Reports were industriously circulated throughout the country affecting the religious character of the King and court, upon the tender point of popish sympathies. An Irish minister, who had spent seven weeks at the University in the summer of 1643, afterwards declared that Irish Papists, who had committed atrocious barbarities in the rebellion, were received at court with signal favour; that Franciscans and Jesuits encouraged the soldiers to fight against the Roundheads, and were themselves enrolled as cornets; that Roman Catholic worship was performed in every street, and, he believed, that for every single sermon in the city there were four masses.[468] How much of truth there might be in these broad accusations, it is impossible for us to determine; but the adage no doubt is applicable here, that where there is much smoke there is some fire.[469]
1643.
Charles met all such charges with recriminations. He felt shocked, he said, at the impieties and profanations which were committed in sacred places; at the countenance which was given to ignorant and scandalous laymen who had usurped the ministry; at the suspension and reviling of Common Prayer which had become so prevalent; at religion being made the cause and ground of rebellion; and at the destruction of discipline in the "most unblemished Church of Christendom."[470] Nothing could appear right in his estimation which the Parliament did, and even their ordinances for national fasts were met with counter ordinances for fasts at another season. Prelatists and Puritans would not, even for the sins of the nation, fast on the same day; for as at Westminster one party commanded that the last Wednesday in the month should be devoted to humiliation and prayer, at Oxford the other party denounced that appointment, and substituted the second Friday. The Royalists threatened to sequester the estates of such clergymen as would not obey their command; and, amidst all this most unseemly strife, we hear Thomas Fuller exclaiming, in his "Meditations on the Times," "Alas! when two messengers, being sent together on the same errand, fall out and fight by the way, will not the work be worse done than if none were employed? In such a pair of fasts, it is to be feared that the divisions of our affections rather would increase than abate God's anger towards us. Two negatives make an affirmative. Days of humiliation are appointed for men to deny themselves and their sinful lusts. But do not our two fasts more peremptorily affirm and avouch our mutual malice and hatred? God forgive us: we have cause enough to keep ten, but not care enough to keep one monthly day of humiliation."[471]
To rebut the charge of popery, the King publicly received the sacrament at the hands of Archbishop Ussher, in Christ Church, at the same time making a solemn protestation, that he had prepared his soul to be a worthy receiver, that he derived comfort from the blessed sacrament, and that he supported the true reformed Protestant religion, as it stood in its beauty in the days of Elizabeth, without any connivance at popery. He imprecated, in conclusion, Divine wrath upon himself, if his heart did not join with his lips in this protestation.[472]
The King at Oxford.
For his conduct on this occasion he is accused of hypocrisy, because a few days afterwards he agreed to a truce with Ireland, and to the toleration of Papists in that country. To grant such a truce and such a toleration would not in the present day be deemed inconsistent with the sincerest Protestantism; but the matter was otherwise regarded at that time, and most advocates of religious liberty then denied the privilege to Roman Catholics, because they knew that Catholics would deny the privilege to them. Indeed, they reckoned such persons no better than social incendiaries, and incorrigible rebels against constitutional government; and, however unreasonable it may seem to us, they considered that to allow any scope for popish worship was to connive at the practices of popish treason. Charles himself was by no means prepared to place the toleration of Roman Catholics on its righteous grounds. He was willing, when it served his purpose, to declare himself of one mind with those who condemned all religious freedom; and he must have wished the declaration made by him, upon receiving the Lord's supper from the hands of Ussher, to be understood as meaning that he would not tolerate popery at all. Therefore, to proclaim toleration to Irish Catholics immediately after this declaration could not but lay him open to the charge of hypocrisy on the part of his contemporaries. But at the same time we have no doubt that his expression of attachment to the Protestant religion as it stood in the days of Elizabeth, understanding by that expression a religion both anti-papal and anti-puritanical, was perfectly sincere. Prelacy was an essential principle in the reformed religion of Charles; and with prelacy were associated in his mind forms of worship which many of his subjects pronounced to be "flat popery." His notions of reformation, perhaps, mainly hinged on a separation from Rome, with the abolition of monachism and the removal of certain gross abuses which had been prevalent in the mediæval church. He inherited, in fact, the Protestantism of the Tudors: but at the same time he had none of the magnanimity of Elizabeth, none of that religious patriotism which made her the idol of her subjects, none of that indignation against popish wrongs and cruelties, which she so strongly felt and expressed—as, for example, when she dressed herself in deep mourning to receive the gay French ambassador after the St. Bartholomew massacre:—in short, Charles had none of that spirit which made Elizabeth appear, without any tinge of hypocrisy, so much more of a Protestant than she really was. And we may add, that he had a trick of saying and doing things with a smooth artificial gravity which awakened suspicion, so that even when really honest he found it difficult to obtain credit for sincerity.
1643.
It is remarkable that we do not find any High Church Bishops with the King at Oxford. Even Skinner, Bishop of the diocese, had retired from the city to the rectory of Taunton. The absence of others may be attributed to personal restraint, or the dangers of travelling in a time of civil war, or a sense of duty towards their scattered flocks, or a disinclination to throw themselves into a military camp. But some other prelates and clergymen of a different character come under our notice, as present at Oxford at this critical period.
Bishops at Oxford.
Bryan Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury—whose fine face and silvery locks, set off to advantage by the robes of the Garter, may be seen in his portrait on the walls of Christ Church—upon being stripped of his episcopal revenues waited on his Majesty, and was entrusted by him with business of the greatest importance. Archbishop Ussher preached before the court, carried on his literary labours in the University, and, as an opponent of the toleration of Papists, took part in a discussion held in the royal presence upon that subject. Soon afterwards he further offended the Roman Catholics by a discourse from the words of Nehemiah, iv. 11:—"And our adversaries said, they shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and slay them, and cause the work to cease." In this discourse he contended, that no dependence could be placed on Romanists, and that on the first opportunity they would act towards the Protestants of England as they had recently done towards the Protestants of Ireland. He also preached sermons to his Royalist auditory in a tone of remarkable fidelity and earnestness, dwelling upon the folly of expecting that God would prosper the cause of those who provoked Him to anger by the dissoluteness of their lives.[473]