Moreover, we pray your reverence (who are secretly acquainted, as are her most christian majesty the queen, and our very dear sister, Madame the Duchess of Orleans, with the warm disposition for becoming a Catholic which we have for a long time shown),—we pray you, nevertheless, to abstain from writing to them in any fashion touching these matters, but to keep everything quite secret until the providence of God has otherwise disposed of affairs.
Now as we desire, with all requisite prudence in an affair of so great consequence to ourselves and the peace of our realm, that our very dear and well-beloved son find everything which is necessary in the business of our salvation made easy for him, and to avoid the inconveniences which might spring upon this side, we have taken counsel with the queen to this effect, that when he shall arrive alone in London—for such is our good will and pleasure—he take time to clothe himself, and dress himself as quickly as possible, if he be not sufficiently well-dressed—not having been willing to do so for fear of soiling his garments by the bad weather and muddy roads, which soil a carriage and also all who are in it; and having put himself in order and rendered himself presentable, let him take occasion to address himself to the reigning queen, either when she is dining at our palace of St. James or when her majesty shall go to visit the queen, our very dear and honored mother. To whom, without causing any suspicion, he will present a sealed letter in the form of a supplication, in which he will say in a few words who he is. Her majesty has directions from us to manage everything which is necessary for an introduction to ourselves, with all possible prudence, and we are assured that there shall arise no disorder nor suspicion. He has nothing else to do but to let himself be directed according to what shall be advised him, and we command him to observe punctually everything we have written to him, especially what we have put within the envelope.
In the meanwhile, we renew to your reverence the prayer which we made to you from the first, which is, not to write us, nor to make any response saving by the hands of our very dear and well-beloved son, whom we order to set out from Rome as soon as possible, not wishing that the Queen of Sweden speak to him for the aforesaid reasons. Having departed from Rome, he will take his ease in coming to us. We pray, however, your reverence, if this be necessary, to move him to come as soon as possible, representing to him the need we have of him. For we know that he has no little repugnance to England, which we attribute to the fact of his not having been educated there, and also of his finding himself compelled to live there alone, so that we have never been able to induce him to live there more than a year. And even before that year was finished, he presented us so many reasons that we were constrained to let him go to Holland, where he bore himself with great praise and to our great satisfaction in the belles lettres and other studies, in which he made admirable progress.
We believe he has too much judgment to wish to disobey us, and not come as we desire. As soon as he comes we shall endeavor, by means of the queens, to have him made a priest in all secresy. And if there be anything that the bishop ordinary cannot do without permission of His Holiness, let him not fail to provide for it, but very secretly, so that no one shall know who he is: which will be done if possible before he set out from Rome. Meanwhile we beseech you, reverend father, to pray God for the queens, our realm, and ourselves, who are
CHARLES, King of England.
At Whitehall, the 29th Aug., 1668.
Yet even these numerous and urgent recommendations did not quite pacify the timid monarch. One feature in the rule of St. Ignatius, of [{593}] which his queen's had just advised him, suddenly upset all his ideas. He snatches up the pen. He countermands the orders he has just given. He traces a new plan of campaign in which the clearness of exposition, the ability of conception, the facility of execution, are about on a level. This third letter, we must confess, does little credit to the geographical knowledge and above all to the courage of Charles II. In another point of view, however, it merits the attention of the reader. Precisely because of the trouble which reigns in his thoughts, we detect more than once the cry of the soul. More than at any time hitherto, the unhappy prince lets us discover the cruel anguishes which torture his conscience, and the incontestable sincerity of his desires.
TO THE REVEREND FATHER-GENERAL
OF THE JESUIT FATHERS AT ROME:
REVEREND FATHER,—We have never felt so many embarrassments, though we have had enough of them in our life, as at present, when we wish to think seriously of our salvation. We have but just sealed this other letter, which we pray you to read before the one which is open, that you may better learn our intention and the order in which we hold to the writing. The queens have advised us and counselled us not to press his [our son's] coming, because they wish to arrange and bring about certain very necessary and notable precautions, to render the arrival of our very dear and well-beloved son to England very prudent and secret.
For this end their majesties, having found means of learning accurately and with judgment the ways of your society regarding those who have but recently joined them, inform us that they have ascertained from a good source that the novices of your holy society, not less than with others, are never sent off without some member of the fraternity accompanying them, as much to be advised of their actions and deportment as to render an account to the superior—the which we admire as a very holy prudence and which can only spring from the divine spirit with which so holy a society is animated. But nevertheless in this matter we beseech your reverence to dispense with this companionship in the case of our very dear son; because we command him absolutely, in virtue of the power which God has given us over him, to come to us by himself, partly because this will properly accord with the letter which we have sent to the Queen of Sweden, who should believe that he has gone alone—that is to say, unaccompanied by any member of the fraternity; but principally because of the dangerous inconveniences whereof we should be constantly in fear if he came in the company of any of the fraternity. We have already, with great secresy, pretended to some very safe persons in a great number of the English ports, and by ways entirely concealed, that a foreign prince, of such a carriage, such a mien, alone by himself, is flying to us, and much more indeed which we could not explain to your reverence without going too far into detail. We do this, partly that if we come to be anywise suspected of being too familiar with him (Father James Stuart) we may have something to say to remove the suspicion.
Your reverence can see by this that if he should bring an Italian with him who was recognizable as an Italian, be it by his accent or otherwise, this might be the occasion of overthrowing all our designs and of interrupting the scheme which we wish to work out in order to come most surely to our just desires. Even in case he can have some one other than an Italian with him, we should forbid his bringing any one into England, of whatever nation he might be, for many very considerable reasons, which it would take too long to recount.
Your reverence ought not to be surprised if we are so cautious, because we learned in the time of Cromwell [{594}] what misery is, and what are the things of this world, what it is to be prudent and to hide one's self in order to succeed in our undertaking. We doubt not that, as our very dear and well-beloved son is young, he is far from eager for company and conversation, and that he does not desire to have intercourse with any one by letter or by discourse; for we know that he does not love the court any too well. But he must needs have patience, inasmuch as it is not reasonable that for a pleasure so brief and of so little consequence, he should put himself in danger of ruining all our designs. Beside, he ought to know that when he shall put foot in our palace, he is not to converse with any one saving with ourselves and the queen, who will give the necessary orders in the matter. Nor will he write any letters saving to you, reverend father, and these letters that he shall write to you we shall despatch by an express in great secresy to Rome, to the end that your reverence relieve us in the necessities which may arise touching our soul.
We have made inquiries respecting the seaports nearest to Rome. Among many which have been named to us, we recall Civita Vecchia and Gênes. We command him, then, to go to Gênes. We have ascertained, with all necessary prudence, that your society has at that place a house of your order. Being then at Gênes, we wish him to seek out some ship or English shallop, but in such wise that we do not wish any of the fraternity to recommend him to the master nor to those who manage the ship, not showing their acquaintanceship with him, for very considerable reasons; but especially because these seafaring men will repeat it all as soon as they come to port. Moreover, we desire that he put off and lay aside his religious robes in the house of his friends and brother Jesuits of Gênes. He will assume them again in the same place on his return to Rome, when we send him back to pursue there the religious life he has commenced.
He will land then in our realm solitary and in disguise. He will call himself everywhere he may go Henry de Rohan, which is the name of the family of a certain French prince, a Calvinist, and very well known and intimate with us. We are in such fear lest some accident occur, that in these different ports we at present take cognisance, both very secretly and with the requisite prudence, of ships which have arrived or are due, and even so far as we can of persons, under pretence of a zeal for the well-being of our realm, and under pretence of maintaining the Protestant religion, to which we pretend to be attached more than ever, although, before God, who knows the heart, we abhor it as very false and pernicious.
Moreover, we forbid our very dear and honored son to pass through France and by the other passages and ports which lie in that part, for he could not bring about our intentions with sufficient secresy sailing from that coast, and therefore we have found no place more proper than Gênes for his embarkation. And, in the meanwhile, awaiting his return to Rome, your reverence shall noise it abroad that he has gone to Jersey or Hanton to see his pretended mother, who desires to become a Catholic, as we have suggested and feigned in that other letter, and that, to make the greater haste, he went by sea.
This then we command him to observe, point by point, through the authority that God has given us over him, and we promise him, on the faith of a king, that we seek nothing else in his coming but the salvation of our souls, his good, and that of the society to which he has attached himself, which, sooner or later, we shall find means to notably favor with our royal magnificence. And so far from forbidding his pursuing his calling, both for the Catholic religion and your society, we and the queens will urge it upon him better than any director he [{595}] can have. It is very true that when the season and affairs permit us to write and make known to His Holiness the veneration we hold him in as the vicegerent of God, we hope that he will be too well disposed toward us to refuse him the cardinal's hat, inasmuch as the conditions which could forbid his having this dignity for the honor of our person and of our realm are not fulfilled in his case, viz., residence in England, since we can send him to dwell at Rome, as we promise, and with the royal magnificence requisite for his birth. Nevertheless, if in time he prefer to live according to the religious life he has commenced, we would readily abandon what would be to the honor of our crown and of our person, rather than to urge and procure such dignities against his will.
We have made discreet inquiries of our physician whether sea-sickness cause any dangerous accidents to those of a feeble constitution, who has answered us that sea-sickness never killed any one, but on the contrary has been the means of greater health. Nevertheless, if it be too painful for him to make one trip of it, he shall contrive that the bark or shallop in which he sails rest from time to time in some port. He might easily come at once to London; but we do not wish it for good reasons. Let him land at some other port of England, from whence he can come by land in a carriage to London.
We once again entreat your reverence not to write to us nor to make any reply, saving by the hand of our very dear and honored son, when he comes to us. And, if there be a need for anything which he does not possess in making the voyage to London, we beseech you, reverend father, to have particular care in the matter, furnishing him with whatever he requires, whereof he will keep account.
We firmly believe it is God who has inspired us to all these above-mentioned ways for bringing us in secret our very honored son, because of what he has said in his word—that when two or three are gathered together in his name, he will be in the midst of them. For it is exactly ourselves, and the queen, our very dear mother, and the reigning queen, who decree all these things, not without having invoked, first of all, the Holy Spirit. Beside that, the queens have commanded their priests to celebrate many masses in accordance with their intention, which is nothing other than that this affair succeed as well as all our other projects above mentioned, which tend not only to our good, but to that of the Roman Catholic Church and of our realm. We are,
CHARLES, King of England.
These last two letters were a sad revelation to Father Oliva, and no doubt very much diminished the hopes which he had before conceived. However, the order was given to the novice to set out without delay.
If James Stuart could easily obey his father by departing from Rome before the arrival of Queen Christina, it was certainly more difficult for him to conform to the frequently contradictory injunctions concerning the route to be taken and the precautions to be guarded against which had been successively transmitted to him. Everything which was rational and practicable the young man respected. He set sail from Leghorn about the middle of October, a fact which we learn from a brief letter of Father Oliva to the King of England. It is of course unnecessary to explain to the reader why the father-general has dated his note from a Tuscan port rather than from the city of the Roman pontiffs at which he wrote:
SIRE,—The French gentleman who is charged with the delivery of this letter will inform you of my utter carefulness in fulfilling the commands of your three letters and my unlimited devotion to your royal person. Your majesty will always see me execute with the same promptness and the [{596}] same zeal everything which he shall deign to impose on me. I shall endeavor to be such in reality as he deigns to believe that I am; such as the confidence with which he honors me obliges me to show myself.
I throw myself respectfully at the feet of your majesty.
Leghorn, Oct 14, 1668.
In one very important respect it was found necessary to abandon, or rather to violate, the royal programme. Charles, a perfect stranger to ecclesiastical laws, always supposed that, at his request, his son could be made priest either at Rome or in London. But James Stuart was only twenty-one years old, and was without theological studies. Even if these serious objections had not existed, it would not have been prudent to elevate to the sacred office a novice whose religious experience extended scarcely over a space of six months. Thus, despite the repugnance of the king, Henry de Rohan, as our young traveller must now be called, took as his companion a priest of the society, a Frenchman, as far as we can judge, who, disguised like himself, was presented to their Britannic majesties in the quality of a friend of the refugee prince. This wise measure, imposed by the timidity of Charles, was attended by so little inconvenience, that we shall find the monarch himself, on the occasion of his son's second voyage to England, earnestly requesting of the father-general the return of this same religious whose talents and virtues he had come to appreciate.
VII.
This is not the place to describe the warmth with which Charles opened his arms to his first-born, whom he had always peculiarly cherished, nor the joy of the two pious princesses, nor the tender emotions of the youth upon whom beamed, at length, the sympathy and affection he had never known before. In the isolation of his earlier life, James Stuart had sadly felt the void which the absence of that sweetest tie on earth, the family, creates. This grief had eaten into him like a cancer, till the day when he resolved to renounce the world. When the victim has immolated himself, when he has said to flesh and blood, I will know you nevermore! behold in a royal palace, by one of the first thrones on earth, the humble novice finds again a home—venerable queens are mothers to him. His father caresses him, and, emulating the example of his brother, the Duke of York, who was also preparing to embrace Catholicism, receives the child of St. Ignatius as an angel from heaven.