It is no wonder that the English Catholics were in high spirits. The more moderate of them who were weary of being considered bad subjects for principles which they did not hold were glad to testify their loyalty not only to the Independents, but to the King, who had always been suspicious of it; a large number of Catholics came forward to sign the negative of the Three Propositions,[356] among whom were members of the religious Orders, even of the Society of Jesus, and well-known laymen, such as the Marquis of Winchester, whose defence of Basing House had won the admiration of the whole Royalist party, and Walter Montagu, who, though he was still in prison, was allowed to intermix in the negotiation.
Out in Paris the Queen, who had spent her life trying to persuade her husband of the unimpeachable loyalty of her co-religionists, was doing her part. In July, even before the Three Propositions were drawn up, she put further pressure upon Rome for aid; there were men, there were munitions, all that was needed was money; surely in such a crisis to gain all that was at stake the Holy Father would supply it. She sent her instructions to Digby and waited in hope.
Sir Kenelm pressed with all his eloquence the needs of the Catholics and their great opportunity. Perhaps the Pope was a little overwhelmed by his flow of words, for he requested him to put his arguments on paper; Digby, nothing loath, drew up memorials, of which the burden was always the need of money to enable the Catholics to take an influential part in the settlement which was believed to be pending. He descanted upon the hopes raised by the unexpected revolt of the Independents, who wished to destroy the Presbyterians and to favour the Catholics. The latter were exhausted by years of war and persecution, but if the Holy Father would only show a timely liberality they could so intervene as to bring about not only their own salvation, but that of their co-religionists in Ireland, thus saving the Pope the great expenses he was incurring on behalf of the Confederate Catholics. Moreover, by such conduct he would give proof that by sending Rinuccini to Ireland he had had no desire but the good of religion; if he refused the Queen's request, added Digby impressively, it would mean the ruin of religion, both in England and Ireland.
Innocent may have given some attention to Digby's arguments, but probably at no time did he think of acting upon them. The reputation of the envoy, which was not improved by his disrespectful, if just, criticisms of the methods of the Papal Court, told heavily against his requests. Moreover, the Queen herself was little trusted, particularly in Irish affairs, for she was believed to put the interests of her husband above those of religion, and to favour unduly Lord Ormonde, to whom (in the vain hope of bringing about an accommodation between him and the Confederates) she had recently sent an agent, by name George Leybourn,[357] who, though a Catholic priest, belonged to a very different school of thought from that of the fierce Rinuccini. Besides, the recent events in England were prejudicial to Henrietta's interests in Rome.
The negotiation of the Three Propositions was considered a private matter, but it came to the ears of the Pope. Innocent probably was aware that it was to a great extent managed by a section of the secular clergy, who, perhaps from their close connection with the intellectual society of Paris, held Gallican views of so extreme a type that they would gladly have settled the matter without reference to Rome, and who saw in the whole affair a nice opportunity of getting rid of their enemies the Jesuits, whom they thoughtfully suggested should be excluded from the general toleration; indeed, one of the chief supporters of the scheme was a priest named Holden, who was a great friend of Sir Kenelm Digby and Thomas White, and who had long been noted for the extravagance of his opinions.[358] This gentleman, now resident in Paris, wrote encouraging letters to his co-religionists in England, assuring them that their attitude on the questions raised by the Three Propositions was that of all the learned and judicious men of France. It is true that some of the more timid English Catholics, notwithstanding such encouragement, became alarmed, and wrote an exculpatory letter to the Holy Father, in which they informed him that the denial they had given to the Three Propositions was "in, the negative to theyr affirmative who presented them unto us, not absolutely in theyr negative, for that had indeed intruded further upon the Pope's authority than the subscribers were willing to doe."[359] But even such refinements could not save the conduct of the English Catholics from condemnation at Rome, where the deposing power was not so lightly to be parted with. Thus it is not surprising that Henrietta waited for a reply from the Pope with the heart-sickness of hope deferred. She did not know, what had long been confessed among the initiated, that the Holy Father's chief object was the success of the Confederate Catholics,[360] to whom in the spring of that same year he had sent, together with his paternal benediction, the sum of 50,000 crowns. In September she took up her ever-ready pen and wrote herself to Innocent, a sad letter, in which she speaks of her devotion to the Catholic faith, and of the good intentions which had not been seconded as they should have been. It is not known whether the Pope replied to these reproaches, but a month later he received Sir Kenelm Digby once again, though he was probably aware of the fact that that gentleman was hand-in-glove with those whom he had censured in England.
That gentleman's temper had not been improved by his long trials; the last memorial[361] which he drew up, which was to a great length, is extremely acrid in tone. It dwells with justice upon the services which the Queen had rendered to the Catholic Church, upon the fair hopes which had been blighted by the war. It speaks of the ill reception accorded to her friends—among whom are mentioned Richard Crashaw and Patrick Cary, the brother of Lord Falkland—at the Papal Court. Finally, it dwells with particular and not unmerited bitterness upon the conduct of Rinuccini, who, it was believed, had a secret commission to separate Ireland from England. It happened that just about the time of the presentation of this memorial the hopes of toleration for the Catholics in England disappeared as suddenly as they had arisen, for the two Houses of Parliament voted that religious liberty should not extend to the toleration of Papists;[362] but even had this untoward incident not occurred, Digby can hardly have expected much from the Pope. The answer came at last in March, 1648, and it was cold and decisive. The Holy Father would have liked to help the Queen of England, but seeing no hope of the success of the Catholics, he felt that he could not indulge his inclination.[363] Sir Kenelm shook the dust of Rome off his feet and left it more convinced than ever of what he had written a year previously, that no one could succeed at the Papal Court without money and influence, and that "piety, honour, generosity, devotion, zeal for the Catholic faith and for the service of God, with all other vertues, heroic and theological,"[364] were banished thence. Henrietta would perhaps hardly have endorsed this comprehensive indictment; but she was bitterly disappointed, and she was incapable of perceiving that from his own point of view Innocent was right in refusing money, of which such Catholics as Sir Kenelm Digby[365] and his friends would have had the spending. On larger principles also the papal policy was justified. The idea of founding a solid toleration for Catholics upon the basis of a union of the King and the Independents was chimerical, for those among the Puritans who favoured the scheme were but a small minority of advanced views, and even they, it seems, soon repented of their liberality. Even had Charles been trustworthy (and in this, as in other cases, he paid the penalty of his incurable shiftiness), the anti-Catholic feeling of the nation, which had been one of the chief causes of the war, would never have permitted the antedating by more than a century of the repeal of the penal laws, and had the guarantees been given they would assuredly have been broken. With regard to Ireland, the Queen is perhaps less to be blamed. She knew that the Confederate Catholics hoped much from her, and she could not know that Rinuccini, the envoy of the Holy Father, was using all his influence against her, or fathom the depth of the malice which led him to write that "from the Queen of England we must hope nothing except propositions hurtful to religion, since she is entirely in the hands of Jermyn, Digby, and other heretics."[366]
* * * * *
"He perished for lack of knowing the truth," said Henrietta once of her husband, with a flash of insight not often given to her. That which was true of Charles was true of her also; she was her father's daughter, and she desired to know the truth, and she was accustomed to say that the chief need of princes was faithful counsellors who would declare it to them; but to such knowledge she could not reach. Her schemes, with all their ingenuity, failed one after another because she was unable to grasp the conditions in which she worked, or to read the motives and characters of the people with whom she had to deal. She lived in a world of unreality built up of the love which she bore to her husband, which made her as unable to understand that the restoration of Charles Stuart to the throne he had lost was not the main object of the diplomacy of Europe, as she was to appreciate the fact that such negotiations as those which she, the Queen of a Protestant country, carried on with the Pope and the Catholics of Europe were more fatal to him than the swords or the malice of his enemies.
[ [308]Loret: La Muse Historique (1859), t. II, p. 393.