A storm of indignation arose. The irate husband hurried off to Lambeth to enlist the sympathy of Laud, who, nothing loath, laid the matter before the King and the Council. "I did my duty to the King and State openly in Council,"[197] wrote the Archbishop complacently to Wentworth. The names of Sir Toby Matthew and of Walter Montagu were freely mentioned in connection with the conversion, and though well-informed persons believed that Con alone was to blame, these two gentlemen did not escape a considerable measure of unpopularity. Laud, who, though he was anxious not to offend the Queen, was becoming alarmed at the boldness of the Catholics, went down on his knees to the King, praying for the banishment of Montagu, and for leave to proceed against Sir Toby in the High Commission Court. As for Con, he said bitterly, he knew neither how he came to Court nor what he was doing there, and therefore he would say nothing of him.
The King did not grant the Archbishop's modest request, but at the Council table he spoke so bitterly of both the culprits that "the fright made Wat keep his chamber longer than his sickness would have detained him, and Don Tobiah was in such perplexity that I find he will make a very ill man to be a martyr, by now the dog doth again wag his tail."[198]
The storm, indeed, quickly blew over. Lord Newport forgave his wife, who discreetly retired to France for a time. Even the Queen, who had been greatly angered at the treatment of the Catholics, particularly of Montagu, forgave the Archbishop and received him with the modified favour which was all she ever had to bestow upon him. Everything seemed to be as before, only perhaps Laud kept a more watchful eye upon the recusants, and two years later he was able to take a revenge at once upon the Queen and upon her priests by causing "two great Trusses of Popish books,"[199] coming from France for the use of the Capuchins, to be seized by the officers of the Court of High Commission.
But unfortunately the troubles which had been occasioned by the conversion of the Countess of Newport did not deter other susceptible ladies from following in her steps. "The great women fall away every day,"[200] sighed a good Protestant, writing to a friend in May, 1638. That his plaint was not without cause is evident from the following portion of a letter which was written by a foreigner who was then resident in England:—
"The Queen's Majesty has frequented her chapel of Somerset House all Holy Week with great concourse and rejoicing of these Catholics, to the great chagrin of the Puritans. Besides the accustomed ceremonies and devotions of this week, on Holy Saturday a score of ladies of the Court, of whom the chief was the Duchess of Buckingham, were seen to receive all the ceremonies of baptism (except the water) at the hands of a Capuchin Father, and afterwards the sacrament of confirmation at those of the Bishop of Angoulême, the Grand Almoner of the Queen. All was done within the chapel in the tribune of Her Majesty ... and in her presence. These ladies desired this kind of second baptism because they received the first at the hands of Protestant ministers, which they hold to be valid in a certain sense, and yet nevertheless mutilated."
The narrator goes on to speak of the anger of the Puritans, who complained bitterly of such proceedings and of the indifference of Charles to their clamour. "They will have to calm themselves," he adds, for "to-day the Queen has greater authority with the King than any one else."[201]
This was in the spring of the year 1638, a few months after the beginning of the Scotch troubles and two years and a half before the meeting of the Long Parliament.
[ [185]"My sute is that if ever you have occasion to speak to the Blessed Queene (Anne) of any ill thing that you express it by naming me, for that's the only way I can hope she should ever heare of me againe."—Walter Montagu to Earl of Carlisle. Egerton MS., 2596.
[ [186]Cal. S.P. Dom., 1635, p. 512.