It appears that the king, even after he had been delivered by the Scots to the parliament, still hoped to derive benefit from the exertions of Glamorgan. About the beginning of June, 1647, Sir John Somerset, the brother of that nobleman, arrived in Rome with a letter from Charles to Innocent X. The letter is not probably in existence; but the answer of the pontiff shows that the king had solicited pecuniary assistance, and, as an inducement, had held out some hint of a disposition on his part to admit the papal supremacy and the Catholic creed. Less than this cannot be inferred from the language of Innocent. Literae illae praecipuam tuam alacritatem ac propensionem ad obediendum Deo in nobis, qui ejus vices gerimus, luculenter declarant … a majestate tua enixe poscimus, ut quod velle coepit, mox et facto perficiat … ut aliquo id aggrediaris argumento, quo te te ad Catholicam fidem recepisse intelligamus. Undoubtedly Charles was making the same experiment with the pontiff which he had just made with his Presbyterian subjects; and as, to propitiate them, he had undertaken to study the Presbyterian doctrines, so he hoped to draw money from Innocent by professing an inclination in favour of the Catholic creed. But the attempt failed. The answer was, indeed, complimentary: it expressed the joy of the pontiff at the perusal of his letter, and exhorted him to persevere in the inquiry till he should come to the discovery of the truth; but it disposed of his request, as Urban had previously disposed of a similar request, by stating that it was inconsistent with the duty of the pope to spend the treasures of his church in the support of any but Catholic princes. This answer is dated 29th June, 1647.
NOTE B, p. 136.
1. The ordinances had distinguished two classes of delinquents, the one religious, the other political. The first comprised all Catholic recusants, all persons whomsoever, who, having attained the age of twenty-one, should refuse to abjure upon oath the doctrines peculiar to the Catholic creed. These were reputed papists, and had been made to forfeit two-thirds of their real and personal estates, which were seized for the benefit of the kingdom by the commissioners of sequestration appointed in each particular county. The second comprehended all persons who were known to have fought against the parliament, or to have aided the royal party with money, men, provisions, advice, or information; and of these the whole estates, both real and personal, had been sequestrated, with the sole exception of one-fifth allotted for the support of their wives and children, if the latter were educated in the Protestant religion.—Elsynge's Ordinances. 3, 22, et seq.
2. These sequestrated estates not only furnished a yearly income, but also a ready supply on every sudden emergency. Thus when Colonel Harvey refused to march till his regiment had received the arrears of its pay, amounting to three thousand pounds, an ordinance was immediately passed to raise the money by the sale of woods belonging to Lord Petre, in the county of Essex.—Journals, vi, 519. When a complaint was made of a scarcity of timber for the repairs of the navy, the two houses authorized certain shipwrights to fell two thousand five hundred oak trees on the estates of delinquents in Kent and Essex.—Ibid, 520. When the Scots demanded a month's pay for their army, the committee at Goldsmiths' Hall procured the money by offering for sale such property of delinquents as they judged expedient, the lands at eight, the houses at six years' purchase.—Journals of Commons, June 10, 24, 1644.
3. But the difficulty of procuring ready money by sales induced the commissioners to look out for some other expedient; and when the sum of fifteen thousand pounds was wanted to put the army of Fairfax in motion, it was raised without delay by offering to delinquents the restoration of their sequestrated estates, on the immediate payment of a certain fine.—Commons' Journals, Sept. 13, 1644. The success of this experiment encouraged them to hold out a similar indulgence to such persons as were willing to quit the royal party, provided they were not Catholics, and would take the oath of abjuration of the Catholic doctrine.—Ibid. March 6, August 12, 1645; May 4, June 26, Sept. 3, 1646. Afterwards, on the termination of the war, the great majority of the royalists were admitted to make their compositions with the committee. Of the fines required, the greater number amounted to one-tenth, many to one-sixth, and a few to one-third of the whole property, both real and personal, of the delinquents.—(See the Journals of both houses for the years 1647, 1648.)
NOTE C, p. 241.
On the day after the king's execution appeared a work, entitled [Greek: EIKON BASILIKAe], or the Portraicture of his Sacred Majesty in "his Solitude and Sufferings." It professed to be written by Charles himself; a faithful exposition of his own thoughts on the principal events of his reign, accompanied with such pious effusions as the recollection suggested to his mind. It was calculated to create a deep sensation in favour of the royal sufferer, and is said to have passed through fifty editions in the course of the first year. During the commonwealth, Milton made a feeble attempt to disprove the king's claim to the composition of the book: after the restoration, Dr. Gauden, a clergyman of Bocking, in Essex, came forward and declared himself the real author. But he advanced his pretensions with secrecy, and received as the price of his silence, first the bishopric of Exeter, and afterwards, when he complained of the poverty of that see, the richer bishopric of Worcester.
After the death of Gauden his pretensions began to transpire, and became the subject of an interesting controversy between his friends and the admirers of Charles. But many documents have been published since, which were then unknown, particularly the letters of
Gauden to the earl of Clarendon (Clarendon Papers, iii. App. xxvi.-xxxi., xcv.), and others from him to the earl of Bristol (Maty's Review, ii. 253. Clarendon Papers, iii. App. xcvi.; and Mr. Todd, Memoirs of Bishop Walton, i. 138). These have so firmly established Gauden's claim, that, whoever denies it must be prepared to pronounce that prelate an impostor, to believe that the bishops Morley and Duppa gave false evidence in his favour, and, to explain how it happened, that those, the most interested to maintain the right of the king, namely Charles II., his brother the duke of York, and the two earls of Clarendon and Bristol, yielded to the deception. These difficulties, however, have not appalled Dr. Wordsworth, who in a recent publication of more than four hundred pages, entitled, "Who wrote[Greek: EIKON BASILIKAe]" has collected with patient industry every particle of evidence which can bear upon the subject; and after a most minute and laborious investigation, has concluded by adjudging the work to the king, and pronouncing the bishop an impudent impostor. Still my incredulity is not subdued. There is much in the[Greek: EIKON BASILIKAe] itself which forbids me to believe that Charles was the real author, though the latter, whoever he were, may have occasionally consulted and copied the royal papers; and the claim of Gauden appears too firmly established to be shaken by the imperfect and conjectural improbabilities which have hitherto been produced against it.
NOTE D, p. 276.