"The envoy should distribute some gifts, and in fine, use every means to make himself beloved. He ought to be about thirty-five years old, and to have attained a certain solidity rarely met with before that age. He should also be noble and rich, and of a good presence, furnished with all qualities proper to a gentleman; and, above all, his life should be exemplary, without affectation or hypocrisy . . . . On the arrival of such an agent in London, speaking French well, which language is understood by the whole court, he should first of all contrive to please the Queen, who, being young, delights in perfumes and fine clothes, and likes people to be lively and merry. His next object should be to ingratiate himself with the court ladies and others, as much is done here by the influence of women; but he should on no account allow familiarity with the Queen and other ladies to degenerate into lightness or worse, for that would involve the ruin of the whole undertaking. It is customary to say here, 'if a man's life is good, his religion must be a good one'; but the English are shocked at every little thing. The King is extremely modest, and the Queen such, that Father Philip told me her conscience has never lost its baptismal innocence.
"Having gained the good opinion of the Queen and her ladies, the agent may aspire to greater things. The court is very accessible to bribes; it is therefore quite possible to purchase its goodwill; and to this end it will be well to send the Queen jewels of some value, ostensibly as presents to her, but in reality that she may distribute them among those ministers from whom the greatest help may be expected. The envoy should not make very valuable presents himself, but only through the Queen, lest he be suspected of ulterior views, or cause danger to the recipients of them.
"When the ministers have been won over, the Queen, instructed by the envoy how great a reputation she may acquire by the conversion of this kingdom, must try to persuade the King to abolish poursuivants and informers. This he may not be able to effect immediately, being powerless to repeal parliamentary laws, but he may be able to procure that the poursuivants and informers shall do nothing without an express and written order from the Privy Council, and only then in a manner conformable to the instructions of the same. In this way, Catholics would have nothing more to fear, because as soon as the Council resolved to proceed against any individual, the Queen would bring her influence to bear on any one of its members already on her side, and the threatened Catholic would be helped, either to fly or to elude the officials.
"This point gained, an almost tacit liberty of conscience would follow; the Catholics would take courage, and the moderate Protestants would no longer fear to declare themselves openly their protectors. Then would be the time to treat with the King, through the Archbishop of Canterbury, for the concession of religious liberty, as far as possible. This once conceded, Father Philip believes that in less than three years the whole country would become Catholic. Parliament might then safely be assembled to repeal the laws against Catholics, and reunion with the Holy See would soon follow.
"But how to obtain liberty of conscience it is not easy to say at present; neither does it yet concern us, not having arrived so far.
"This is all that Father Philip said, and whatever else he may tell me I will write to your Eminence, having nothing further to add now, except that the envoy should be guided in all things by Father Philip, who has a great reputation for prudence, and is respected by the whole court."
Nevertheless, Father Philip's ingenious structure soon proved to be only a house of cards. He understood the Queen, and was not far wrong in his estimation of Charles, but he was mistaken in thinking the king's party to be in earnest about Catholicism, and was as wide of the mark in grasping the archbishop's bent as any Puritan in the realm.
Laud was in some respects wiser than Buckingham had been; he was content to govern through the King, throwing what power he could into the hands of the prelates. All the great offices of State were filled by churchmen. Far from contemplating any submission to the Pope, he aimed at being a species of independent Pope on his own account. Both he and Juxon, the Lord Treasurer, refused to see Panzani.
Laud's greatest passion was ambition, if anything in a nature so contracted could be said to assume the proportions of a fullblown passion. He had a marvellous capacity for dealing with small things, and all that came under his ken he studied to the minutest detail. He was a believer in dreams, and owned to being greatly troubled by them. "Thursday, I came to London," he once wrote in his diary; "the night following, I dreamed that I was reconciled to the Church of Rome. This troubled me much, and I wondered exceedingly how it should happen. Now was I aggrieved with myself (not only by reason of the errors of that Church, but also) upon account of the scandal which from that my fall would be cast upon many eminent and learned men in the Church of England. Going with this resolution, a certain priest met me, and would have stopped me. But moved with indignation I went on my way. And while I wearied myself with these troublesome thoughts I awoke. Herein I felt such strong impressions that I could scarce believe it to be a dream."
To a becoming gravity the archbishop failed to unite a saving sense of humour. His temper was hasty, but also vindictive, and he never forgot an injury, to which fact the notorious Puritan, William Prynne, was well able to testify. Laud first incurred the enmity of this man and his friends by his attempts to introduce some measure of ceremonial into the churches under him. When he began his reform, the places of public worship were nothing but buildings where discourses and diatribes against Popery were to be heard in luxuriously upholstered seats. "There wants nothing but beds to hear the Word of God on," said Bishop Corbet. The notion of a priesthood had died out of people's minds. They looked upon their clergy as preachers merely—the cure of souls was an obsolete term.