"They were a few wicked and desperate wretches, whom many Protestants termed Papists, although the priests and the true Catholics knew them not to be such.... They were never frequenters of Catholic Sacraments with any priest, as I could ever learn; and, as all the Protestant Courts will witness, not one of them was a convicted or known Catholic or Recusant."[97]
Similarly Cornwallis, writing from Madrid,[98] reported that the king and Estate of Spain were "much grieved that they being atheists and devils in their inward parts, should paint their outside with Catholicism."
In view of evidence so contradictory, it is difficult, if not impossible, to form a confident judgment as to the real character of those whose history we are attempting to trace; but, leaving aside what is matter of doubt, the undisputed facts of their previous career appear to show unmistakably that they were just the men who would be ready to look to violence for a remedy of existing evils, and to whom it would not be difficult to suggest its adoption.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] When James came to the throne Cecil was but a knight. He was created Baron Cecil of Essendon, May 13th, 1603; Viscount Cranborne, August 20th, 1604; Earl of Salisbury, May 4th, 1605.
[35] Robert, as the second son, did not succeed to his father's title, which devolved upon Thomas, the eldest, who was created Earl of Exeter on the same day on which Robert became Earl of Salisbury.
[36] Fragmenta Regalia, 37. Ed. 1642.
[37] He was but little above five feet in height, and, in the phrase of the time, a "Crouchback." King James, who was not a man of much delicacy in such matters, was fond of giving him nicknames in consequence. Cecil wrote to Sir Thomas Lake, October 24th, 1605: "I see nothing yt I can doe, can procure me so much favor, as to be sure one whole day what title I shall have another. For from Essenden to Cranborne, from Cranborne to Salisbury, from Salisbury to Beagle, from Beagle to Thom Derry, from Thom Derry to Parret which I hate most, I have been so walked, as I think by yt I come to Theobalds, I shall be called Tare or Sophie." (R.O. Dom. James I. xv. 105.)
[38] History, i. 92.
[39] In the same document James I. is spoken of as "the most judycious, learned, and rareste kinge, that ever this worlde produced." (R.O. Dom. James I. xxviii. 29.)