[591] The day fixed upon suggested a comparison which, though severe, was obvious. A modern writer has observed on this, "They were careful not to remember that the same day, and for the same reason, because the tithes were commonly due at Michaelmas, had been appointed for the former ejectment, when four times as many of the loyal clergy were deprived for fidelity to their sovereign." Southey's Hist. of the Church, ii. 467. That the day was chosen in order to deprive the incumbent of a whole year's tithes, Mr. Southey has learned from Burnet; and it aggravates the cruelty of the proceeding—but where has he found his precedent? The Anglican clergy were ejected for refusing the covenant at no one definite period, as, on recollection, Mr. S. would be aware; nor can I find any one parliamentary ordinance in Husband's Collection that mentions St. Bartholomew's day. There was a precedent indeed in that case, which the government of Charles did not choose to follow. One-fifth of the income had been reserved for the dispossessed incumbents.
[592] Journals, April 26. This may perhaps have given rise to a mistake we find in Neal, 624, that the act of uniformity only passed by 186 to 180. There was no division at all upon the bill except that I have mentioned.
[593] The report of the conference (Lords' Journals, 7th May) is altogether rather curious.
[594] Lords' Journals, 25th and 27th July 1663; Ralph, 58.
[595] Neal, 625-636. Baxter told Burnet, as the latter says (p. 185), that not above 300 would have resigned, had the terms of the king's declaration been adhered to. The blame, he goes on, fell chiefly on Sheldon. But Clarendon was charged with entertaining the presbyterians with good words, while he was giving way to the bishops. See also p. 268. Baxter puts the number of the deprived at 1800. Life, 384. And it has generally been reckoned about 2000; though Burnet says it has been much controverted. If indeed we can rely on Calamy's account of the ejected ministers, abridged by Palmer under the title of The Nonconformist's Memorial, the number must have been full 2400. Kennet, however (Register, 807), notices great mistakes of Calamy in respect only to one diocese, that of Peterborough. Probably both in this collection, and in that of Walker on the other side, as in all martyrologies, there are abundant errors; but enough will remain to afford memorable examples of conscientious suffering; and we cannot read without indignation Rennet's endeavours, in the conclusion of this volume, to extenuate the praise of the deprived presbyterians by captious and unfair arguments.
[596] See Clarendon's feeble attempt to vindicate the king from the charge of breach of faith. 157.
[597] A list of these, published in 1660, contains more than 170 names. Neal, 590.
[598] Sir Kenelm Digby was supposed to be deep in a scheme that the catholics, in 1649, should support the commonwealth with all their power, in return for liberty of religion. Carte's Letters, i. 216 et post. We find a letter from him to Cromwell in 1656 (Thurloe, iv. 591) with great protestations of duty.
[599] See Lords' Journals, June and July 1661, or extracts from them in Kennet's Register, 469, etc., 620, etc., and 798, where are several other particulars worthy of notice. Clarendon, 143, explains the failure of this attempt at a partial toleration (for it was only meant as to the exercise of religious rites in private houses) by the persevering opposition of the Jesuits to the oath of allegiance, to which the lay catholics, and generally the secular priests, had long ceased to make objection. The house had voted that the indulgence should not extend to Jesuits, and that they would not alter the oaths of allegiance or supremacy. The Jesuits complained of the distinction taken against them; and asserted, in a printed tract (Kennet, ubi supra), that since 1616 they had been inhibited by their superiors from maintaining the pope's right to depose sovereigns. See also Butler's Mem. of Catholics, ii. 27; iv. 142; and Burnet, i. 194.
[600] The suspicions against Charles were very strong in England before the restoration, so as to alarm his emissaries: "Your master," Mordaunt writes to Ormond, Nov. 10, 1659, "is utterly ruined as to his interest here in whatever party, if this be true." Carte's Letters, ii. 264, and Clar. State Papers, iii. 602. But an anecdote related in Carte's Life of Ormond, ii. 255, and Harris's Lives, v. 54, which has obtained some credit, proves, if true, that he had embraced the Roman catholic religion as early as 1659, so as even to attend mass. This cannot be reckoned out of question; but the tendency of the king's mind before his return to England is to be inferred from all his behaviour. Kennet (Complete Hist. of Eng. iii. 237) plainly insinuates that the project for restoring popery began at the treaty of the Pyrenees; and see his Register, p. 852.