“For though,” he writes, “it is certain that his Majesty conscientiously follows a religion contrary to us, and will therefore, as he says, never suffer his subjects to exercise lawfully and freely any other religion than his own—and that, both on account of his civil position, as on account of certain reasons and considerations relating to his conscience—nevertheless he openly promises to persecute no one on the ground of religion. And this he has so far happily begun to carry out with great honour to himself, and with the greatest joy advantage and pleasure to ourselves, though some of our most truculent enemies revolt, desiring that nothing but fine and sword may be used against us. What will happen in the end I can hardly imagine before the meeting of Parliament.[232]”
As far as it is possible to disengage James’s real intentions from these words, it would seem that he had positively declared against liberty of worship, but that he would not levy the legal fines for not going to church on those who remained obedient subjects. Did he mean to wink at the Mass being said in the private houses of the recusants, or at the activity of the priests in making converts? These were the questions he would have to face before he was out of his difficulties.
On the other side of the channel Del Bufalo was doing his best to convey assurances to James of the Pope’s desire to keep the English Catholics in obedience. With this view he communicated with James’s ambassador in Paris, Sir Thomas Parry, who on August 20, gave an account of the matter to Cecil:—
“The Pope’s Nuncio,” he wrote, “sent me a message, the effect whereof was that he had received authority and a mandate from Rome to call out of the King our master’s dominions the factious and turbulent priests and Jesuits, and that, at M. de Rosny’s[233] passage into the realm, he had advertised them thereof by a gentleman of his train, and that he was desirous to continue that service to the King, and further to stop such as at Rome shall move any suit with any such intent, and would advertise his Majesty of it; that he had stayed two English monks in that city whose names he sent me in writing, who had procured heretofore faculty from thence to negotiate in England among the Catholics for such bad purposes; that not long since a petition had been exhibited to the Pope for assistance of the English Catholics with money promising to effect great matters for advancement of the Catholic cause upon receipt thereof; that his Holiness had rejected the petition and sharply rebuked the movers; that he would no more allow those turbulent courses to trouble the politic governments of Christian Princes, but by charitable ways of conference and exhortation seek to reduce them to unity. Lastly his request was to have this message related to the King, offering for the first trial of his sincere meaning that, if there remained any in his dominions, priest or Jesuit, or other busy Catholic, whom he had intelligence of for a practice in the state which could not be found out, upon advertisement of the names he would find means that by ecclesiastical censures they should be delivered unto his justice.”[234]
The last words are somewhat vague, and as we have not the Nuncio’s own words, but merely Parry’s report of them, we cannot be absolutely certain what were the exact terms offered, or how far they went beyond the offers previously made by the Nuncio at Brussels.[235] Nor does a letter written by the Nuncio to the King on Sept. 19/29, throw any light on the subject, as Del Bufalo confines himself to general expressions of the duty of Catholics to obey the King.[236] That the Nuncio’s proposals met with considerable resistance among James’s councillors is not only probable in itself, but is shown by the length of time which intervened before an answer was despatched at the end of November or the beginning of December.[237] The covered language with which Cecil opened the despatch in which he forwarded to Parry the letter giving the King’s authorisation to the ambassador to treat with the Nuncio, leaves no doubt as to his own feelings.
“But now, Sir,” writes Cecil, “I am to deliver you his Majesty’s pleasure concerning a matter of more importance, though for mine own part it is so tender as I could have wished I had little dealt in it; not that the King doth not most prudently manage it, as you see, but because envious men suspect verity itself.”
Parry, Cecil went on to say, was to offer to the Nuncio a Latin translation of the King’s letter, and also to give him a copy of the instructions formerly given to Sir James Lindsay. The object of this was to prevent Lindsay from going beyond them. Cecil then proceeds to hint that Lindsay, who was now at last about to start from Italy, would not have been allowed to meddle further in the business but that it would disgrace him if he were deprived of the mission with which he had formerly been intrusted. The main negotiation, however, was to pass between Parry and the Nuncio, though only by means of a third person; and, as a matter of fact, Lindsay did not start for many months to come.
So far as concerns us, the King’s letter accepts the Pope’s objections to the sending of a ‘legatus,’ as he would be unable to show him proper respect; and then proceeds to contrast the Catholics who are animated by pure religious zeal with those who have revolutionary designs. With respect to both of these he professes his readiness to deal in such a way that neither the Pope nor any right-minded or sane man shall be able to take objection. In an earlier part of the letter he had assumed that the Pope was prepared actually to excommunicate those Catholics who were of an unquiet and turbulent disposition. Whether this were justified or not by the Nuncio’s words, it was an exceedingly large assumption that the Pope would bind himself to excommunicate Catholics practically at the bidding of a Protestant king.
On or about December 4/14, 1604, the King’s letter was forwarded by the Nuncio to Rome.[238] Nor did James confine his assurances to mere words. A person who left England on January 11,[239] 1604, assured the Nuncio that peaceful Catholics were living quietly, and that those who were devout were able ‘to serve God according to their consciences without any danger.’ He himself, he added, could bear witness to this, as, during the whole time he had been in London, he had heard mass daily in the house of one Catholic or another.[240]
This idyllic state of things—from the Roman Catholic point of view—was soon to come to an end. Clement VIII. refused, at least for the present, either to send a representative to England or to promise to call off turbulent persons under pain of excommunication.[241] Possibly nothing else was to be expected, as the idea of turning the Pope into a kind of spiritual policeman was not a happy one. Still, it is easy to understand that James must have felt mortified at the Pope’s failure to respond to his overtures, and it is easy, also, to understand that Cecil would take advantage of the King’s irritation for furthering his own aims. Nor were other influences wanting to move James in the same direction. Sir Anthony Standen had lately returned from a mission to Italy, and had brought with him certain relics as a present to the Queen, who was a Roman Catholic, and had entered into communication with Father Persons. Still more disquieting was it that a census of recusants showed that their numbers had very considerably increased since the King’s accession. No doubt many of those who apparently figured as new converts were merely persons who had concealed their religion as long as it was unsafe to avow it, and who made open profession of it when no unpleasant consequences were to be expected; but there can also be little doubt that the number of genuine conversions had been very large. From the Roman Catholic point of view, this was a happy result of a purely religious nature. From the point of view of an Elizabethan statesman, it constituted a grave political danger. It is unnecessary here to discuss the first principles of religious toleration. It is enough to say that no Pope had reprimanded Philip II. for refusing to allow the spread of Protestantism in his dominions, and that James’s councillors, as well as James himself, might fairly come to the conclusion that if the Roman Catholics of England increased in future years as rapidly as they had increased in the first year of the reign, it would not be long before a Pope would be found ready to launch against James the excommunication which had been launched against Elizabeth, and that his throne would be shaken, together with that national independence which that throne implied.