issue a second warrant for St. Germain’s arrest, and yet another in general terms “to search for and apprehend all priests and Jesuits whatsoever.”[26] It was a strange story that Luzancy told. By Protestants he was said to have been a learned Jesuit, by Catholics a rascally bastard of a disreputable French actress.[27] The two accounts are perhaps not irreconcilable. At least he was a convert and had preached. Thereupon St. Germain, as he said, threatened him and forced a recantation. Before resorting to this extreme the Jesuit had tried persuasion. The Duke of York, he told Luzancy, was a confessed Roman Catholic. At heart the king himself belonged to the same faith and would approve of all he did. Schemes were afoot to procure an act for liberty of conscience for the Catholics. That granted, within two years most of the nation would acknowledge the Pope. It was sometimes good to force people to heaven; and there were in London many priests and Jesuits doing God very great service. Others besides Luzancy had been threatened with tales of Protestant blood flowing in the London streets; and these, being summoned to the council, attested that the fact was so. Lord Halifax rose and told the king that, if his Majesty would allow that course to Protestants for the conversion of Papists, he did not question but in a very short time it should be effected.[28] Two days later a proclamation was issued signifying that Luzancy was taken into the royal protection, and St. Germain, with a price of £200 on his head, fled to France, there to become one of the most active of Jesuit intriguers.[29] Though the brandished dagger was likely enough an embellishment of Luzancy’s invention, it is probable that his story was in substance true. In December St. Germain found himself in Paris and in close correspondence with Edward Coleman, the Duchess of York’s secretary. Such a man writing within a month from the catastrophe would certainly, had he been falsely charged, be loud in vindication of his innocence and denunciation of the villain who had worked his ruin. St. Germain merely wrote that his leaving London in this fashion troubled him much. He had done all that a man of honesty and honour could; an ambiguous phrase. It was absolutely necessary, more for his companions and the Catholics’ sake than for his own, that his conduct should be justified.[30] Evidently St. Germain was less troubled at the injustice of the charge against him than incensed at its results. What he wanted was not that his character might be cleared from a false accusation, but that the tables might be turned on his accuser.[31]

The conduct of St. Germain illustrates well the aims of the Roman Catholic party in England about the year 1675. Their policy, already undergoing modification, had root deep in the history of the times.

For the first thirteen years of his reign Catholics looked for the advancement of their cause to the king. During the Civil War none had shown a more steadfast loyalty than they, and none hailed the Restoration with greater eagerness. Half a century earlier a considerable number of the squires of England had been Catholic. They were a class bound closely to the royal cause both by tradition and by personal inclination, and though the operation of the penal laws effectively prevented their ranks from swelling, they rendered conspicuous service to the crown in the day of trouble. With their strength further diminished by death and by confiscation of estates under the Commonwealth government, their hopes rose higher at the king’s return. There was much justification for their sanguine view. The promise of religious liberty contained in the declaration of Breda was known to be in accord with Charles’ own desires. He was the son of a Catholic mother and of a father suspected, however unjustly, of Catholic tendencies. He was himself not free from the same suspicion. He was under the deepest obligations to his Catholic subjects. They had risked their persons and squandered their fortunes for him. They had fought and intrigued for him, and succoured him in distress. He owed them life and liberty. They had done so much for him that it was not unreasonable to hope that, as it was not averse to his wishes, he would do something for them.

The disappointment of the Catholic expectations was not long delayed. Whatever promises Charles had made, and whatever hopes he had fostered, were dependent upon others, and not upon himself, for fulfilment. The Restoration was a national work, and it was not in the power of the king to act openly in opposition to the nation that had restored him. Since he was not a Catholic, he was impelled to run no great risk for the interest of those who were. And it became increasingly clear that by far the greater part of the nation was in no mind to tolerate any change which would make for freedom of life and opinion for the maintainers of a religion which was feared and fiercely hated by the governing classes and by the church which aspired to govern in England. Fear of Roman Catholicism was a legacy of the dreadful days of Queen Mary and of her sister’s Protestant triumph. That legacy was a possession not of one sect or of one party alone. Cavaliers and Roundheads, Puritans and high churchmen shared it alike. So long as the Church of Rome was of a warring disposition, it was vain to expect that the English people would see in it other than an enemy. The Protestant religion was too insecurely established in the land and the memory of sudden changes and violent assaults too recent for Englishmen to harbour a spirit of liberal charity towards those who disagreed from them in matters of faith. The Catholic, who cried for present relief from an odious tyranny, appeared in their eyes as one who, were relief granted, would seize any future chance to play the tyrant himself.

No less than twelve penal statutes, of tremendous force, existed to prevent Roman Catholics from exercising influence in the state.[32] Had they been strictly executed, the Catholic religion must have been crushed out of England; but they were generally allowed to remain dormant. Even so they were a constant menace and an occasional source of more or less annoyance, varying infinitely according to time and place and the will of the authorities from an insulting reminder of Catholic inferiority to cruel and deliberate persecution. The tenor of these laws was so stringent that among moderate Protestants there were many who believed that the more obnoxious and unjust might be removed without placing a weapon of serious strength in the hands of their opponents. In the House of Lords a party was formed in favour of the Catholic and Presbyterian claims and opposed to the arrogant pretensions of the Earl of Clarendon and his followers. Clarendon’s wish was for the supremacy of his own church, but there were already not a few who had begun to view his position with jealousy. In June 1661 a committee of prominent Catholics met at Arundel House to consider their position. They presented a petition to the Lords protesting against the penalties on the refusal of Catholics to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, but after several debates and the lapse of more than eighteen months it was resolved that “nothing had been offered to move their lordships to alter anything in the oaths.” Nevertheless Colonel Tuke of Cressing Temple was admitted to the bar and heard against the “sanguinary laws,” and papers on the subject were laid on the table of the House. The petitioners disclaimed the Pope’s temporal authority and offered to swear “to oppose with their lives and fortunes the pontiff himself, if he should ever attempt to execute that pretended power, and to obey their sovereign in opposition to all foreign and domestic power whatsoever, without restriction.” A committee was appointed to deal with the matter, and acting on its report the Lords resolved to abolish the writ de haeretico inquirendo and the statutes making it treason to take orders in the Roman Church, as well as those making it felony to harbour Catholic priests and præmunire to maintain the authority of the Bishop of Rome.

At this point, when all seemed going well, misfortune intervened and the hopes of success were dashed to the ground. It was suggested that on account of its known activity and powers of intrigue the Society of Jesus should be excepted from the scope of the proposed measure. A heated controversy was instantly aroused. While Protestants and many Catholics demanded that the Jesuits should accept the situation and retire gracefully to win advantages for their brothers in religion, members of the society retorted that a conspiracy was on foot to divide the body Catholic against itself, and that it was not for the general good to accept favours at the price of sacrificing the most able and flourishing order of the church. It soon became evident that the Jesuits were not to be moved. Their struggle in England had been hard. Their position among English Catholics was one of great importance. They would not now surrender it for the sake of a partial and problematical success from the enjoyment of which they were themselves to be excluded. The time when affairs were still unsettled was rather one at which they should be spurred to greater efforts.

Without the compliance of the Jesuits the moderate Catholics could do nothing. A feeling of disgust at the selfish policy of the society found free expression. It seemed that its members would never consider the interest of others before their own. Nevertheless there was no remedy; the committee at Arundel House was dissolved; at the request of the Catholic peers the progress of the bill of relief in the House of Lords was suspended, and it was never resumed.[33]

No better fate attended the king’s efforts to make good the promises he had given at Breda. With the assurance of support from the Independents and Presbyterians he had issued late in the year 1662 a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending all penal laws against dissenters, Catholic as well as others, by virtue of the power which he considered inherent in the crown.[34] The move called forth a storm of opposition, both against the dispensing power and against the object for which it was used. To appease the Commons, Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, brought in a bill to define and legalise the royal power to dispense with laws requiring oaths and subscription to the doctrines of the established church. The answer of the Commons was an address against the Declaration,[35] in the House of Lords Ashley’s bill was defeated by Clarendon and the bishops, and on March 31, 1663 Parliament addressed the king for a proclamation ordering all Catholic priests to leave the realm. Charles never forgave his minister, but he was powerless to resist. On April 2 he recanted his declaration by issuing the desired order. A bill to check the growth of popery and nonconformity passed quickly through the House of Commons, but was stopped by the influence of the Catholic peers, and an address for the execution of all laws against dissenters was voted in its place.[36]

Thus the penal laws were retained in their full vigour. And if the enactments against the Catholics were not removed from the statute book, still less were the causes which had produced them removed from men’s minds. Only the establishment of general confidence that the Catholic religion lacked power to menace the cause of Protestantism in England and to invade the rights which were dear to Englishmen could be effective in this; and confidence, so far from becoming general, shrank to limits that became ever narrower. In the years that followed, fear of the advance of Catholicism only increased. Fresh laws were passed to check it. The House of Commons voted address after address that the old might be put in action, petition after petition for the banishment of priests and Jesuits from court and capital. To their alarm and chagrin it appeared that all efforts were in vain, and belief spread that the failure was chiefly due to opposition emanating from the highest quarters. Instead of aiding in the accomplishment of the desired object, the influence of the crown seemed to be directed absolutely to prevent it. For the king’s policy was one which could only inspire the nation with a sense of growing distrust.[37]

Though Charles II had ascended the throne on a wave of popular enthusiasm, his ideas were widely removed from those of his subjects. By birth and education his mind was drawn towards the aims and methods of French politics, and he leaned away from the Church of England. With this bias he inherited for Puritanism and the Presbyterians a dislike strengthened by personal experience. Coming into England without knowledge of parliamentary government, his first trial of it was far from encouraging. He found Parliament intolerant, suspicious, unstatesman-like. The Commons fenced in the Anglican Church with severe penal laws against dissent, and gave the king an income less than the annual expenses of government and the services by half a million pounds. Charles had been restored to a bankrupt inheritance, and with every good intention the Commons failed completely to render it solvent. Soon their good-will ceased. They were jealous of the royal expenditure. They did not perceive the royal wants. They destroyed the existing financial arrangements and did not replace them with better.[38] They desired to carry the Protestant and Parliamentary system to its logical end in controlling the King’s foreign policy and directing it against the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. To Charles this was intolerable. To be forced to act at the bidding of Parliament was odious to him. He would be no crowned do-nothing. And here the fortunes of England touched on those of France. The schemes of Louis XIV for the expansion and consolidation of the French kingdom made it imperative that he should obtain for their prosecution the neutrality, if not the assistance, of England. He could not devote his energy to the settlement of his north-east frontier and the maintenance of his claims on the Spanish empire with a Protestant country ever ready to strike at his back. He was therefore always ready to pay for the concurrence of Charles and with him of England.[39] The establishment of the Roman Catholic religion, could it be effected, would be of material assistance to him. Especially on the religious side of his policy it would be a powerful support. Charles, on the other hand, desired to free himself from the financial control of Parliament and to grant toleration to the Catholics. He was therefore always ready to be bought. He was all the better pleased since co-operation with France brought him into conflict with the Dutch republic, which he disliked upon commercial and detested upon dynastic grounds. Toleration Charles found to be impossible, and he was subjected to constant annoyance by the attempts of the Commons to control his dealings. Thus his aims crystallised into a policy of making the crown supreme in the constitution and establishing the Roman Catholic faith as the state religion upon the approved model in France.[40]

The plan undertaken in concert with his great ally was not the first effort of Charles to give his ideas effect. During his exile on the continent various tenders had been made for papal support; Charles promised in return conversion and favour to his Catholic subjects; and within a few years of the Restoration a serious negotiation was started with Pope Alexander VII. In 1663 Sir Richard Bellings was sent on a mission to Rome to beg the bestowal of a cardinal’s hat on the Abbé d’Aubigny, almoner to the newly-married queen, and cousin to the king. Charles took the opportunity to propose through Bellings the formation of an Anglican Roman Church in England. He was to announce his conversion, the Archbishop of Canterbury was to be patriarch of the three realms, and liberty of conscience should be assured to remaining Protestants. Roman Catholicism would become the state religion and Rome gain the whole strength of the English hierarchy.[41] An understanding was impracticable and the scheme fell through; but the renewed solicitations of the English court on Aubigny’s behalf were successful. In November 1665 he was nominated Cardinal, and died almost immediately after. To the hopes of the Catholics his death was a terrible blow. “The clouds,” wrote the general of the Jesuits on hearing of it, “which are gathering over Holland, Poland, and Constantinople are so dense that every prudent man must see reason to apprehend enormous catastrophes and storms that will not be ended without irreparable disasters. But in my mind all these coming evils are overshadowed by the death of the Abbé Aubigny, which deprives the Church, for a time at least, of the joy of beholding an English cardinal of such illustrious blood, created at the public instances of two queens, and at the secret request of a king, a prodigy which would, without doubt have confounded heresy and inaugurated bright fortunes to the unhappy Catholics.”

Three years later a still more remarkable embassy than Bellings’ took place. It is not even in our own day commonly known that the Duke of Monmouth, reputed the eldest of the sons of Charles II, had an elder brother. So well was the secret kept, that during the long struggle to save the Protestant succession and to exclude the Duke of York from the throne, no man ever discovered that there was another whose claims were better than those of the popular favourite, and who had of his free will preferred the gown of an obscure clerk to the brilliant prospect of favour at court and the chance of wearing the English crown. For this son, born to the king in the Isle of Jersey at the age of sixteen or seventeen years, the child of a lady of one of the noblest families in his dominions, was named by his father James Stuart, and urged to be at hand to maintain his rights should both the royal brothers die without male heirs. He set the dazzling fortune aside and resolved to live and die a Jesuit. In the year 1668, then being some four and twenty years old, he entered the house of novices of the Jesuits at Rome under the name of James de la Cloche. Towards the end of the same year Charles wrote to Johannes Oliva, the general, desiring that his son might be sent to England to discuss matters of religion. Assuming the name of Henri de Rohan, La Cloche made for England. He was received by the queen and the queen mother, and by them secretly taken to the king. What passed between father and son has never transpired. La Cloche was sent back to Rome by the king as his “secret ambassador to the Father General,” charged with an oral commission and orders to return to England as soon as it was fulfilled. The nature of that mission is unknown, and whether or no the young man returned to England. Trace of embassy and ambassador alike is lost, and the young prince disappears from history. Yet it may be that his figure can be descried again, flitting mysteriously across the life of his father. At the height of the turmoil of the Popish Plot a certain gentleman was employed to bring privately from beyond seas a Roman Catholic priest, with whom the king had secret business to transact. The king and the priest stayed long closeted together. At length the priest came out with signs of horror and fear on his face. Charles had been seized with a fit and, when the priest would have called for help, to preserve their secret summoned strength to hold him till the attack had passed. On Charles’ death two papers on religion were found in his cabinet and published in a translation by his brother. The originals were in French, in the form of an argument addressed by one person to another, and it is suggested, not without reason, that their author was the same man as the king’s questionable visitor, and none other than his own son, who had forgotten his native tongue and had surrendered fame and country for the good of his soul and of the Catholic Church.[42]

One more negotiation was undertaken directly with Rome. By command of the pope the papal internuncio at Brussels came to England. He had sent a confidant to prepare the way, and was assured of welcome at court. The Venetian envoy offered the hospitality of his house to the visitor, and arranged an interview with the king. The queen, the Duke of York, and Lord Arlington were also present, and the nuncio received promises of the king’s good intentions towards the Catholics.[43] The fruits of this undertaking, had there been any, were spoiled before the gathering by the intrigue into which Charles had already entered with Louis XIV. Only under a Catholic constitution, said Charles, might a King of England hope to be absolute. He was to live to see the prophecy falsified, and by his own unaided effort to accomplish what he believed impossible, but now he showed the courage of his convictions by attempting to make England Catholic. The scheme was afoot in the summer of 1669. Nearly a year passed in its completion, and on June 1, 1670 “le Traité de Madame” was signed at Dover. Arlington, Clifford, Arundel, and Sir Richard Bellings signed for England, and Colbert for France; and Henrietta of Orleans, to whose skilful management success was due, returned to her husband’s home to die, leaving a potent influence to carry on her work—Louise de Kéroualle. Louis’ object in the treaty was to break the Triple Alliance and carry the war to a successful conclusion; that of Charles to make himself master of England once again under the Catholic banner. The two kings were to aid each other in men and money. “It was in reality,” says Lord Acton, “a plot under cover of Catholicism to introduce absolute monarchy and to make England a dependency of France, not only by the acceptance of French money, but by submission to a French army.”[44] Charles was to declare himself a Catholic when he thought fit. In the event of resistance from his subjects he was to receive from Louis the sum of £150,000 and a force of 6000 men to bring his country under the yoke. Lauderdale held an army 20,000 strong in Scotland, bound to serve anywhere within British dominions. Ireland under Lord Berkeley was steeped in Catholic and loyal sentiment. The garrisons and ports of England were being placed in safe hands. If the scheme succeeded, the Anglican Church would be overthrown, Parliamentary government would be rendered futile, and Charles would be left at the head of a Catholic state and master of his realm.

Success however was so far from attainment that no attempt was made to put “la grande affaire” into effect. It was decided that Charles’ declaration of Catholicism should be preceded by his attack in concert with Louis on the Dutch. War was declared on March 17, 1672. Two days before, the Declaration of Indulgence, suspending all penal laws against dissenters, was issued. It sprang from the desire to obtain the support of dissent for the war and to pave the way for a successful issue of the Catholic policy at its close. Arms alone could determine victory or defeat. If Charles thereafter found himself in a position to dictate to Parliament, the rest might not prove difficult. Otherwise there would be little hope of success. But the war did not justify Charles’ expectations. Dutch tenacity and the growing hostility in England to the alliance with France made it certain that the chief objects for which Charles had sealed the Dover treaty could not be achieved. When on February 19, 1674 he concluded peace with the Republic for 800,000 crowns, the honour of the flag northward from Cape Finisterre, and the retention of all his conquests outside Europe, the king seemed to have emerged successfully from the struggle. In fact he had failed to reach the goal. Unless he gained a commanding position at home by military success abroad, he could not hope to put into practice the English part of the programme drawn up at Dover. It was something that his nephew the Prince of Orange had ousted the odious republican faction from power in Holland, and much that the Republic had been for ever detached from its alliance with France; but even this was hardly sufficient compensation to Charles for the abandonment of his policy in England. He had planned to restore the monarchy to its ancient estate by means of Roman Catholicism. He had failed, and now he turned his back finally upon Catholicism as a political power. He had already been compelled to cancel the Declaration of Indulgence, and on March 29, 1673 clearly marked the change by giving the royal assent to the Test Act. A return to the policy of Anglican Royalism, which in some ways approached that of Clarendon, was shaped. The Cabal had been dissipated, the plans of its Catholic members ruined, its Protestant members driven into opposition. Charles, guiding foreign policy himself, and Danby as Lord Treasurer managing affairs at home, determined to draw all stable elements in the kingdom round the Church and the Crown, and to offer a united opposition to the factions and the dissenters. The famous Non-Resisting Test was the result.[45] Here again Charles failed. The opposition of Shaftesbury rendered abortive the second line of policy by which the king attempted to restore the full majesty of the crown. There was nothing left him now but a policy of resistance. The next move in the game must come from his opponents. Thus the three following years were spent by Charles intriguing first with Louis, then with William, seeming to be on the brink of war and a Protestant policy and always drawing back. No decisive step could be taken until the panic of the Popish Plot gave to the country party an opportunity, which after a three years’ struggle the king turned to his own account with signal triumph.

From the moment when he revoked the Declaration of Indulgence the Catholics had nothing to hope from Charles. Up to that time Roman Catholic policy in England looked to him; thereafter he stood apart from it. Throughout his reign the king had been studying to rise to absolute sovereignty on the ladder of Catholicism. By the treaty of Dover he was actively concerned in a conspiracy to overturn the established church and again to introduce the Roman Catholic religion into England. He had undoubtedly been guilty of an act which in a subject would have been high treason. Although he now dissociated himself from his former policy, it was not abandoned by others. The Catholics had been deceived by Charles. They now fixed their hopes upon his brother, the Duke of York. Since the king would no longer join with the Jesuit party, it was determined to go without him. From that time James became the centre of their intrigues and negotiations. He was the point round which their hopes revolved.

The foundation of the intrigue was laid in the summer of 1673. Some eighteen months before the duke had made known to a small circle his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church.[46] The step was taken in the deepest secrecy, and even at Rome was not recognised as final until some years afterwards, for although James laid down his office of Lord High Admiral in consequence of the Test Act, he still continued to attend service in the royal chapel.[47] But despite all caution, enough suspicion was aroused by James’ marriage at the suggestion of the French court with a Roman Catholic princess, Mary of Modena. It was a definite sign of his attachment to the French and Catholic interest, and paved the way for the correspondence which was afterwards so nearly to procure his downfall. The duke had for secretary a young man named Edward Coleman, whom mysterious doings and a tragic fate have invested with not unmerited interest. Coleman was the son of an English clergyman. At an early age he was converted to the Catholic faith and educated by the Jesuits, and to the furtherance of their schemes devoted the rest of his life. To the good cause he brought glowing ardour and varied talents. He was noted as a keen controversialist and a successful fisherman of souls. The confidence of three ambassadors from the court of France argues versatile ability in the man. With Ruvigny Coleman enjoyed some intimacy; Courtin found him of the greatest assistance; he discussed with Barillon subjects of delicacy on his master’s behalf. The ambassadors found him a man of spirit, adept in intrigue, with fingers on the wires by which parties were pulled. And they valued him accordingly. For Coleman undertook the difficult task of agent between Louis XIV and the mercenary Whigs. More than three thousand pounds can be traced passing through his hands. The leaders of the opposition had their price at some five hundred guineas; but these took their money direct from the ambassador. Coleman dealt with the rank and file, and here the gold, which among the more exalted would have soon been exhausted, probably went far. He kept a sumptuous table for his friends and laid up for himself what he gained by way of commission. Knowledge of foreign languages, a ready pen, and his Jesuit connection marked Coleman as the man for the duke’s service. He had all the talents for the post save one. James’ want of discretion was reflected in his secretary. Twice Coleman was dismissed; the dismissal was apparent only, and he continued work as busily as before. He had occupied himself in writing seditious letters to rouse discontent in the provinces against the government. Complaint was made. Coleman was discharged from his place by the duke. He was immediately taken into the service of the duchess in the same capacity. Some years later his zeal brought him into collision with the Bishop of London. Compton went to the king and obtained an order to the duke to dismiss his wife’s secretary. The French ambassador was much perturbed and pressed James to afford protection, Coleman received his dismissal and took ship to Calais. His Jesuit friends sent the news sadly one to another. His very talents, it was said, had destroyed him. He was too much in the duke’s counsels. His enemies could not countenance the presence of a man of such parts. The duchess chose a new secretary. Within a fortnight Coleman returned, and in secret resumed his office. He was in the duke’s confidence and necessary to him.[48] Altogether Coleman was not quite the innocent lamb that he has often been painted.

At the outbreak of the second Dutch war an English cavalry regiment was sent for the French service under the command of Lord Duras. Among the officers was Sir William Throckmorton, an intimate of Coleman and converted by him to the Catholic faith. Throckmorton left the regiment and settled in Paris as his friend’s agent. The two corresponded at length, and by Throckmorton’s means Coleman was put in communication with Père Ferrier, Louis XIV’s Jesuit confessor. Ferrier was assured by Coleman that parliament would force Charles II to break with France and make peace with the Dutch. The accuracy of his prophecy gained the confessor’s confidence. Letters were exchanged and the means to advance the Duke of York and the Catholic cause in England debated. Ferrier was the first of Louis’ confessors to play an important part in politics, and his alliance was an achievement to be counted to the duke.[49] Coleman proceeded to extend his connection in other quarters. Under the assumed name of Rice the Earl of Berkshire was in communication with him, urging with doleful foreboding the overthrow of parliament and the Protestant party.[50] Berkshire was Coleman’s sole correspondent known in England, but on the continent others took up the thread. In France the Jesuit Sheldon was high in praise of Coleman and his design. From Brussels the papal internuncio Albani discussed it somewhat coolly. Meanwhile Coleman’s relations with Paris had undergone a change. In May 1675 Sir William Throckmorton died disreputably of a wound received in the course of his too eager courtship of a certain Lady Brown, while his wife yet lived,[51] and in December St. Germain, banished from England, took up his place. More important was the death of Père Ferrier in September of the same year, for Louis XIV chose as his confessor Père de la Chaize, the famous Jesuit whose dealings with Coleman subsequently formed the heaviest part of the proof against the unlucky intriguer.[52] Finally to the list of his political correspondents whose names are known Coleman added that of Cardinal Howard, better known as Cardinal Norfolk, at the Roman court.[53]

Of this correspondence nearly two hundred letters have been preserved. The insight which they give into the minds and intentions of their writers is invaluable. They throw a strong light upon the undercurrent of political movement at a time when politics were perhaps more complicated and their undercurrents more potent than at any time before or after. From them might be detailed the tenor of the designs undertaken by a great religious party during a period of fierce struggle. Such reconstruction from a fragmentary correspondence must always be difficult. In the case of the Coleman correspondence the difficulty would be great. That the letters can be read at all is due to the fact that the key to the cipher in which they are written was found with them. Not only were they written in an arbitrary cipher, not to be elucidated without the key, but in such guarded and metaphorical language that the meaning can often be caught only by chance or conjecture.[54] Parables can easily be understood after the events to the arrangements for which they refer; but when no effect follows, the drift is more obscure. When before the Spanish Armada an English agent writes from Spain that bales of wool are being stored in large quantities, muniments of war may be read between the lines. When Jacobites give notice to their exiled king that Mr. Jackson need only appear in Westminster Hall to recover his estate, or that a cargo of the right sort, now in great demand, must be shipped at once, their meaning is transparent. But to the obscure terms used by Coleman and his friends after events afford a slighter clue. No notion discussed by them was ever tested as a practicable scheme in action. Neither success nor exposure sheds light whereby to read their letters. Whatever is in them must be painfully read as intention alone, and as intention abandoned. The general ideas however are plain, and an admirable exposition by Coleman himself saves the necessity of piecing them together from small fragments.

On September 29, 1675 he wrote a long letter to Père de la Chaize relating in some detail the history of the intrigues of the previous years.[55] Catholic ascendency in England and a general peace in favour of France were the objects for which he had worked. For these the dissolution of Parliament and money were necessary, money both to dissolve Parliament and to supply the king’s wants. Next to Parliament Lord Arlington was the Duke of York’s greatest enemy; for Arlington was the supporter, if not the promoter of the Test Act.[56] In response to this beginning Père Ferrier had sent a note to the duke through Sir William Throckmorton. In agreement with James it was Louis XIV’s opinion that Arlington and the Parliament formed a great obstacle to their joint interest; and if the duke could succeed in dissolving the present Parliament, he would lend the assistance of his power and purse to procure another better suited to their purpose. The duke replied to Ferrier in person, and Coleman answered too. Their letters were to the same effect. The French king’s offer was most generous and highly gratifying, but money was needed at the moment as urgently as thereafter, for without money a dissolution could not be obtained, and without a dissolution everything done so far would be nugatory. So far as money went it was possible to consult Ruvigny, the ambassador in England; further not, for Ruvigny was a Protestant. Eulogies of Throckmorton and Coleman passed from Ferrier to James and back, each expressing to the other his confidence in their agents.[57] At this time, said Coleman, Charles II was undecided and felt the arguments for and against dissolution equally strong. But if a large sum such as £300,000 had been offered to him on condition that Parliament should be dissolved, he would certainly have accepted both money and condition. Peace would then be assured, with other advantages to follow. Logic built upon money, wrote Coleman, had more charms at the court of St. James than any other form of reasoning.[58] To obtain this money Coleman and his associates had worked hard. Not only did Coleman write to Ferrier about it and talk to Ruvigny about it in London, but he made Throckmorton press for it in Paris, and press Pomponne, the French secretary of state, as well as the confessor. Twice Throckmorton persuaded Pomponne to speak particularly to Louis on the subject, and once he sent a memoir for the king’s perusal. Louis returned it with expressions of great interest in the duke’s cause and the message “that he should always be ready to join and work with him.” Also Pomponne was bidden to say that he had orders to direct Ruvigny “that he should take measures and directions from the duke,” especially in what concerned the dissolution of Parliament, Louis, he said, was most sensible of the need for energy and caution and gave the greatest consideration to the matter.[59] At the same time Sheldon was pressing the French king’s confessor.[60] Still the money did not come. One excuse after another was made. Pomponne declared that so great a sum as that demanded could not possibly be spared by Louis; and Throckmorton believed that this was so; but he was compelled to admit that another campaign would cost perhaps ten times as much. The foreign secretary also complained that the duke did not appear sufficiently in the movement himself. He was answered by Coleman that James had ceased negotiating with the ambassador as Ruvigny gave so little help, but he was in communication with Ferrier. Coleman thought that Ruvigny’s backwardness was deliberate. Sheldon and Throckmorton were of the same opinion, and Throckmorton suggested as an alternative that a subscription should be raised from the Catholics; £50,000 he thought might be promised from France, and he hoped for twice that sum in England.[61]

While Coleman was begging from the French court and declaring his exclusive devotion to the interests of France, he was at the same time urging the papal nuncio to obtain money from the Pope and the Emperor and renouncing all designs except that of forwarding the Catholic cause in the Pope’s behalf. Albani was moderately enthusiastic. The Emperor commanded him to assure the Duke of York of the passionate zeal he entertained for his service and the Catholic cause. The Pope too would assist in matters in which he might properly appear. But James must himself point the direction of the assistance to be granted. Coleman replied that he had already shewn the way. Money alone was needed to procure the dissolution of Parliament. Dissolution would mean peace abroad and Catholic ascendency in England to the great advantage of the Pope, the Emperor, and the whole Church. It was incumbent on the Emperor and more especially on the Pope to open wide the purse for so fair a prospect.[62] The nuncio was not however to be carried away by emotion. Money could not be expended by the Pope upon such vague expectation. He had others to think of in greater straits than the English Catholics. Before the matter could be submitted to Rome more definite guarantees must be given that the Catholic cause would really be served. In any case what the Pope could afford would be nothing in comparison to what was needed.[63] Coleman continued to press, even to the point of Albani’s annoyance.[64] Repetition of the same arguments merely met the same reply; and when by command of the Duke of York Coleman paid a secret visit to Brussels to interview the nuncio, the result was no better.[65]

So the shuttlecock was beaten backwards and forwards between London, Paris, and Brussels. Writing to La Chaize Coleman naturally made no mention of his correspondence with the nuncio. Different arguments had to be used in the two quarters. To Albani Coleman vowed his undying affection for the Pope, to the Jesuit an extremity of devotion for French interests. Neither the one nor the other had the desired effect. Advice and encouragement were forthcoming, but not pistoles. The bashfulness of Coleman’s correspondents is not hard to understand. Albani gave his reasons brutally enough. Those at the court of Versailles were probably of the same nature. And here they had additional force, for if on general grounds the French were unlikely to pay, they were still less likely to support the Duke of York with doubtful advantages at a time when they could obtain their chief object by subsidising his brother the king. No one of business habits would pour his gold into English pockets without reasonable expectation of a proportionate return. The English pocket had the appearance of being constructed upon a principle contrary to that of Fortunatus’ purse.

The scheme for which support was thus begged from whoever seemed likely to give was not promising to any but an enthusiast. Money was wanted certainly to bring Charles to the dissolution of Parliament, an idea which was constantly in the air at court. The Cavalier Parliament was an uncompromising opponent of Popery, and the Catholics bore it a heavy grudge. But dissolution in itself would hardly improve their own position. The design reached considerably farther than that. It was no less than to bribe the king to issue another declaration of indulgence, appoint the Duke of York again to the office of Lord High Admiral, and leave the whole management of affairs to his hands.[66] In the course of the next year a new parliament should be assembled, bribed to support the French and Catholic interest, and the Catholic position in England would be assured. James was an able and popular officer and enjoyed great authority in the navy. Supposing the stroke could be effected, he would occupy a position not only of dignity but of power to meet any attack that might be made upon his new state. The scheme was so far advanced that Coleman drew up a declaration for the king to issue setting forth his reasons for a dissolution, and solemnly protesting his intention to stand by the Protestant religion and the decisions of the next parliament. That was to be before the end of February 1675.[67]

Although Coleman wrote to the nuncio that the Catholics had never before had so favourable an opportunity, the design was shortly modified and deferred.[68] In its present shape the possibility of putting it to the test depended upon the good-will of the ministers. After the dissolution of Parliament their assistance would be necessary. Without it nothing could be done. If Parliament were dissolved and the ministers stopped the execution of all that was to follow, the last state would be worse than the first. And it now became evident that matters were in just that case. Whatever the Cabal might have done, it was certain that those who followed would have no hand in exalting the Duke of York’s power. Danby, whose watchword was Monarchy and No Toleration, was now firmly fixed in authority. Early in February a proclamation was issued ordering the execution of the penal laws, whetted against Roman Catholics by the promise of reward to informers; young men were to be recalled from Catholic seminaries abroad, subjects were forbidden to hear mass in the chapels of foreign ambassadors, all English priests were banished from the kingdom.[69] The effect of the proclamation was chiefly moral; but the worst consequences might be expected from the Non-Resistance bill, now in active preparation for the April session. Should this be passed, Catholic, Presbyterian, and Whig alike would be excluded from all part in the management of affairs, and the royal Church of England would triumph. The Duke of York’s party veered round and adopted the cause of parliament as a bulwark for themselves against the ministerial attack. The moment was critical for all concerned. A golden age seemed to have arrived for the Commons. Money was showered lavishly on them. Fortune rained every coinage in Europe. Danby, the Bishops, the Dutch, and the Spanish ambassador did battle with their rouleaux against the Catholics, the Nonconformists, the French ambassador and theirs. The scenes in Parliament were unprecedented, and have since scarcely been surpassed. Swords were drawn and members spat across the floor of the House. In the House of Lords the king appeared regularly at the debates to exert a personal influence on his peers, and was likened to the sun, scorching his opponents. Here Charles and Danby had the advantage, and after seventeen days the bill was sent down to the Commons; but Shaftesbury, who had fought with the utmost resolution, seized his opportunity to foment the old dispute between the Houses as to the right of appeal to the Lords, with such success that the session had to be closed before the bill could be introduced, Parliament was prorogued, and the Test vanished for ever.[70] Coleman and his friends breathed again and proceeded to adapt their programme to the new situation. Since dissolution would not help them, they would mould Parliament to their design. At the moment the Duke of York’s position was as precarious as before; but, wrote Coleman to La Chaize, “if he could gain any considerable new addition of power, all would come over to him as the only steady centre of our government, and nobody would contend with him further. Then would Catholics be at rest and his most Christian Majesty’s interest be secured with us in England beyond all apprehensions whatsoever. In order to this we have two great designs to attempt the next sessions. First, that which we were about before, viz. to put Parliament upon making it their humble request to the king that the fleet may be put in his royal highness’ care.[71] Secondly, to get an act for general liberty of conscience.” Coleman had already spoken to Ruvigny on the subject; the ambassador was not enthusiastic, but he admitted the advantages that would ensue to France. Twenty thousand pounds, thought Coleman, would ensure success; and success would be “the greatest blow to the Protestant religion here that ever it received since its birth.”[72] La Chaize answered briefly, promising to give the matter consideration and desiring to hear more from his correspondent.[73] Coleman rejoined in his last letter to the confessor that has been preserved. He engaged to write whenever occasion arose, and sent La Chaize a cipher for use between themselves; and for greater security he would write between lines of trivial import in lemon juice, legible when held to the fire. Only that part of the business not relating to religion could be discussed with Ruvigny, continued Coleman; and then, coming to the point, “We have here a mighty work upon our hands, no less then the conversion of three kingdoms, and by that perhaps the subduing of a pestilent heresy, which has domineered over great part of this northern world a long time; there were never such hopes of success since the death of Queen Mary as now in our days, when God has given us a prince who is become (may I say, a miracle) zealous of being the author and instrument of so glorious a work.... That which we rely upon most, next to God Almighty’s providence and the favour of my master the duke, is the mighty mind of his most Christian Majesty.”[74]

The significance of this is beyond doubt. It has been the custom of historians, quoting the last passage alone, to belittle its importance as the exaggerated outpouring of a zealot’s fancy. Taken with the context it is seen to be something very different. The words only express more clearly what was often hinted at and half outspoken in the correspondence which led up to this point. Jesuit agents and the Duke of York’s confidential secretary, for such in fact Coleman was, had something more to do than to entertain themselves by writing at length and in cipher to all parts of Europe with no other intention than to express their hopes for the propagation of the Catholic faith in a manner quite detached from politics, or to discuss political schemes as matters of speculative interest; such things are not done for amusement. Coleman’s phrases are pregnant with real meaning. They are to be understood literally. The design which his letters sketch was in substance the same as that afterwards put into practice when the Duke of York ascended the throne as James II. Under the guise of a demand for liberty of worship, it was a design to turn England into a Roman Catholic state in the interest of France and the Jesuits, and by the aid of French money. The remark of Halifax that dissenters only plead for conscience to obtain power was eminently true of his own time. No less true was it that those who separated themselves from the religion of the state aimed at the subversion of it.[75]

High treason, be it remarked, is the only crime known to the law in which the intention and not the act constitutes the offence. The famous statute of Edward III had defined as the most important treasons the compassing or imagining of the king’s death, the levying of war against the king, and adherence to the king’s enemies within the realm or without.[76] An act passed at the height of power of one of the most powerful monarchs who have reigned in England was insufficient for the needs of those whose position was less secure. The severity of repeated enactments under Henry VIII to create new treasons, and perhaps the difficulty of meeting attempts against the crown by statutory definition, rendered this method of supplying the want unpopular and unsatisfactory. So in the reign of Queen Elizabeth the extension of the statute of Edward III by construction became the settled mode of procedure. With the lapse of time the scope of constructive treason was extended. Coke laid down that an overt act witnessing the intention to depose or imprison the king or to place him in the power of another was sufficient to prove the compassing and imagining his death. Conspiracy with a foreign prince to invade the realm by open hostility, declared by an overt act, is evidence of the same.[77] Hale held conspiracy, the logical end of which must be the death or deposition of the king, even though this were not the direct intention, to be an act of high treason. To levy war against the king is an overt act of treason; conspiracy to levy war is thus an overt act of treason by compassing the king’s death. To restrain the king by force, to compel him to yield certain demands, to extort legislation by terror and a strong hand, in fact all movements tending to deprive him of his kingly government, whether of the nature of personal pressure or of riot and disturbance in the country, are acts of treason. To collect arms, to gather company, to write letters are evidence of the intention of the same.[78] Treason by adherence to the king’s enemies was equally expansive. Thus it has been held, says Sir James Stephen, “that to imagine the king’s death means to intend anything whatever which under any circumstances may possibly have a tendency, however remote, to expose the king to personal danger or to the forcible deprivation of any part of the authority incidental to his office.”[79] In 1678 a question was put to the judges by the Attorney-General: “Whether it be not high treason to endeavour to extirpate the religion established in this country, and to introduce the Pope’s authority by combination and assistance of foreign power?” The judges were unanimous in their opinion that it was treason.[80] And in the case of Lord Preston in 1691 it was held that taking a boat at Surrey Stairs in Middlesex in order to board a ship off the coast of Kent, and convey to the French king papers containing information on the naval and military state of England, with the purpose of helping him to invade the realm, was an overt act of treason by compassing and imagining the death of the king.[81]

Doubt cannot exist as to the dangerous consequence of the correspondence carried on by Coleman. Under the most favourable interpretation it reveals a design to accomplish again by means of bribery what the English nation had already rejected as illegal and unconstitutional, a deed which was said to have broken forty acts of Parliament,[82] to give the sanction of authority to a religion which was banned and to priests who were under doom of high treason. And the most favourable interpretation is certainly not the most just. Those “great designs ... to the utter ruin of the Protestant party,” which should “drive away the Parliament and the Protestants ... and settle in their employments the Catholics,” refuse such a colouring.[83] At Coleman’s subsequent trial the Lord Chief Justice told him, “Your design was to bring in Popery into England and to promote the interest of the French king in this place.... Our religion was to be subverted, Popery established, and the three kingdoms to be converted”;[84] and what the Chief Justice said was true. Coleman and the party to which he belonged had designed “to extirpate the religion established in this country” by the assistance of money given by a foreign power. Such an endeavour could not be undertaken without the commission of high treason. By the theory of the constitution the king can do no wrong. Much less can he do wrong to himself. He cannot be persuaded to perform an act directed against his own person. Great persuasion or importunity addressed to the king, says Hale, cannot be held an act of treason, since an intention must be manifested to restrain or influence him by force.[85] But the king cannot be supposed of his free will to undertake measures having their end, according to the construction of the statute, in the compassing of his own death. Nor can he be supposed to be persuaded to such measures, for both cases involve a contradiction of himself. No king can be guilty of high treason. Except by Act of Parliament none in England can divest his office of any of the full authority pertaining thereto. Persuasion of the king to do so is by the nature of the case impossible, whether it be in the form of money or other. Any one who plans a fundamental change of the constitution, to be effected by money or other means except by the constitutional action of Parliament, falls under the penalty for treason none the less because he may hope for assistance from the man who is king, since the king cannot be considered to assist an unconstitutional change. Any one planning such a change, though he intends to obtain the king’s assistance, acts against the king’s authority as much as if he did not so intend, and is therefore guilty of high treason. Of such possible changes the overthrow of the Church of England is one, for the king cannot otherwise than constitutionally join in the subversion of the church of which he is head, and which he has sworn to maintain. If he is successfully persuaded to take part in such an act, the persuasion must be regarded as tantamount to force, for persuasion of the king to commit treason against himself is absurd. And the position of a man declaring his intention to accomplish this change is exactly that of Coleman and the Jesuit party in England. There can be no doubt that the subjects who took part with Charles II in the treaty of Dover were guilty of high treason, none the less because the man who was king acted in concert with them. And similarly, none the less because they expressed the intention of bribing the king to assist their design, no doubt can exist that Coleman and his associates were brought by their schemes under the penalty of the same crime.

Such was the state of the Roman Catholic designs—the real Popish Plot—in England at the close of the year 1675. The direction in which they turned during the next three years is now to seek. At the outset the chief part of the evidence fails. Until his arrest in September 1678 Coleman continued his foreign correspondence,[86] but in comparison with the letters of earlier date the portion of it preserved is meagre indeed. Above all, no such exposition of his schemes as Coleman sent to La Chaize exists to afford a clue to the tangled and mysterious allusions with which his letters abound. The only two of Coleman’s later correspondents whose letters are extant were St. Germain and Cardinal Howard. The last written by St. Germain from Paris bears the date October 15, 1678, but with this exception all his letters belong to the year 1676. They are partly occupied with business of slight connection with politics. A scheme of the Duchess of York for the increase of an English Carmelite convent at Antwerp was pressed upon the French court. Rambling intrigues undertaken for the purpose finally succeeded in breaking down Louis XIV’s reluctance, the convent was allowed to plant colonies in the French Netherlands, and the irritation caused to the duchess by the delay was allayed by a splendid present of diamonds made her in secret by the King of France.[87] St. Germain’s letters also show that intrigues were being ceaselessly carried on in the French and Jesuit interest throughout the year 1676 by Coleman and his party. They do not show at all clearly of what nature those intrigues were. After the failure in England caused by his indiscretion Coleman probably did not accord him full confidence. St. Germain’s complaints of his treatment were constant; and he was always in want of money.[88] Nor does the Italian correspondence throw much greater light. Cardinal Howard’s letters extend with somewhat longer intervals from January 1676 to the end of the following year. They tell still less of the political intrigues. The business passing through Howard’s hands was considerable. He was concerned with the difficult business of keeping the Duke of York on good terms with the Pope. Coleman’s endeavours to keep up the pretence that James was not engaged to French schemes were not uniformly successful, and on the death of Clement X Howard received definite orders from home to vote in the conclave with the French party. Yet the task was accomplished with some adroitness. Howard was able to persuade the Pope that the marriage of Mary of York to the Prince of Orange was not due to her father’s fault, and on another occasion obtained a letter from James to Innocent XI of such sweetness that “the good man in reading it could not abstain from tears.” Sinister rumours were afloat at Rome of the duke’s Jesuit connection, and repeated warnings were sent that, if they proved true, his cause would be ruined. There were even grave doubts as to the genuine character of his faith. For some time the troublesome conduct of an English Protestant agent at Florence occupied Howard’s attention. The Inquisition bestirred itself in the matter. A triangular correspondence between Howard, Coleman, and Lord Arundel resulted in the man’s recall and led them to debate the possibility of a match between the Princess Anne and the son of the Duke of Florence. Another source of continual trouble was Prince Rinaldo d’Este in his quest for a cardinal’s hat. While his niece, the Duchess of York, backed by a special envoy from the court of Modena, was worrying the French ambassador in London for Louis XIV’s support, Coleman applied directly to Howard at Rome. Promises of consideration for the matter were all that could be obtained. The prince, who had no claims other than those of family, afterwards gained his object by constant importunity. Courtin had information that the Spanish ambassador had offered the Duke of York the whole credit of Spain for the prosecution of Rinaldo’s suit if he would quit the French interest, and therefore could not risk the result of a definite refusal; but neither Paris nor Rome manifested at this time the slightest intention to support the Modenese pretensions.[89] Cardinal Howard was in fact the official correspondent of the English Catholic party at Rome, and beyond the general business of helping in the amelioration of Catholic conditions and the improvement of the relations between different sections of the party, had little to do with particular schemes that might be fostered by one or another. Thus the literary evidence on the development of Roman Catholic policy in England is of the slightest. Accessible documents give little information. Nothing can be known exactly. The course of events between the years 1675 and 1678 cannot be elucidated by aid of the evidence of those who shaped it. The argument must be from the known to the unknown.

To start with, it is known that Coleman’s correspondence did not cease, as he stated, in the year 1675. On the contrary, it was maintained down to the day of his arrest and even beyond.[90] Among others it is almost certain that he continued his negotiation with Père de la Chaize.[91] The subject of this later correspondence is debatable. It may have been concerned with a design again to establish the Roman Catholic religion in England. Or it may not; and in this case Coleman’s letters may have been filled with matters of less importance, such as are to be found in those of Cardinal Howard. This alternative however is hardly tenable. Not only are there allusions in St. Germain’s letters inexplicable except on the supposition that they refer to the hopes of the Catholics for the re-establishment of their religion, but the position of Coleman and the Jesuits rendered a continuance of their schemes virtually necessary. Early in 1676 St. Germain wrote that he had urged on La Chaize the absolute necessity of “vigorous counsels ... to produce success in the traffic of the Catholics”; in these, he said, the Duke of York took the lead, and that by the inspiration of Coleman. A month later he added that Coleman was incurring reproof at Paris on account of the violent measures he was said to advocate. The secretary of the English ambassador tried to ingratiate himself with the Jesuit by professing great zeal for the duke; was he sincere, asked St. Germain, and “has the duke all along trusted him with the secret of his affair”? On Ruvigny’s return to Paris from his embassy St. Germain had an interview with him. Ruvigny expressed the opinion that the intrigues of Coleman and the Jesuits would prove fatal to James. Their conduct was detestable not only to Protestants and the government, but to a certain section of the Catholics also, “because,” said the ambassador, “they would introduce an authority without limits and push Mr. Coleman to make such strange steps which must precipitate them into destruction.”[92] Had the policy of which St. Germain was an agent been wholly without reproach, it would be hard to ascribe an adequate meaning to expressions like these. Coleman’s anxiety to deny his correspondence would be equally difficult of explanation. Curious too would be the comment of Pomponne, the French minister for foreign affairs; for he undertook to prove the absurdity of the charges against Coleman by remarking in ridicule that he had even been accused of intriguing with Père de la Chaize, a fact the truth of which was perfectly known to him.[93] The situation of affairs argues with still greater force. The Jesuits were beyond all others the most militant order of the church. They formed the advance guard in the march against heresy. They had already borne, and were again to bear, the brunt of the battle. It was their particular business to carry war into the enemy’s camp, for this was the reason as well as the excuse for their existence. They must work, fight, intrigue against the heretic and the heretic state, or leave their mission unfulfilled. And Coleman was in the same position. He was a pupil of the Jesuits, and under the guise of secretary to the Duchess of York maintained an active correspondence with agents abroad in the interest of their chief hope, the duke. Intrigue was his business, and his conduct of it was made more eager by the keenness of a convert. No one in the least acquainted with the history of the Jesuits and with the writings of their apologists can believe that their method of procedure was by conversion of individuals alone. The society has always been in its essence political, and in the troubled times of the seventeenth century political action of the exiled, the feared, the reputed traitor was seldom calculated to avoid the retribution of the laws by which those against whom it was directed were fenced. The penal laws were harsh, but harshness was of necessity; and the very necessity of their harshness begot retaliation; while retaliation completed the circle by driving into conflict with the law many who would have been glad to obey in peace and nurse conscience in quiet.

The class of Catholics whom Ruvigny found opposed to the Jesuit policy was large. At the close of the seventeenth century it probably comprised a majority of Roman Catholics in England. These were they who would take the oath of allegiance to their sovereign, holding it no bar to their faith, the followers of Blackloe, of Peter Walsh, of John Sergeant, the men who thought it no shame to liberalise belief by divorcing it from statecraft, the adherents of the church but not of the court of Rome.[94] The Jesuits had already once in the reign of Charles II interposed to prevent Roman Catholics in England from bettering their position, and when persecution fell on these in the evil days of Oates’ grandeur, they showed to the astonishment of the society that it had earned small gratitude from them.[95] On the question of the oath of allegiance the English Catholic body was divided throughout the century. Catholics were willing to prove their loyalty by taking the oath, but this proof they were not allowed to give. The fruitless concessions offered by Charles I showed conclusively that despite all protestations the papal party would not abandon the deposing power. Whenever the movement in favour of the oath seemed to be gaining strength, the whole weight of the papal court and of the Society of Jesus was thrown into the scale against it. It was probably the only point upon which the two were at this time in agreement. The Earls of Bristol, Berkshire, Cardigan, Lord Stafford, and Lord Petre actually took the oath, and of these, horrid thought to the Jesuits, two had for their confessors Benedictines; Lord Arundel, and for a time the Duke of York, stood firm in refusal.[96] The division between the Catholics was purely political; it marked those on whose loyalty reliance could be placed from those who must be suspected of disloyalty; and the former class suffered for what the latter alone undertook. The line lay between the Catholic and the Jesuit parties, between those who would be satisfied with liberty of conscience and those who would not. Undoubtedly the Catholic body in England was much weakened thereby, and government owed not a little to the moderate Catholics; but however much the execution of Catholic policy was hampered, its direction was not diverted. Abstinence from political action was the basis of the pure Catholic position. The Jesuits held the wires of politics in their hands and directed the policy. They too affirmed purity of faith to be their motive. “Prosecution for matters of conscience,” remarks Halifax, “is very unjust; but great care ought to be taken that private conscience is not pleaded against the security of the public constitution. For when private conscience comes to be a justifiable rule of action, a man may be a traitor to the state and plead conscience for treason.”[97]

Thus it may be accepted that Coleman’s correspondence between the years 1675 and 1678 was not of an entirely innocent character, but was concerned with matters of perilous import for the prosperity of the government and of the Church of England. Since it was not dropped, the negotiation must have proceeded either in the same line as that in which it lay at the end of 1675 or in another. Did the design drag on a weary course in the feeble hope of finding a parliament congenial to Roman Catholic ideas and of obtaining the king’s support in return for a substantial sum of money: or did the Catholic politicians change their tactics to discover a better opening? If the argument is thus far sound, answer can be made without hesitation. Early in that year Coleman and his party had found that in the event of a dissolution of Parliament they could not hope for a third declaration of indulgence and the reappointment of the Duke of York to the offices which he had formerly held. The design was thereupon altered to a scheme for bribing the existing parliament to petition for the recall to office of James, and to pass an act for general liberty of conscience. Coleman’s ideas were based on two miscalculations. He understood neither the temper of the English people nor the character of Charles II. The king was to him an amiable debauchee, caring only for his pleasures and his pocket. A sufficient present of money would induce him to retire from the management of affairs and console himself with his mistresses, leaving the reins of power for his brother to handle. As most men of his own and after times have thought the same, Coleman’s mistake is perhaps excusable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not money, but power was what Charles wanted, and in the use of power, not of money, he was skilled. Any plan grounded upon this conception of his character was foredoomed to failure. Equally grave was the other miscalculation, and in this too Coleman was not peculiar. A man looking back on the history of the seventeenth century, and guided by the story of the Revolution, can say with assurance that any attempt in its latter half to restore Catholicism in England must have been hopeless of success. The nation which drove out James II would have driven out another for the like cause. Charles himself had learnt this in the best of schools. The fact may have been plain to clear-sighted statesmen, but to the mass a restoration of the old religion was looked on as among events that were more than possible. Here was the root of the deep hatred of Catholicism cherished by the English nation. Not only was the event hoped by the one side, but it was feared by the other. And the hopeful party had more reason to hope than the fearful to fear. Englishmen might with justice anticipate intrigues and even plots, but never their success. But the Jesuit, whose education was continental and whose ideas were traditional, was unaware of the change that had passed over England. He was still inspired by the genius and followed the example of the dead Robert Parsons. His mind was filled with the great instances of past times. Henry VIII, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth had drawn their subjects with them like sheep from one church into another. Within the memory of man a wave of Puritanism had swept over the country, tottered, and broken. There followed a loyal reaction and a court in which strong elements were Catholic. The people who had so willingly followed their leaders before might be expected to do so again. The hope of rebuilding the ruins of Jerusalem was strong in the belief of its possibility.[98] Such notions render the undertaking of Coleman and his party intelligible. But they were not blinded by prejudice to the obvious meaning of facts passing within range of their own observation. One scheme had already been abandoned: the second was to be abandoned now. For if the former had proved impracticable, much more so was the latter. To ask the House of Commons in the year 1676 to pass an act of religious toleration and to petition in favour of the Duke of York was to suggest that it should contradict its nature. The strongest characteristic of the Cavalier Parliament was its hatred of Roman Catholicism. It had already forced the retractation of two declarations of indulgence, and had on several occasions instituted proceedings against the Catholics. Coleman’s experience perhaps led him to ascribe an undue importance to the influence of money. Dishonest members of the country party might accept bribes from the French king when the course which they were asked to take would be to the embarrassment of government, but not all the gold of France would induce them to put a weapon of such strength into the grasp of the court as to petition for what they had repeatedly prevented it from accomplishing. Popery and tyranny, it was said, went hand in hand. It must soon have been seen by the Catholic managers that such a policy was hopeless. If this was not evident at first, it must have become more than plain when early in April 1676 the Duke of York took the momentous step of ceasing to go to the royal chapel, and all England knew that he was a Catholic. It was the first occasion for a long time on which he had acted not in consonance with the ideas of France. Rome was delighted and recognised him as a true son, but elsewhere the news was not hailed with such joy. James had obtained his brother’s consent only with difficulty. Pomponne marked the withdrawal of the declaration of indulgence as the beginning of the troubles that crowded on the royal authority in England. The duke’s declaration created a notable addition. The effect of his move was instantaneous. Throughout the country the feeling roused was intense, the penal laws were once more put into execution, and Charles told the French ambassador that if he were to die the duke would not be allowed to remain in the country eight days.[99] It is perhaps to this time that the abandonment of the second scheme sketched by Coleman to La Chaize should be referred.[100] There can at all events be no doubt that its impracticable nature soon became manifest. It was therefore along another line that the design proceeded from the summer of 1676 onwards.

Since the year 1670 various ways of procuring success for the Catholic religion have thus been considered, adopted, and abandoned. The policy of the Dover treaty had been led by Charles. Had it been successful he would have been left at the head of a Catholic state, controlled and compact. That had been blown to the winds. The declaration of indulgence, faint resemblance of the plan which was to have been put into execution, was the direct result of royal authority. With its failure the king’s leadership in the last movement of the counter-reformation ceased. Then followed the two schemes which Coleman related to La Chaize. In the one the motive power was to be the king, backed by the ministers and Parliament; in the other Parliament, working on the king and supported by him. When these were deserted, practically every arrangement in which the king could figure as chief had been tried. The game of the Dover treaty had been opened by the king, backed by French force; that of the declaration by the king’s move alone; Coleman had suggested action by the king and Parliament, by Parliament and the king. Unless one of these moves was made again, Charles would stand in the background of the game; none would be made again, for each had been proved ineffective. Even by the last two the object had been to raise the authority not of the king, but of the Duke of York. The only remaining possibility was that the duke should be not only the object, but the leader of the game. He was the piece with which the move had to be made.

In what direction then could the move be made? So far from being an assistance to the Catholic movement, Charles was now a direct hindrance to it. He had abandoned the Catholic interest as a political weapon, and had engaged in a policy of Anglican predominance. Undoubtedly the design must be conducted behind his back, but it was impossible not to take count of his position and influence in the state. Three courses were left open to the managers of the movement. The king might be forced to take action on their side, or he might be thrust away from it, or he might be gradually elbowed into a position where his personal action would be negligible. The last course had already been considered. During the winter of 1674 and spring of the next year Lord Berkshire and Sir William Throckmorton had submitted the advisability of adopting a platform, the chief planks in which should be the debauchery and political profligacy of the king and the sobriety and ability of the Duke of York. By this means they hoped that all the supporters of order and moderation would be drawn to the duke, James would be surrounded by a compact and influential party composed of Catholics and Protestants alike, the whole management of affairs would eventually fall into his hands, and the king would be left beyond the range of politics, ousted from their control, contented with the otiose life of a peaceful rake.[101] This however had been discarded for the plans submitted by Coleman to Père de la Chaize, in turn to be relegated to the domain of untried political suggestion. The scope for the design was therefore reduced to the alternatives: Charles must either be thrust on one side or be compelled to take action in it himself. As he had already been tried as a leader and had failed, the latter course would mean that the plan should run without him, until at the moment of success he should be forced by the necessity of events to throw in his lot with the movement. In the former case the course of events would be exactly similar, save that the king would not be taken into the scheme at any point, and the movement would be carried to completion without him. That both of these courses involved treasonable schemes is hardly open to doubt. The logical end of the negotiations in either case was a coup d’état, in whatever degree, a revolutionary measure.

In March of the year 1679 the Earl of Berkshire lay dying in Paris. A month later a man passing under the name of John Johnson landed at Folkestone, and was arrested at Dover on his way to London. He was a certain Colonel John Scott, for whose arrival the authorities had been on the watch for some time past. Whether or no he was the same Colonel Scott who acted as an English spy in Holland during the second Dutch war it is impossible to say. Latterly he had been attached to the household of the Prince de Condé, and had commanded a troop of horse in the French service.[102] Subsequent events make it seem likely that orders for the Colonel’s apprehension were issued by the secretary of state, owing to the belief that he had information of value to impart. To the officers at Dover he ascribed his return to England to a desire to see his native country, but when he reached London he told a different tale. As the Earl of Berkshire lay on his deathbed, he sent for Colonel Scott, who had vainly called a famous physician to his aid, and bade him take a message to the king. There had been a foolish and an ill design carried on in England, he said. He was a good Roman Catholic, and in the Catholic religion he was minded to die; but some of his faith were swayed by a giddy madness, and this he blamed. He was neither a contriver nor a great supporter of the business. He would not have had a hand in it but that Lord Arundel, Coleman, and others had told him that it could not miscarry, and that, if he did not stand with them, evil would be thought of him. That he ought long before to have disclosed what he knew he was well aware; personal duty and the allegiance of every man to his sovereign should have constrained him to speak; there were bad men in the matter, Lord Bellasis and others, who spoke ill of the king and very irreverently. But to his knowledge there was never talk of killing the king; if there had been, he would have spoken out. Then Colonel Scott asked who those others were; but Lord Berkshire begged for no questions, repeating, “If I had known of approaching dangers to the king, I should have told him.” Presently the sick man began to sigh and to weep. “Friend,” said he, “I see things will go as you will. For God’s sake promise me you will find some way to tell the king every word I say, and that though some passages in letters of mine may look a little oddly, I would have run any hazard rather than have suffered any injury to have been done to his Majesty’s person. ’Tis true I would have been glad to see all England Catholic, but not by the way of some ill men.” Let the king have nothing to do with those he had named, nor with Stafford, nor Powis, nor Petre. Yet he hoped and believed that matter would not be found against them to take away their lives.[103] If Colonel Scott spoke truth, then the foregoing argument is certainly not quite baseless. And reason may be given for supposing this to be the case. At the time when Scott gave his information the fact of Berkshire’s correspondence with Coleman was not publicly known. Coleman had already been tried and executed, and at the trial a number of his letters were read as evidence against him, but among them none from Lord Berkshire. Until the publication of the correspondence by order of the House of Commons this was the only channel by which particular knowledge of it reached the world at large. The other letters were not published until December 1680. It must therefore be supposed that Scott obtained his knowledge of the earl’s correspondence privately. The only persons who had private knowledge on the subject were Lord Berkshire, the officials in whose custody the letters lay, and Coleman. Coleman was dead before Colonel Scott came into England, and the secretary of state by whom he was examined would have been most unlikely to furnish him with materials. It must therefore have been from Lord Berkshire himself that he obtained his information. But, it may be suggested, Scott may have drawn his bow at a venture, knowing merely that Berkshire was a prominent Catholic, and using his name as likely to gain credence for his story. The weight against this suggestion is heavy. If Scott had been for all he knew inventing the letters of which he spoke, he would surely have said more about them than he did. To mention them in so casual a manner would have been useless. The simplicity and directness of his relation points in this matter to its substantial truth. Another proof of genuineness has still greater force, the extreme moderation of the whole narrative. A scoundrel following in the track of Oates and Bedloe would never have concocted such a story. So far from being to his advantage, what Scott said might actually put him into a most unpleasant predicament. The chief point of the plot which Oates had discovered was the king’s assassination. The chief agents in it were said to be the Jesuits. All the informers who came after spoke to the same effect and tried to spice their tales still more highly. Scott said not a word about the Jesuits. He stated on his sole authority, one of the men who might be expected to know, that no harm was intended to the king. To some extent what he said is borne out by Berkshire’s letters. Passages in them must certainly have looked “a little oddly” to the government, and perhaps contained matters technically treasonable, but in nothing do they suggest any personal danger to the king. No one looking for the rewards of a professional informer would have acted as Colonel Scott. Nor did he ever seek these. He never came forward to give evidence against those condemned for the Plot. His name does not appear in the list of secret service money, doled out to the shameless witnesses for the crown. Nothing more is known of him.[104] His information may be accepted as genuine. Clearly then there was some truth in the discovery of a Roman Catholic conspiracy in the year 1678. What Lord Berkshire said sketches its essence. Oates was not after all aiming shafts entirely at random. During his stay in the Jesuit seminaries in Spain and Flanders he must have obtained an inkling of what was in the air, and proceeded to act upon the information to his best advantage. That the whole truth had little resemblance to his tale of fire and massacre is certain, but the tale was not wholly devoid of truth. His vast superstructure of lies was not without a slight basis of solid fact.

This conclusion can in some degree be supported from other sources. Any attempt to reconstruct the part played by the Catholic reformation in the years preceding the appearance of Oates must be chiefly conjectural. Scarcely any evidence on the subject is known, but what more comes to hand points in the same direction. In December 1680, as he lay in the Tower under sentence for high treason, Lord Stafford sent a message by Dr. Burnet and the Earl of Carlisle to the House of Lords that he would confess all he knew of the Catholic intrigues. He was admitted to speak from the bar of the House. Unfortunately his statement does not refer at all to the later years of the movement, for when he came to describe the project debated between Shaftesbury and the Duke of York for a coalition between the Catholic and country parties to obtain a dissolution of Parliament and general toleration, Stafford was stopped hastily at the mention of the great Whig leader’s name. To a few more questions put he simply answered no, and was presently sent back to the Tower. Cut short as it was, his account is of some value. He admitted that he had endeavoured to alter the established faith, and gave some details of the meeting held early in Charles II’s reign at the Earl of Bristol’s house to discuss the oath of allegiance. He had always disapproved the policy of the declarations of indulgence, and marked them as causes of the downfall of his religion. At one time he almost decided to leave England and live beyond sea. Others however were not of his opinion. The Papists and Jesuits had been far too open in their conduct, he said, and he had even seen a priest in the House of Lords standing below the bar. All his fellow peers, excepting the Earl of Bristol, were in favour of toleration for the Catholics. There was even talk of a restitution of the church lands, but Stafford warned the Duke of York that they were in so many hands as to render any attempt of the kind impracticable.[105] All this does not amount to much; nevertheless it shows a drift in one direction. Other straws are floated down the same stream. In the summer of 1678, when it was doubtful whether or no England would declare war on Louis XIV, Catholics in Ireland were discussing the chances in that event of a rebellion in their country aided by France. Calculations were made on the strength of the French navy, and there was talk of a rising in Scotland as well.[106] There were Jesuit missioners in Scotland, poor and hard worked, and it is possible that Jesuit influence had been concerned in organising the rebellion there in the year 1666;[107] while in 1679 there was serious consideration of a movement in Ireland under Colonel Fitzpatrick, who crossed to Brussels during the Duke of York’s exile there to consult with him.[108] More definite information can be obtained from the case of Père de la Colombière. The celebrated Jesuit preacher, famed for his propagation of the cult of the Sacred Heart, was living in England at the time of the Popish Plot panic, and acting as confessor to the Duchess of York, Two Frenchmen, Olivier du Fiquet or Figuère and Francois Verdier, accused him to the House of Lords of extraordinary activity in spreading the Catholic religion. La Colombière had concealed himself, but was discovered, arrested, and shipped out of the country. Besides the general charge of caring for the growth of his faith, he was accused of a close connection with Coleman and Père de la Chaize. In attempting the conversion of Fiquet, who was a Protestant, he had used as an argument that the Duke of York was openly, and the king in secret, Catholic by faith. Parliament, he said, should not always be master; in a short time all England would be changed.[109] Supposing that these men had wished to make their accusation a source of gain, they would have charged the confessor with being a party to the king’s assassination, or at least to the plot in general. Since they did not, their statements may be taken as true. Nothing dishonourable was alleged against La Colombière, but he plainly harboured the expectation of seeing England before long Catholic. His hope was shared by others; for in advising on the establishment of a nunnery by the Yorkshire baronet, Sir Thomas Gascoigne, the Jesuit John Pracid wrote on June 9, 1678 to suggest the insertion of a clause in the deed, depending on the condition: “If England be converted.”[110] At most the evidence is slight, but it seems clear that the Jesuit party was indulging in hopes considerably more active than they could naturally have been if wholly unsupported by any plan of action.

While the schemes of which these traces are to be found were in the air, Oates was studying and being expelled from Valladolid and St. Omers. There were in Flanders twenty-seven English Roman Catholic seminaries; five belonged to the Jesuits, and of these the establishment at St. Omers was the largest. It contained some thirty professed fathers and a hundred and twenty scholars.[111] Probably the best education in Europe was provided for the boys, and life there was comfortable; but to the unwilling the seminary became a prison. Pressure was put upon them to become priests, and communication with the outside world was carefully restricted. In a letter preserved from this time a Welsh boy, placed in the college by a wicked uncle, wrote secretly to his father begging piteously to redeem him from his great captivity.[112] Here, unless he made a prodigious guess, the most fortunate in history, Oates must have acquired hints dropped on the subject of the movement in England. It is not very profitable to speculate on the question exactly how much truth his vivid imagination concealed. Possibly a demonstration of force was suggested, organised by the great Catholic nobles and relying on support for the Duke of York to be gained in the navy. The fleet was at the moment being strengthened by the addition of several capital ships, and in the spring of 1678 was at full strength in sea service, with complete stores for six months.[113] If this were the case, if Arundel, Bellasis, and Stafford were implicated in the affair, but nothing definitely arranged so soon as the autumn of 1678, Oates’ diffident denunciation of these peers and the evident falsehoods which he, Bedloe, and Dugdale afterwards told in their statements regarding the Popish army, would be sufficiently accounted for. Or again, it is possible that the design included help from France in money, and perhaps the use of the English regiments employed in the French service. Many of their officers were Irishmen, and most Catholics.[114] For this it would be necessary to wait until peace was definitely concluded in order that both men and money might be liberated from the calls on them. Such a supposition would go some way to explain the “dark, suspicious letter” seized at Coleman’s house after his arrest, and bearing the date September 18, 1678. The writer, posting from Paris, informed Coleman that the peace had broken all their plans, for the French pretended that since its conclusion they had no need of his party. Yet there was hope from another quarter. Let an agent known to him be sent over. “To put our traffic afoot,” continues the letter, “it’s absolutely necessary that my friend come speedily over to you, to converse with you and our other friends, because his measures are so well taken in Italy, that we can’t miss to establish this commodity better from those parts than from any here at present, tho’ hereafter we may find means and helps from hence too. But it’s most certain, now is the time or never to put things in order to establish it with you.”[115] The letter seems to point to hopes of early aid from France, since disappointed. In this case Père de la Chaize, or whoever managed the affair in France, may have thought that the gold of French Catholics could be put to better purpose than to assist their fellows of the faith in England in a forlorn hope. The likelihood of such a desertion is to some extent supported by the refusal of the French government in November 1678 to take any steps to assist the Duke of York or his party.[116] But from the scraps of evidence obtainable it is plain that the design, supposing it to have been such as is here sketched, had not advanced beyond the stage of negotiation, ready to be construed into immediate action.

According to the information which Lord Berkshire gave to Colonel Scott, no harm was intended to the king; at least he knew of none. This may well have been; but at the same time it is necessary to remember that Charles was at the moment the greatest impediment to the chance of Catholic success. He was little older than his brother, and enjoyed far better health. As far as could be judged, he was by no means likely to be the first to die. He had definitely adopted a policy adverse to the Catholics. If he were to die, the charge of revolutionary dealing would lie at the door of those who should attempt to keep the Duke of York from the throne. So long as he lived, any attempt to restore the Roman Catholic religion in England, certainly any attempt made behind his back, would be a matter of high treason and against the interests of peace and established order. This much only can be said with safety, that the brothers hated each other,[117] that the death of the king was talked of in Jesuit seminaries on the continent,[118] and that James was not above tolerating, if he did not direct, an attempt to murder the husband of his daughter.[119]