A Candid History of the Jesuits

by Joseph McCabe

Their constitutions as well as stringent papal decrees forbade them to receive men of irregular birth into the Society, but we have often found them doing this, when the sin of the parent was redeemed by the distinction of his position, and we can imagine their joy when one of the illegitimate children of Charles II. presented himself at their Roman novitiate in 1668. James de la Cloche, as the youth called himself, was known by them to be in reality James Stuart, and it was not unknown that Charles was attached to him and thought his accession to the throne a not impossible dream. Genial letters passed, in secret, between the English monarch and the General of the Jesuits; money was sent to General Oliva from London, and after a time the young Jesuit was stealthily conveyed to London and permitted to enjoy the embrace of his father.

It is not surprising that the Society prospered. In 1669 there were 266 members of the English province. In the same year their Provincial, Father Emmanuel Lobb, converted the Duke of York to the Roman faith, and, although the secret was carefully guarded from Protestants for a time, the news gave great joy and hope to the Catholics. A little later Charles himself told some of the leading Catholic nobles that he wished to embrace their creed, and would openly declare it if he could be assured of defence against Protestant anger. In the following year a secret treaty was signed at Dover with Louis XIV. Charles was to declare his adoption of the Roman faith, and Louis was, in case of need, to supply French troops for the subjection of the English Protestants and, in any case, to provide large sums of money for the unscrupulous King of England. Whether Charles and the Catholic nobles really believed that Louis XIV. would consider the conversion of England a sufficient reward of his generosity, it would be difficult to say. The design was treasonable for all concerned.

The Jesuits were now at the summit of a wave of hope. The King was a secret Catholic, and was married to a Catholic, Catherine of Braganza, who was under their control. The marriage seemed to be sterile, but the Duke of York, the next heir to the throne, was more devoted to them than any other prince in Europe. The alliance with France was controlled by them, as Louis XIV. was at that time entirely docile to his famous Jesuit confessor. To the increasing horror of the Protestants, Jesuit fathers now began to appear confidently in public. Two of them ministered to the Queen; two guarded the conscience of the Duke of York. At the same time war was declared with Holland, and Charles issued his Declaration of Indulgence. It seemed that at last the clouds were being swept from the heavens, and, whatever the political development was, the Jesuits were on the way to attain power over the throne. With English laws (or royal declarations) and French troops they would soon make an end of Protestantism in England, and, with the combined forces of England and France, return to the attack on the northern Protestants.

Then there occurred the "Popish Plot," or the imaginary plot of Titus Oates, and a furious storm whistled about their ears. Charles had soon realised the futility of the French alliance, made peace with the Dutch, and appeased his Protestant subjects by revoking the Declaration of Indulgence. On the whole, it paid him better to remain a Protestant. The natural and proper attitude for the Catholics was now to await in silence the accession of the Duke of York, as Catherine remained childless, but the Protestants were already looking to William of Orange and not obscurely hinting that the Catholic Duke of York was unfit to ascend the throne. Dutch agents distributed money among nobles and parliamentarians; French and Catholic agents distributed louis d'or in the interest of York and Catholicism. Whatever we may say of the Dutch, a secret and treasonable correspondence was maintained by the Catholics with France. This correspondence was maintained on the English side by a zealous secretary of the Duke of York, named Coleman, a pupil and friend of the Jesuits. We shall see that Coleman was afterwards arrested, and his papers seized, so that there is no dispute about the fact that from 1675 to 1678 Coleman was in treasonable correspondence with the French. French money and, in emergency, French troops were to be employed for the destruction of the Established Church. The letters were generally in cipher, and at times the secret message was written in lemon-juice (which would become legible if held before the fire) between the lines.

We are now asked to believe that this plot originated in the exalted imagination of Coleman, and that the Jesuits were not privy to his correspondence with Versailles. Jesuits in London were on such a footing at St. James's Palace that they were allowed to hold their secret meetings in its chambers, and on the French side the whole correspondence was conducted by the famous Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV., Père la Chaise; and the apologists would have us believe that this correspondence, of such profound import to the future of the Jesuit body in England, was carried on for several years without their knowledge and connivance. We should have to believe, in fact, that even the Duke of York was ignorant of it, since he concealed nothing from the Jesuits, and that Père la Chaise did not give the least inkling of it to his colleagues. One would need an extraordinary measure of credulity to imagine the Jesuits frequenting St. James's Palace week after week for years and being entirely ignorant that their friend Coleman was receiving important messages all the time from their French colleague.

Hence Mr. Pollock concludes, in his recent and able study of the "Popish Plot," [24] that we may adopt, or adapt, the familiar verdict of Dryden on the plot:—

"Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with lies." It is now universally admitted that Titus Oates and his chief witnesses were little more than reckless liars, playing upon the inflamed Protestant feeling of the time, but it would be generally admitted that a plot, such as I have described, was really afoot. Since, however, Mr. Pollock also concludes that the Jesuits probably instigated and procured the murder of the London magistrate, it is necessary to reopen the question.

Titus Oates, a little full-bodied man with large purple face and a complete lack of moral feeling, had joined the Catholic Church and been admitted by the Jesuits to their college at Valladolid. He was expelled, but it seems likely that he had gleaned some information about their hopes and designs in England, and, when he returned to London, he entered into communication with a fanatical anti-Papist named Dr. Tonge, though he continued to move amongst the Catholics. It says little for the discrimination of the Jesuits that they then admitted the man to the college at St. Omer's, from which he was once more expelled. Tonge and he then brewed the Popish Plot, and had the King informed that the Jesuits sought his life. Charles smiled, and, in September, the conspirators went before a well-known magistrate, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey—a Protestant, but a personal friend of Coleman and well disposed toward the Catholics—and laid information of a ghastly project of the Catholics to destroy the Protestants of London. The situation—a Catholic heir to the throne awaiting the death of a Protestant king, with a Dutch pretender gaining ground in London—seemed so ripe for a plot that London was seized with a dramatic terror, and the Privy Council was compelled to listen seriously to a story which was palpably false in many details and ridiculous in others. Father Whitbread, the Jesuit Provincial, and two of his colleagues were arrested; and, when the letters of Coleman were seized and found to have references to "the mighty work on our hands," the story seemed to be confirmed. Then Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was found dead in a ditch at the foot of Primrose Hill, and the city was shaken with frenzy. For months the trained bands were kept under arms at nights, and citizens slept nervously with arms beside them, ready to spring up at a cry that the firing of houses and massacre of Protestants had begun.

In that period of rage and panic the character of the witnesses who came forward to claim the offered reward was not examined, their inconsistencies were ignored, and several men of low character became passing rich by swearing away the lives of others. Three men, who were probably innocent, were hanged for murdering Godfrey in Somerset House (then the Queen's Palace), and three Jesuits—Father Le Fevre (the Queen's confessor), Father Walsh, and Father Pritchard—were accused of having hired the assassins. In the end seven Jesuit priests and a lay-brother were executed, a large number of Jesuits, secular priests, and laymen were imprisoned, and a reign of terror fell upon the Catholic population. It seemed as if the great dream of the conversion of England was once more ruthlessly dissipated.

The witness Bedloe, who accused the Jesuits, was so mean a character, and so well rewarded for making a charge which people wanted, that we must ignore his evidence. If we attach any importance to the declarations of the Catholic witness Prance, as Sir J. Fitzjames Stephen and others have done, it would seem that Bedloe had really learned something about the murder, and it may or may not be true that the Jesuits were involved in it. We certainly cannot admit this on the evidence of Bedloe. On the other hand, few, except Roman Catholics, who read the evidence will doubt that Godfrey had been murdered and his body had been conveyed to the spot where it was found. There was hardly any trace of blood at the spot, and Godfrey's sword had been driven through his body in a way which precludes the idea of suicide. It was still clearer that he had not been murdered for the purpose of robbery. The circumstances point to a political assassination, and, as there is ample evidence that Godfrey expected an attack on his life, it is natural to suppose that he was removed lest he should betray some secret of which he had become possessed.