[3] This was the talk of men at that time. It was perhaps in the king’s intention. But the design, if it had ever been formed, miscarried; as the Bishop himself observes in his History—“The most melancholy part of the treaty of Ryswick was, that no advantages were got by it, in favour of the Protestants in France.” Vol. iv. p. 295. Edinb. 1753.—Whether the blame of this lies in the king, or his parliaments, or neither, the reader is left to judge for himself, from considering the state and transactions of those times.
[4] These rigours the bishop gives a particular account of in THE HISTORY OF HIS OWN TIMES, vol. iii. Edinb. 1753.—Speaking of the persecution of the French Protestants, he says, “I went over a great part of France, while it was in its hottest rage, from Marseilles to Montpelier, and from thence to Lyons, and so on to Geneva. I saw and knew so many instances of their injustice and violence, that it exceeded even what could have been well imagined; for all men set their thoughts on work to invent new methods of cruelty. In all the towns through which I passed, I heard the most dismal accounts of things possible.” p. 60.—Again—“The fury that appeared on this occasion did spread itself with a sort of contagion: for the intendants and other officers, that had been mild and gentle in the former parts of their life, seemed now to have laid aside the compassion of Christians, the breeding of gentlemen, and the impressions of humanity.” p. 61.
[5] Meaning Cromwell, who, it seems, had a design of setting up “a council for the Protestant religion, in opposition to the congregation de propagandâ fide at Rome.” See the Bishop’s own account in his Hist. vol. i. p. 109.
[6] Nat. Bacon, in his Disc. part II. p. 125. Lond. 1739.
[7] The story is told by Lord Bacon in his history of this prince.
[8] He did not consider that maxim of the Lord Bacon, “Depression of the nobility may make a king more absolute, but less safe.” Works, vol. iii. p. 296.
[9] And yet Lord Bacon tells us, that when Henry VIII. came to the crown, “There was no such thing as any great and mighty subject, who might any way eclipse or overshade the imperial power.” Works, vol. iii. p. 508.
[10] “A man, as Mr. Bacon characterises him, underneath many passions, but above fear.” Disc. Part II. p. 120.
[11] Disc. Part II. p. 125.
[12] This terrible act is 31 Hen. VIII. c. 8. It was repealed in 1 Edw. VI. c. 12.