[128] Henrietta Maria, in her communication to Madame de Motteville, has the following passage, which is not undeserving of notice, though she may have been deceived: "Le Roi Jacques ... composa deux livres pour la défense de la fausse religion d'Angleterre, et fit réponse à ceux que le Cardinal du Perron écrivit contre lui. En défendant le mensonge, il conçut de l'amour pour la vérité, et souhaita de se retirer de l'erreur. Ce fut en voulant accorder les deux religions, la nôtre et la sienne; mais il mourut avant que d'exécuter ce louable dessein. Le Roi Charles Stuard, son fils, quand il vint à la couronne, se trouva presque dans les mêmes sentimens. Il avoit auprès de lui l'archevêque de Cantorberi, qui, dans son cœur étant très-bon catholique, inspira au roi son maître un grand désir de rétablir la liturgie, croyant que s'il pouvoit arriver à ce point, il y auroit si peu de différence de la foi orthodoxe à la leur, qu'il seroit aisé peu à peu d'y conduire le roi. Pour travailler à ce grand ouvrage, que ne paroissoit au roi d'Angleterre que le rétablissement parfait de la liturgie, et qui est le seul dessein qui ait été dans le cœur de ce prince, l'archevêque de Cantorberi lui conseilla de commencer par l'Ecosse, comme plus éloignée du cœur du royaume; lui disant, que leur remuement seroit moins à craindre. Le roi, avant que de partir, voulant envoyer cette liturgie en Ecosse, l'apporta un soir dans la chambre de la reine, et la pria de lire ce livre, lui disant, qu'il seroit bien aise qu'elle le vît, afin qu'elle sût combien ils approchoient de créance." Mém. de Motteville, i. 242. A well-informed writer, however, says Charles was a protestant, and never liked the catholic religion. P. Orleans, Révolut. d'Anglet. iii. 35. He says the same of Laud, but refers to Vittorio Siri for an opposite story.
[129] Cardinal Barberini wrote word to Panzani, that the proposal of Windebank, that the church of Rome should sacrifice communion in one kind, the celibacy of the clergy, etc., would never please; that the English ought to look back on the breach they had made, and their motives for it, and that the whole world was against them on the first-mentioned points. P. 173. This is exactly what any one might predict, who knew the long discussions on the subject with Austria and France at the time of the council of Trent.
[130] "Begets more malice" is obscure—perhaps it means "irritates the puritans more." Clar. Papers, ii. 44.
[131] Heylin, p. 338; Laud's Diary, Oct. 1637; Strafford Letters, i. 426. Garrard, a dependent friend whom Strafford retained, as was usual with great men, to communicate the news of the court, frequently descants on the excessive boldness of the papists. "Laud," he says (vol. ii. p. 74), "does all he can to beat down the general fear conceived of bringing on popery." So in p. 165 and many other places.
It is manifest, by a letter of Laud to Strafford in 1638, that he was not satisfied with the systematic connivance at recusancy. Id. 171. The explanation of the archbishop's conduct with respect to the Roman catholics seems to be, that, with a view of gaining them over to his own half-way protestantism, and also ingratiating himself with the queen, he had for a time gone along with the tide, till he found there was a real danger of being carried farther than he intended. This accounts for the well-known story told by Evelyn, that the jesuits at Rome spoke of him as their bitterest enemy. He is reported to have said, that they and the puritans were the chief obstacles to a re-union of the churches. There is an obscure story of a plot carried on by the pope's legate Con and the English jesuits against Laud, and detected in 1640 by one Andrew Habernfield, which some have treated as a mere fiction. Rushworth, iii. 232.
[132] Heylin, in his Life of Laud, p. 340, tells this story, as if Hales had recanted his opinions, and owned Laud's superiority over him in argument. This is ludicrous, considering the relative abilities of the two men. And Hales's letter to the archbishop, which is full as bold as his treatise on schism, proves that Heylin's narrative is one of his many wilful falsehoods; for, by making himself a witness to the pretended circumstances, he has precluded the excuse of error.
[133] It appears by the late edition at Oxford (1826) that Lord Clarendon twice altered his intention as to the nature of his work, having originally designed to write the history of his time, which he changed to memorials of his own life, and again returned to his first plan. The consequence has been, that there are two manuscripts of the History and of the Life, which in a great degree are transcripts one from the other, or contain the same general fact with variations. That part of the Life, previous to 1660, which is not inserted in the History of the Rebellion, is by no means extensive.
The genuine text of the History has only been published in 1826. A story, as is well known, obtained circulation within thirty years after its first appearance, that the manuscript had been materially altered or interpolated. This was positively denied, and supposed to be wholly disproved. It turns out, however, that, like many other anecdotes, it had a considerable basis of truth, though with various erroneous additions, and probably wilful misrepresentations. It is nevertheless surprising that the worthy editor of the original manuscript should say, "that the genuineness of the work has rashly, and for party purposes, been called in question;" when no one, I believe, has ever disputed its genuineness; and the anecdote to which I have alluded, and to which, no doubt, he alludes, has been by his own industry (and many thanks we owe him for it) perfectly confirmed in substance. For though he endeavours, not quite necessarily, to excuse or justify the original editors (who seem to have been Sprat and Aldrich, with the sanction probably of Lords Clarendon and Rochester, the historian's sons), for what they did, and even singularly asserts, that "the present collation satisfactorily proves that they have in no one instance added, suppressed, or altered any historical fact" (Advert. to edit. 1826, p.v.); yet it is certain that, besides the perpetual impertinence of mending the style, there are several hundred variations which affect the sense, introduced from one motive or another, and directly contrary to the laws of literary integrity. The long passages inserted in the appendixes to several volumes of this edition contain surely historical facts that had been suppressed. And, even with respect to subordinate alterations, made for the purpose of softening traits of the author's angry temper, or correcting his mistakes, the general effect of taking such liberties with a work is to give it an undue credit in the eyes of the public, and to induce men to believe matters upon the writer's testimony, which they would not have done so readily, if his errors had been fairly laid before them. Clarendon indeed is so strangely loose in expression as well as incorrect in statement, that it would have been impossible to remove his faults of this kind without writing again half the history; but it is certain that great trouble was very unduly taken to lighten their impression upon the world.
[134] Id. ibid.
[135] May thus answers, by a sort of prophetic anticipation, this passage of Clarendon: "Another sort of men," he says, "and especially lords and gentlemen, by whom the pressures of the government were not much felt, who enjoyed their own plentiful fortunes, with little or insensible detriment, looking no farther than their present safety and prosperity, and the yet undisturbed peace of the nation, whilst other kingdoms were embroiled in calamities, and Germany sadly wasted by a sharp war, did nothing but applaud the happiness of England, and called those ungrateful factious spirits, who complained of the breach of laws and liberties; that the kingdom abounded with wealth, plenty, and all kinds of elegancies more than ever; that it was for the honour of a people, that the monarch should live splendidly, and not be curbed at all in his prerogative, which would bring him into greater esteems with other princes, and more enable him to prevail in treaties; that what they suffered by monopolies was insensible and not grievous, if compared with other states; that the Duke of Tuscany sat heavier upon his people in that very kind; that the French king had made himself an absolute lord, and quite depressed the power of parliaments, which had been there as great as in any kingdom, and yet that France flourished, and the gentry lived well; that the Austrian princes, especially in Spain, laid heavy burdens upon their subjects. Thus did many of the English gentry, by way of comparison, in ordinary discourse, plead for their own servitude.