Chapter IV: The Queen of the Catholics (2)

Con's dispatches are written in much the same strain as those of Panzani. They tell of kindness, of religious sympathy, of even greater royal favour, of the King's evident sympathy with Catholicism--how on one occasion he said, "I, too, am a Catholic," how on another his talk with the Queen on religious subjects was such that it would hardly be credited at Rome; of the success which attended the distribution among the ladies of the Court of the pretty religious trifles such as rosaries and pictures, which the care of Cardinal Barberini had sent over; of the Queen's delight in a cross sent to her by the Pope--how she always wore it, and how she said that it was the most precious thing she possessed; of the favour shown to Father Sancta Clara at Court, and by Windbank--how it had even been proposed that he should preach a sermon in the Queen's chapel about the anniversary of the Powder Plot, "to exculpate the Catholics from treason against Princes"; how even the Jesuits acknowledged that never since the days of the negotiation for the Spanish match had the Catholics enjoyed such peace. Nevertheless, Con was too sagacious not to be able to read in some measure the signs of the times. "God only knows how long this calm will last," he wrote.[176]

It was unfortunate that a person who seemed so admirably fitted for his post should have been obliged to relinquish his task half done. But the rigours of the northern climate told so severely on a constitution long accustomed to the suns of Italy that in 1639 Con was obliged to think of turning his steps southward, for not even the distinguished attentions he received in his sickness from the King, the Queen, and the nobility availed to cure him. He reached Rome, but he only recrossed the Alps to die before he could place on his head the Cardinal's hat, which had been so much striven for. On his death-bed he thought of Henrietta, and begged Cardinal Barberini, who was by his side, to send her a little picture of the Virgin as a recognition of his gratitude for her kindness, and as a memorial of their friendship.

But already the shadows of the Civil War were beginning to close about the Queen. The bright hopes which had marked the days of Con's sojourn in England were becoming haunting fears, which, in their turn, were to give place to feelings as like despair as such natures as Henrietta's can know.

It was probably a sad surprise to the Queen when, on the eve of the war, she discovered the intensity of the hatred with which her faith was regarded by a large section of her husband's subjects. Sagacious foreigners knew something of it. "The Puritans hate the Catholics as much as the Devil,"[177] wrote Tillières frankly as early as 1624. But in the Queen's Court all mention of such ill-bred persons and factions was avoided, unless some wit cracked a joke at their expense. It is true that a few of the great nobles were Puritans, but during the years of Charles' triumph their opinions were expressed with moderation, and most of the courtiers appeared rather inclined to the fashionable Protestant variety of faith which the King, the Ministers, and the higher clergy professed. The real strength of Puritanism was in the lower middle-class, a section of the community with which the Queen was not likely to come in personal contact, and which, partly perhaps for this very reason, she was never able to conquer. Her refusal to be crowned with her husband gave bitter offence, and was to cost her dear in the future. Discontented spirits muttered to themselves that the King might be murdered as Henry IV had been, "and then the Queen might mar all."[178] When in 1629 prayers were offered in the Church for the birth of an heir to the throne, scarcely a man could be found to answer Amen; and even after the birth of a Prince there were mutterings that God had already provided for the nation in the hopeful issue of the Queen of Bohemia. Ill-bred Puritan ministers, in the outspoken theological language of the day, prayed for the conversion of the Popish Queen; and as the Catholic revival developed, to dislike and disapproval was added the more potent force of fear.

The language of the _Grand Remonstrance_ and of many other contemporary documents leaves no doubt that there was a widespread belief in the existence of a plot managed by the "engineers and factors of Rome," of whom the Queen was one of the chief,[179] to capture the country and the Church of England. The signs in the national establishment which raised the hopes of the Catholics became a terror to the Puritans. It was no wonder. As Du Perron said from the other point of view, it was but a century since the schism, and the Anglican Church had not yet the stability which comes from time, so that the idea of its reconciliation to Rome was less chimerical than in later times. Nor had the attempts to make Protestantism co-extensive with the nation been altogether successful. It is probable that Richelieu overrated the importance of the English Catholics, but, nevertheless, the trouble he took to conciliate them bears witness to the light in which they were regarded in the best-informed circles on the Continent. Not a few of them were men of position and wealth, and their number was certainly considerable; it probably reached at least 150,000,[180] or three in every hundred,[181] and one Catholic reporter says that in Lancashire and Yorkshire as many as a third of the population adhered to the old faith.[182] The Archbishop of Embrun, who was in England in the latter days of James, is said to have confirmed in London as many as 10,000 persons. Another witness,[183] who had some opportunities for forming a judgment, believed that a third of the nation was either openly or secretly Catholic, and that another third, the Protestant part of the Church of England, only remained in schism from fear of the recusancy laws, and though this estimate is of course grossly exaggerated, it is significant as showing the opinions which were prevalent. The loudly expressed hopes of the Catholics reacted upon the fears of the Puritans, who saw in them not only the proof of the power of their open foes, but a confirmation of their worst suspicions regarding their more secret enemies in the Church of England. Laud, the most loyal of Anglican Churchmen, did not recognize his mistake until it was too late. Charles, who was always a good Protestant, or in modern parlance a High Churchman, perhaps never recognized his even when it led him to the scaffold.

The recklessness with which the King gave colour to the suspicions of the Puritans is indeed remarkable. The husband of a Catholic Queen, the son of a lady whose Protestantism was far from unimpeachable, he had recognized in early life the necessity of caution; he had no belief in the claims of the Church of Rome, and probably felt its attraction less strongly than his father, whose grandiose imagination was struck by its great claims and long history. Yet he showed marked favour to Roman ecclesiastics such as Du Perron, he allowed the triumphant ceremonies of Somerset House, and he sanctioned the almost open exercise of Catholic worship, only from time to time showing a feeble concession to the feeling of the country by such measures as forbidding the English Catholics to frequent the chapels of the ambassadors, and by issuing a proclamation which at the Queen's prayers he deprived of most of its force. There is, of course, only one sufficient explanation of his conduct. He was, it is true, like others of his family, a believer in a certain kind of toleration. He thought it a base thing for a man to change his religion, and he considered that any Christian might be saved. He was also, except when actuated by feelings of revenge, a merciful man to whom persecution was distasteful, and there were probably moods in which he imagined himself a second Henry IV, under whose paternal sway the rival religions could live at peace; but the real reason of his tenderness to the Catholics was his love for his wife. As in the old days Buckingham could make him do anything, so in later times could Henrietta Maria. Her tears, her smiles, her caresses won boon after boon for her co-religionists, until she wrung from him the last, the most disastrous concession of all. No single act was more fatal to his throne or more prejudicial to the ultimate interests of the Catholics than the establishment of the agency which brought into England Panzani, Con, and later Rosetti; as these worthy men rolled about London in their fine carriages, secure in the royal favour, and none daring to make them afraid, they believed that they were helping forward the conversion of England. In reality, they were riveting for more than a century longer the chains of the English Catholics.

As for Henrietta herself, she was unfortunate in religious as in other matters. It is hardly too much to say that she pulled down her husband's throne to help her co-religionists, and yet in the light of future events it must be gravely questioned whether the progress of Catholicism under her protection was not too dearly bought by the terror and hatred which it inspired in the English mind, and whether in the end the Church was advanced by her coming into England. On the other hand, she had just sufficient moderation (which showed itself particularly in her recognition of the impossibility of bringing up her children in her own faith) to render her slightly suspect to the more fanatical Catholics in Rome and elsewhere. When the hour of need came the English Catholics, recalling her benefits and dreading above all things the domination of the Puritans, did indeed for the most part rally loyally round her; but on the Continent it was chiefly remembered that she was the devoted wife of a heretic King, whose qualified mercy so prized at home seemed abroad but a mockery of the hopes of the royal marriage.[184]

[Footnote 104: _Continuation of Weekly Newes_, No. 43, 1624.]

[Footnote 105: The following extract from J. Evelyn's _State of France_ (1652) shows the opinion which cultivated Protestants held of French Catholics:--

"The Roman Catholicks of France are nothing so precise, secret and bigotish as are either the Recusants of England, Spain and Italy, but are for the most part an indifferent sort of Christian, naturally not so superstitious and devout, nor in such Vassallage to his Holinesse as in other parts of Europe where the same opinions are professed: which indifferency, whether I may approve of or condemn, I need not declare here."]

[Footnote 106: See Avenel: _Lettres de Richelieu, passim._ The importance of winning over the English Catholics is dwelt upon in the instructions given to ambassadors; see also the memorial on the state of England drawn up by Fontenay-Mareuil, in 1634, which dwells upon the pro-Spanish tendencies of the English Catholics and the means of overcoming them: those English Catholics who desired benefits from France were wont to consider, "that whereas the Catholics of England have been traduced to be all of the Spanish faction, that is a mere calumny."--Archives of the See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 107: The original of this letter is preserved among the Archives of the See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 108: During the singing of the hymns and psalms he knelt down, and during the prayers he said his rosary: "Cela édifia fort les Catholiques Anglais qui ne manquoient pas d'épier les actions des ministres de France, pour les rapporter aux Espagnols avec lesquels ils étoient fort unis."--_Mémoires de Brienne (Ville-aux-clercs), Petitot_ (1824), p. 391.]

[Footnote 109: Bib. Nat., MS. Dupuy, 144.]

[Footnote 110: Bib. Ste Geneviève, Paris, MS. 820. Tillières to Puisieux, January 9th, 1624.]

[Footnote 111: He seems to have been much liked by the English Catholics; he is said to have held a special commission to advance their interests. P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]

[Footnote 112: Arch. Nat., M. 232.]

[Footnote 113: Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 44. This document goes on to say that the request of the Parliament for the execution of the recusancy laws was founded "sur la crainte des Espagnols desquels les Catholiques sont tenus pour fauteurs et pensionnaires," and also in the fear that the liberty promised at the time of the marriage would enable the Catholics "de faire quelque entreprise contre le bien de l'Estat." Dod, in his _Church History_, gives the names of only two priests who suffered the death penalty during the years of Charles' power.]

[Footnote 114: See the letters which, just before her marriage, she wrote to her brother the King of France and to the Pope on this subject. Green: _Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria_, pp. 8, 9.]

[Footnote 115: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]

[Footnote 116: Charles wished Father Philip to be consecrated Bishop, but this suggestion did not meet with the approval of the French Government. Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 43.]

[Footnote 117: P.R.O. French Transcripts.]

[Footnote 118: "Je ne dis rien de l'assiduite de ces pères a ouir les confessions depuis six heures du matin iusques a midi et demy, l'assistance qu'ils rendoyent aux malades et aux prisonniers. . . ."--Henrietta Maria to Card. Barberini, 1658. P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]

[Footnote 119: A translation of these memoirs is published at the end of the _Court and Times of Charles I_; they are inaccurate in detail, and though amusing reading, do not give a high opinion of the intellect of the writer.]

[Footnote 120: Panzani: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]

[Footnote 121: Salvetti: Add. MS., 27,962, I, f. 263.]

[Footnote 122: Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 47.]

[Footnote 123: A chapel had been built at St. James's at an earlier date; the "new chapel at St. James's" is mentioned in 1630.]

[Footnote 124: "Les royales ceremonies faites en l'edification d'une chapelle de Capucins a Londres en Angleterre dans le Palais de la Roine; faite par son commandement et par la permission du Roy; en laquelle chapelle elle a posé la premiere pierre."--Paris, 1632.]

[Footnote 125: "Si cette genereuse Princesse, soeur du plus juste et du plus vaillant de tous les roys . . . s'est ainsi acquise ceste liberté de conscience chez elle, pensez-vous qu'elle en demeure la? et qu'elle ne l'acquiere pas bien tost en faveur de tous les Catholiques qui sont en Angleterre."--_Ibid._]

[Footnote 126: The French were inclined from experience in their own land to believe that Protestants and Catholics could live peaceably together. See _Remonstrance au roy d'Angleterre sur la miserable condition des Catholiques ses subjects en comparaison du favorable traictement que Huguenots recoivent en France_. MDCXXVIII.]

[Footnote 127: Arch. Nat., M. 232. The letter is endorsed "coppie d'une lettre dressée par le R. P. Général pour la Reyne Mère à la Reyne d'Angleterre."]

[Footnote 128: Aff. Etran. Ang., t. 44.]

[Footnote 129: The Queen's attempts to soften her husband's heart towards the Scotch Catholics are mentioned in _Memoirs of Scottish Catholics during Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries_, by W. Forbes Leith, S.J.]

[Footnote 130: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]

[Footnote 131: The French translation of this petition is entitled: "Remonstrance et Declaration des Catholiques Anglais faites au roi d'Angleterre à son Couronnement du royaume d'Escosse."

"Pour obtenir de sa Majesté la Liberté de la Religion Catholique dans l'estendue de ses royaumes" (1633).]

[Footnote 132: Tillières (see his _Mémoires_) believed that the Queen, during the years of Weston's power, could have obtained much more liberty for the Catholics than she did had she been willing to work with him: he dwells, as do Salvetti (Add. MS., 27,962) and Fontenay-Mareuil (_Mémoires_), upon the favour she showed to Puritans; the latter says that the peace of the Catholics came from their insignificance between the nearly equal parties of the Protestants and the Puritans, but his personal hostility to Henrietta may have made him unwilling to give her the credit which in this matter she certainly deserved.]

[Footnote 133: Archives of See of Westminster: _Summarium de rebus religionis in Anglia_, 1632.]

[Footnote 134: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts. As early as 1629 a letter from London speaks of the confidence of the Catholics in the protection of the Queen--"gia piu volte isperimentata" (_ibid_).]

[Footnote 135: "Elle [Henrietta Maria] edifia ce Temple magnifique dans son Palais de Somerset ou les Pères Capucins qu'elle y logea chanterent en toute liberté les louanges de Dieu. La s'assembloient comme dans le Temple de Jerusalem, tous les fidèles d'Angleterre: là Jésus-Christ étoit offert à Dieu son père dans le très auguste Sacrifice: la se préschoient hautement les veritez Catholiques: là les Sacrémens s'administroient: là se vendroient à la porte les livres saints: là tous les jours le pavé s'étoit baigne de larmes de joye et de douleur des justes et pécheurs penitents: là les enfans venoient adorer le Dieu de leurs Pères: là s'abjuroit publiquement le schisme et le heresie: là le Pape étoit honore comme le Vicaire de Jésus-Christ: là les Images, les Huiles saintes, les prières pour les Morts estoient en usage et en respect: la en un mot l'Arche Vivante renversoit Dagon sur terre: là elle exercoit ses jugements sur les Philistines: là elle triomphoit des faux Dieux de Samarie."--François Faure, Oraison Funèbre de Henriette Marie de France, Reyne de la Grande Bretagne (1670).]

[Footnote 136: Henrietta Maria speaks of nine hundred persons converted by the Capuchins, besides some ministers. P.R.O. Roman Transcripts. Henrietta Maria to Cardinal Barberini, 1658. Du Perron says that every year between two and three hundred persons were converted by means of the Capuchins and the Oratorians, and that besides a large number were converted by English priests working under the protection of the toleration.]

[Footnote 137: See Memoirs of Père Cyprien de Gamache.]

[Footnote 138: Prynne, _Popish Royal Favourite_.]

[Footnote 139: The King contented himself with taking one-third instead of two-thirds of the property of recusants.]

[Footnote 140: Archives of See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 141: Bishop Hacket: _Memoirs of the Life of Archbishop Williams_ (1715), p. 87.]

[Footnote 142: Madame de Motteville, in the account of the troubles of England, which she heard from Henrietta Maria, says, "l'Archevêque de Cantorberi qui dans son coeur étant très bon Catholique...."--_Mémoires de Mme. de Motteville_ (1783), t. 1, p. 242.

Heylin, who knew a good deal of Laud's mind, says: "I hold it probable enough that the better to oblige the Queen unto him (of whose prevailing in the King's affections he [Laud] could not be ignorant), he might consent to Con's coming hither over from the Pope."--_Cyprianus Anglicans_, IV, p. 411.]

[Footnote 143: Archives of See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 144: Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini.]

[Footnote 145: Panzani: _Memoirs_, ed. Berington (1793), p. 191.]

[Footnote 146: Archives of See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 147: This statement rests on the authority of Panzani, who had a considerable prejudice against the Jesuits.]

[Footnote 148: Père Suffren, the confessor of Mary de' Medici, seems to have been the only Jesuit whom he ever regarded with favour.]

[Footnote 149: Jean Jaubert de Barrault, Bishop of Bazas.]

[Footnote 150: "Les religieux et particulierement les Jesuites sont estimes en Angleterre broullons, aux affaires destat et les Prestres seculiers n'ont iammais estés soubsonés de ceste faulte."--Archives of See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 151: The Proclamation against the Bishop dates from 1628, but it seems only to have been intended to frighten him; he did not leave England until 1631.]

[Footnote 152: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]

[Footnote 153: Archives of See of Westminster. Bishop Smith had compromised his position at Rome by expressing himself willing to resign his See and afterwards refusing to do so.]

[Footnote 154: The details of Douglas' mission are to be found in papers among the Roman Transcripts P.R.O.]

[Footnote 155: Archives of See of Westminster. This unfavourable description occurs in a curious paper, drawn up in 1625, headed: "Que les ecclesiastiques qui seront aupres de la Royne d'Angleterre doivent etre natives d'Angleterre mesme." A later section of the same paper is headed: "Que les ecclesiastiques qui seront aupres de la Royne d'Angleterre doivent plustost estre Prestres seculiers que Religieux." See note 1 on p. 113, which contains an extract from the same paper.]

[Footnote 156: _Vita Mariæ Stuartæ Scotiæ Reginæ Dotariæ Galliæ, Angliæ et Hibernis Heredis, scriptore Georgia Conæo._ MDCXXIV.]

[Footnote 157: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts. Henrietta Maria to Urban VIII, 163-8/9.]

[Footnote 158: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]

[Footnote 159: Archives of See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 160: See chapter III.]

[Footnote 161: She never made any great effort to bring up her children as Catholics. She took Prince Charles to Mass sometimes, but desisted at her husband's request. In the marriage contract all that was said about the religion of the children of the marriage was, that they were to have free exercise of the Catholic religion, but it was provided that they were to be brought up by their mother until they reached the age of thirteen years.]

[Footnote 162: Bib. Nat., Paris, MS. Cinq Cents de Colbert, 356. Greffier to Du Perron, December 9th, 1632.]

[Footnote 163: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts.]

[Footnote 164: There were two oaths which troubled the Catholics, that of supremacy and that of allegiance; the first declared the King "supremo Capo della Chiesa Anglicana," the second was aimed at the deposing power of the Pope, and was drawn up in 1606. A good many Catholics, particularly the Benedictines, believed that the second, or oath of allegiance, could lawfully be taken by Catholics (who suffered commercially from their refusal) notwithstanding its condemnation by Paul V. Panzani's Relazione, Add. MS., 15,389.]

[Footnote 165: Archives of See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 166: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 167: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 168: _Deus, Natura, Gratia_ (1635). The real name of the author was Christopher Davenport; he died in 1680.]

[Footnote 169: Archives of See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 170: "Il Laboru sacerdote secolare m'ha detto che pochi giorni sono il Cantuarieuse diose alia Duchessa di Buchingam che presto questo Regno sarà reconciliata alia Chiesa Romana. Io non volevo credere questo ma detto Laboru me l'ha giurato. Io manco lo credo e se l'ha detto havrà burlato."--Panzani to Barberini, April 9th, 1636. Add. MS., 15,389.]

[Footnote 171: Archives of See of Westminster. Letter of Peter Fitton, agent of English secular clergy in Rome, July, 1636.]

[Footnote 172: Add. MS., 15,389.]

[Footnote 173: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts. Henrietta Maria to Cardinal Barberini, October, 1637.]

[Footnote 174: "Da questo e da altri motivi puotiamo vedere che la quiete che godiamo per la gratia di Dio non e per ragione del Stato come alcuni politici a Roma discorrono, perche tal quiete non e giudicata a proposito da questi ministri di Stato ma piu presto il contrario accio che tanto piu apparisca il zelo constante della Regina alla quale sola in terra si deve tutto."--June, 1639. Add. MS., 15,392, f. 64.]

[Footnote 175: P.R.O. Roman Transcripts. In 1629 she had accepted the dedication of the English translation of Richeome's _Pilgrime of Loretto_.]

[Footnote 176: Add. MS., 15,389.]

[Footnote 177: MS. Français, 23,597.]

[Footnote 178: Rous: _Diary_, Camden Soc. (1856), p. 12.]

[Footnote 179: Cf. Prynne: _Popish Royal Favourite_ (1643). "By all these our whole 3 Kingdomes ... must of necessity now see and acknowledge that there is and hath bin all his Majesties Reigne till this instant a most strong cunning desperate confederacie prosecuted (wherein the Queens Majestie hath been chiefe) to set up Popery in perfection and extirpate the Protestant party and religion in all his Majesties dominions" (p. 35).]

[Footnote 180: 150,000 is the number given by a Catholic reporter in 1635 (Westminster Archives), and Panzani gives the same number. Add. MS., 15,389.]

[Footnote 181: The population of England and Wales was probably about 5,000,000.]

[Footnote 182: Archives of See of Westminster.]

[Footnote 183: Du Perron: _Proces Verbal de l'assemblée du clerge_, 1645.]

[Footnote 184: It can hardly be doubted that when the marriage dispensation was given it was hoped that Charles' successor would be a Catholic. The English Catholics resident abroad shared to some extent the continental opinion of the King and Queen of England.]