CHAPTER VIITHE TURNING-POINT

Wecome now, in the course of her story, to the most momentous epoch in the life of Anne Hyde, the period, namely, of her conversion to the Church of Rome. And here it must be noted that she was in no respect ignorant, nor uninstructed in the dogmas of her own Communion. It has been shown that in her early youth she was placed by her father under the teaching of Morley, during the time when he lived, an honoured guest, in Hyde’s household in the days of exile at Breda.[240]

240.Burnet’s “History of His Own Time,” ed. 1766. “She was bred to great strictness in religion.”

He, as we know, had been in other days a friend of such great and noble souls as Hammond and Sanderson, Chillingworth and Falkland. He had ministered to Charles I. in his captivity at Newmarket, and had stood on the scaffold with Capel. At The Hague he became an honorary chaplain to the Queen of Bohemia, who knew merit when she saw it.

From the time when Morley assumed the spiritual directorship of the twelve-year-old daughter of his protector Hyde, he taught her to use regular confession, which she seems to have done unswervingly, and her confidence in him may be gauged from the fact that as soon as her position as Duchess of York was firmly established, she chose him to continue her guide “in those things that concerned her spiritual and everlasting condition.” It has been already noticed that at one time Morley had been suspected of Calvinism, on which account he was disliked by Laud; and the story is told of him, that when asked what Arminians held, he answered with some acerbity that they held but bishoprics and deaneries. But his later close friendship with the saintly Ken seems to establish his orthodoxy, and we find him preaching against Presbyterianism.[241]He, for his part, describes his pupil Anne as being “as devout and charitable as ever I knew any of her age and sex.” After her marriage she carefully kept the canonical hours of the “Public Service of God in her Chapel with those of her family.” Besides this, she was a regular and devoutcommunicant. “And always,” says the bishop,[242]“the day before she received she made a voluntary confession of what she thought she had offended God in, either by omission or by commission, professing her sorrow for it, and promising amendment of it, and kneeling down she desired and received absolution in the form and words prescribed by our Church. This for her devotion. And as for Charity, she did every time she received the Sacrament, besides five pounds in gold she gave at the altar, she gave me twenty pounds to give to such as I thought had most need of it, and did best deserve it. This was her ordinary and constant way of expressing her charity. But that which she did at other Times and upon extraordinary Occasions I believe was very much more, especially in the Time of the Great Plague. To conclude I remember she told the late Archbishop of Canterbury (Sheldon) and me when we were both together with her that if she did not so much in point of Charity as it was fit for her to do, it should be his fault and mine, and not hers.”[243]

241.Izaak Walton was also much with him, probably owing to his connection with Ken.

242.“Register and Chronicle,” by Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough. (Morley.)

243.Burnet was very bitter against Sheldon, who he declared “seemed to have no great sense of religion” (“History of His Own Times”). “He {Sheldon} belonged to the school of Andrewes and Laud, and at one time was almost the sole support of Jeremy Taylor. He, by the way, fearlessly remained at Lambeth throughout the Plague” (Dictionary of National Biography).

It is strange and perplexing to read this obviously honest testimony side by side with the dismal tales of light conduct, of avarice, of gluttony, of reckless gambling, which were freely told; and it is impossible to refrain from, at least, trying to discount some of these scandals, knowing as we do the age and state of society which gave birth to them. It may be objected that the King, whose way of life was so unhappily notorious, steadily communicated, himself, in the Chapel Royal on the great festivals; but from the account just quoted, it seems evident that Duchess Anne’s reception of the Divine Mysteries was no perfunctory act. For the rest, impossible as it is to reconcile apparent contradictions, one can only fall back on the truism of the contradictions of poor human nature itself.

With regard to the change of faith presently to be traced, as late as 1667, at the time therefore of her father’s banishment, Bishop Morley persists in describing Anne as still “a zealous Protestant,” “and zealous to make Protestants,”though this assertion may be coloured by the writer’s prepossessions. Her relations with Morley and also with Sheldon brought her into contact with the mysterious adventurer Ferdinand de Macedo.[244]Sir John Bramston, Clarendon’s old friend, had been accused by this person, prompted by Henry Mildmay, Bramston’s political enemy, of having changed his religion. Macedo himself (a Portuguese), who had declared himself a convert from the Roman Church, was recommended to the Duchess as an object of charity. She forthwith allowed him a yearly pension of thirty pounds, and spoke for him to her two advisers, who, in their turn, each made him an allowance of ten pounds, the Bishop of Winchester, moreover, placing him at Christ Church and even advancing a further sum of thirty pounds to buy necessaries. However, the man for whom so much was done was found to be utterly unworthy, for he drank and gambled, and even had a discreditable brawl with a Frenchman whom he threw downstairs. The Dean of Christ Church and Canon Lockey, at the end of their patience, very naturally appealed to Morley to remove him, as a cause of gravescandal. The latter, as well as Sheldon, promptly withdrew the allowance aforesaid, but out of good nature said little or nothing of the matter to the Duchess, who, however, hearing something of it from others, questioned the bishop closely, and being satisfied that her bounty was misapplied, took it away. Macedo, who probably traded on the fact that he was a Portuguese, and thus a fellow-countryman of the Queen, was quite unabashed at being unmasked, and with great effrontery announced that he had been turned out of the university for testifying against Popery and the Prayer Book. The exasperated Morley called him, with apparently only too much reason, “a counterfeit pretended convert” whom “Maimbourg magnifies so much, tho’ he knows he proved himself to be an arrant impostor and profligated wretch.”[245]

244.“Autobiography of Sir John Bramston.”

245.“Register and Chronicle,” by Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough.

A year or two earlier, a letter from Anne to the Bishop of Durham, dated 10th September 1665, expresses her attitude with regard to the Anglican Church at that period.

“Right Reverend Father in God,—Though you might assure yourselfe that you shouldalwaies find that reception with mee which is due to your quality and merits yet I should have been sorry that your respect to mee should have induced you to a journey injurious to your health the preservation of whfor the good of the Church I have great reason to wish and doe desire you to be perswaded that I should be glad of any occasion whereby I might show you that I am

“Your affectionate friend

“Anne.”[246]

246.Rawlinson MS. (Bodleian).

This was written from York where the writer was with her husband on one of their “progresses,” and the prelate to whom it was addressed was no other than the saintly Cosin. During his exile at Charenton, near Paris, he had been much engaged in controversy, on one occasion, with the Prior of the English Benedictines, whom he had defeated by the force of “much learning and sound reasoning.”

At the Restoration he had returned to his deanery of Peterborough, where he was the first person to use the Restored Prayer Book in the cathedral, but the same year was consecrated Bishop of Durham, where he diedin 1672,[247]in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He displayed extraordinary munificence throughout his episcopate, and one of his bequests recalls a very real need of that period, for he left a sum for the redemption of Christian slaves.

247.“Sufferings of the Clergy.” Walker.

For some time after the incident of Macedo’s exposure, the Duchess of York seems to have been to all intents and purposes a loyal churchwoman, and indeed to Morley himself she never owned the change in her faith, even though she stayed at the episcopal palace at Farnham after she wrote the letter of recantation which will be noticed later.

Moreover Blandford, Bishop of Worcester, succeeded Bishop Morley in her household after the latter’s resignation when involved in Clarendon’s disgrace; therefore up to that time she had certainly not severed her connection with the Church of her baptism.

There now comes the difficult task of seeking the motive for so grave a resolution.

Burnet, who is never apt to attribute the best motives for any action, declares that Anne took the step in the desperate hope of winning back her husband’s affections, alienated fromher by the affair with Henry Sidney. She, so says Burnet, “lost the power she had over him so entirely that no method she could think of was likely to recover it except one.”[248]

248.Burnet’s “History of His Own Time.”

But to this assertion Anne’s own avowal, which carries the stamp of conviction, gives the lie; and besides, as the Duke of York had not then, nor did for some time after, openly abjure the Anglican Church, his wife’s strong common-sense must have told her that her own apostasy could only have a disastrous effect on the future fortunes of both. That she did not renounce her Church lightly is certain. She had read much on the subject, and among other books she was conversant with Heylin’s “History of the Reformation.”[249]There is no evidence that the Duke’s sister-in-law, the Queen, influenced her in any way. Indeed, poor Catherine was not a person to exercise such a quality, nor to bring pressure to bear on anyone, devout and conscientious though she was from first to last. Besides, Duchess Anne was too strong willed and resolute to bow to any one’s ruling, least of all to that of one so yielding, placableand self-effacing as the neglected wife of Charles II.

249.“Adventures of King James II.,” by the author of “Life of Sir Kenelm Digby,” introduction by F. A. Gasquet, D.D.

It is impossible to lay a finger on the precise period when Anne first began to waver in her allegiance to the Church, but the falling off was first suspected in 1669, and not before. When her neglect of the Holy Eucharist was first noticed by him, Morley spoke to her plainly and faithfully on the point, when she gave him an evasive answer, alleging as deterrent reasons the state of her health and the claims of business, and at the same time declared that no Roman priest had ever spoken to her of these questions. She also voluntarily promised the bishop, that if any scruples should occur to her, she would at once tell him of them. This, however, so he afterwards told Burnet, she never did. It is strange and sad that, after so many years of complete confidence, Anne should shrink from consulting this faithful adviser, but there were reserves in her character which were manifested to the end. Possibly a certain pride had something to do with it, a reluctance to own herself capable of change in any direction, and she preferred to wrestle with her perplexities unaided and unthwarted. At last the King became conscious of his sister-in-law’s continuedabstention from Holy Communion, and questioned his brother on the subject.[250]The Duke at once owned the fact of his wife’s conversion, and her intention of being received into the Roman Communion.[251]On this he was peremptorily charged to keep the momentous secret, at all hazards, for the King, always astute and, when he chose to be, far-seeing, was too well aware of the temper of the English people to run the risk of making public a matter of such importance. It was in August 1670 that Anne was formally reconciled to the Church of Rome by Father Hunt, a Franciscan, who with Lady Cranmer, her lady-in-waiting, and one Dupuy, a servant of the Duke, were for a time the sole depositaries of this matter; for it does not appear that even the Queen was at this time, at any rate, a party to the secret. It must be borne in mind as giving weight to the King’s prohibition, that Anne was the wife of the heir presumptive to the Crown, and the mother ofhis apparent successors, and this rendered her faith, in the eyes of the nation, of the last importance.

250.“Life of James II.” Rev. J. S. Clarke, from original MSS. in Carlton House, 1816. “A suspicion the Duchess was inclined to be a Roman Catholic. She that had all her life been very regular in receiving once a month the Sacrament in the Church of England’s way, and upon all occasions had shown herself very zealous in her profession.”

251.Macpherson’s “Original Papers,” 1775 ed.

In that same month of August[252]the Duchess of York wrote the confession now transcribed, which was published by James after his accession to the throne “for his Household and Chappel” in 1686.

252.It is dated the 20th of the month.

“It is so reasonable to expect that a person always Bred up in the Church of England, and as well instructed in the Doctrine of it, as the best Divines, and her capacity could make her, should be liable to many censures for leaving That, and making herself a member of the Roman Catholic Church, to which, I confess, I was one of the greatest enemies it ever had; That I chose rather to endeavour to satisfy my friends by reading this Paper then to have the trouble to answer all the questions that may dayly be asked of me. And first, I do protest in the presence of Almighty God, That no Person, Man or Woman, Directly nor Indirectly, ever said anything to me (since I came into England) or used the least endeavour to make me change my Religion. It is a blessing I wholly owe toAlmighty God, and I hope the hearing of a Prayer I dayly made Him, ever since I was in France and Flanders, Where seeing much of the Devotion of the Catholicks, (though I had very little myself) I made it my continual request to Almighty God: That if I were not, I might before I died be in the true Religion: I did not in the least doubt, but that I was so, and never had any manner of scruple till November last, when reading a book called the History of the Reformation, by Doctor Heylin which I had heard very much commended, and had been told, if ever I had any doubt in my Religion, that would settle me: Instead of which, I found it the description of the horridest Sacriledges in the World: and could find no reason why we left the Church, but for Three the most abominable ones that were ever heard of amongst Christians. First, Henry the Eighth Renounced the Pope’s Authority because he would not give him leave to part with his Wife and marry Another in her life time: Secondly Edward the Sixth was a Child and govern’d by his Uncle who made his Estate out of Church Lands: and then Queen Elizabeth, who being no Lawful Heiress to the Crown could have no way to keep it but by renouncing a Church thatcould never suffer so unlawful a thing to be done by one of Her Children. I confess, I cannot think the Holy Ghost could ever be in such Counsels and it is very strange that if the Bishops had no design but (as they say) the restoring us to the Doctrines of the Primitive Church, they should never think upon it how Henry the Eighth made the Breach upon so unlawful a Pretence. These scruples being raised, I began to consider of the difference between the Catholicks and Us, and Examin’d them as well as I could by the Holy Scriptures, which though I do not pretend to be able to understand, yet there are some things I found so easie that I cannot but wonder I had been so long without finding them out. As the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, the Infallibility of the Church, Confession, and Praying for the Dead. After this I spoke severally to Two of the best Bishops we have in England, who both told me, there were many things in the Roman Church which (it were very much to be wished) we had kept. As Confession, which was no doubt commanded by God; That Praying for the Dead was one of the Ancient Things in Christianity. That for their parts they did it Daily, though they would not own it; but afterwards pressingone of them very much upon the other Points, he told me That if he had been bred a Catholick he would not change his Religion, but that being of another Church, wherein he was sure were all things necessary to Salvation, he thought it very ill to give that Scandal, as to leave that Church, wherein he had received his Baptism. All these Discourses did but add more to the desire I had to be a Catholick, and gave me the most terrible Agonies in the World, within myself. For all this, fearing to be rash in a matter of that Weight, I did all I could to satisfie myself, made it my Daily Prayer to God to settle me in the Right, and so went on Christmas Day to receive in the King’s Chappel, after which I was more troubled than ever, and could never be in quiet till I had told my desire to a Catholick who brought a Priest to me, and that was the First I ever did Converse with upon my Word. The more I spoke to him, the more I was Confirm’d in my design, and, as it is impossible for me to doubt of the words of our Blessed Saviour, who says the Holy Sacrament is his Body and Blood, so I cannot Believe, that He who is the author of all truth and who has promis’d to be with His Church to the End of the World would permit them to give thatHoly Mystery to the Laiety but in one kind, if it were not Lawful so to do.

“I am not able, or, if I were, would I enter into Disputes with any Body, I only in short say this for the changing of my Religion, which I take God to Witness I would never have done if I had thought it possible to save my Soul otherwise. I think I need not say, it is any Interest in this World leads me to it; it will be plain enough to every body, that I must lose all the Friends and Credit I have here by it; and have very well weighed which I could best part with, my share in this world or the next; I thank God I found no difficulty in the Choice.

“My only Prayer is, that the poor Catholicks of this Nation may not suffer for my being of their Religion; That God would but give me Patience to bear them, and then, send me any affliction in this World, so I may enjoy a Blessed Eternity hereafter.”[253]

253.Harleian MSS.; also “Copy of a paper written by the late Dutchess of York. Published by His Majesties command. Printed by Henry Hills, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majesty for His Household and Chappel. 1686.”

The inherent weakness and insufficiency of the arguments put forward by the writer in this paper are manifest at once, but her sincerity canscarcely be impugned. Indeed, throughout her career this quality was always conspicuous in Anne Hyde, to an extent which often, in her relations with those about her, made for unpopularity.

It must be mentioned in this place that John Evelyn disbelieved the authorship of this letter. Writing to Bishop Morley as early as 1681, he says:

“Father Maimburg has had the impudence to publish at the end of his late Histoire du Calvinisme a pretended letter of the late Duchess of York intimating the motives of her deserting the Church of England, amongst other things to attribute it to the indifference, to call it no worse, of those two bishops upon whose advice she wholly depended as to the direction of her conscience and points of controversy. ’Tis the universal discourse that your Lordship is one of these bishops she mentions, if at least the letter be not suppositious, knowing you to have been the most domestic in the family, and one whom her Highness resorted to in all her doubts and spiritual concerns, not only during her former circumstances, but all the time of her greatness to the very last. It is thereforehumbly and earnestly desired (as well as indeed expected) amongst all that are concerned for our religion and the great and worthy character which your Lordship bears, that your Lordship would do right to it, and publish to all the world how far you are concerned in this pretended charge and to vindicate yourself and our Church from what this bold man would have the world believe to the prejudice of both. I know your Lordship will be curious to read the passage yourself and do what becomes you upon this signal occasion, God having placed you in a station where you have no great one’s frowns to fear or flatter, and given you a zeal for the truth and for his Glory. With this assurance I humbly beg yrLordship’s blessing.”[254]

254.“Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn.”

We have already seen that Morley distinctly stated to Burnet that his pupil the Duchess had never asked his counsel in her difficulty, therefore he could not have been either of the bishops whom she cited, and a marginal note to Anne’s letter states, moreover, that the bishops referred to were Sheldon and Blandford. Evelyn, it is true, does not give the ground for his scepticism in the authenticity of the letter. He may ormay not be right, but the fact of James’ order for its publication would seem to stamp it as genuine, even if the writer had been prejudiced, or mistaken, in her references to the bishops.

Anne’s dutiful and regular attendance on religious observances naturally drew attention to the neglect of them which she manifested in later years, but the secret was well kept, and though suspected in some quarters, did not leak out to the world in general in her lifetime.

We can, without much difficulty, picture the bitter heart-searchings, the doubt, the reluctance, intensified by failing health, which must have accompanied this momentous change; but we must at least give her credit for the absolute candour of her convictions.

There was one person who was deeply and specially affected by this departure on her part.

On her father, the exiled Chancellor, the news of his daughter’s change of religion inflicted a crushing blow, stanch as he had always shown himself to be to the Anglican Church.[255]His recollections of the great civil strife in which he had been so deeply involved were inextricablybound up with loyalty and devotion to that Church, as well as to the master who had undoubtedly suffered for her, and thus by that sacrifice secured her continuity. To Hyde, as to many others of his time and circumstances, the scaffold at Whitehall stood as a witness to the faith, invested with the glory of that most sacred memory. And now from the hand that was best beloved to him, came the wound that must rankle till the end.

255.Burnet’s “History of His Own Time,” ed. 1766. “Her father was more troubled at her uncertainty than his own misfortunes.”

It is quite probable that the Chancellor had already suspicions of leanings towards Rome on the part of the Duke of York, and had to a great extent trusted in his daughter’s strength of character and influence as a deterrent; so that the unexpected defection on her part would be regarded by him as a disaster for the country no less than for herself.

At this unhappy juncture Clarendon therefore took up the pen, which in his hand was so trenchant a weapon, and addressed both husband and wife, separately, in words which deserve the strongest admiration and respect.

“Sr,—I have not p’sumed in any matter to approach yo’ Royall p’sence Since I have been marked with the Brand of Banishment, and Ishould still with the same awe forbear the p’sumption if I did not believe myselfe bound by all the Obligations of Duty to make this address to you. I have been acquainted to much with the p’sumption and impudence of the times in Raising false and scandalous Imputations and reproaches upon Innocent and worthy persons of all qualities to give any credit to those loud whispers which have been long scattered abroad concerning your Wives being shaken in her religion. But when those Whispers break out into noise most publick Persons begin to report that the Dutchess is become a Roman Catholick. When I heard that many worthy Persons of unquestionable Devotion to your Royall Highness, are not without some fear and apprehension of it, and many Reflections are made from them to the prejudice of your Royal Person, and even of the King’s Majesties, I hope it may not misbecome me at what distance soever to cast myself at your Feet, and beseech you to look to this matter, and to apply some Antidote to expel the Poyson of it. It is not possible your Royall Highness can be without zeal and Entire Devotion for that Church for the Purity and Preservation whereof your blessed Father made himself a Sacrifice and to the Restorationwhereof You have contributed so much yourself, and which highly deserves the King’s Protection and Yours since there can be no possible defection in the hearts of the People whilst due Reverence is made to the Church. Your Wife is so generally believed to have so perfect Duty and Intire Resignation to the Will of your Highness, that any defection in Her from Her Religion will be imputed to want of Circumspection in you and not using your Authority, or to your connivance. I need not tell the ill consequences that such a mistake would be attended with, in reference to your Royale Highness, and even to the King himself whose greatest security (under God) is in the affection and Duty of his Protestant subjects, your Royall Highness well knows how far I have always been from wishing that the Roman Catholicks should be prosecuted with severity but I less wish it should ever be in their power to be able to prosecute those who differ from them since we well know how little moderation they would or could use. And if this which People so much talk of (I hope without ground) should fall out, it might very probably raise a greater storm against the Roman Catholicks in general than modest Men can wish, since after such a breach any Jealousiesof their presumption would seem reasonable. I have written to the Dutchess with the freedom and affection of a troubled and perplexed Father. I do most humbly beseech your Royall Highness by your Authority to rescue Her from bringing a Mischief upon You and herself that can never be repaired; and to think it worthy your wisdom to remove and dispell those reproaches (how false soever) by better Evidence than Contempt, and hope you do believe that no severity I have or can undergo, shall in any degree lessen or diminish my most profound Duty to His Majesty or your Royall Highness, but that I do with all imaginable Obedience submit to your good Pleasure in all things.

“God preserve Your Royall Highness and keep me in your favour.

“Sir,

“Your R. H. most Humble and obedient Servant,

“Clarendon.”[256]

256.Lansdown MSS.; also State Tracts, 1660 to 1689.

So much for the letter of remonstrance to his son-in-law. Through all the stately, measured, elaborate phraseology and studied deference the writer’s deep anxiety may be traced quitedistinctly, but in the words addressed to Anne herself, sorrow, affection, warning, reproof speak, as is natural, with undisguised warmth. The father is yearning over the child who is passing beyond his ken, and from the place of his lonely exile he gathers up his utmost powers, to lead, if it may be, the wandering lamb home to the fold.

“You have much reason,” so run the words, “to believe that I have no mind to trouble you or displease you, especially in an argument that is so unpleasant and grievous to myself; but as no distance of place that is between us, in respect of our Residence or the greater distance in Respect of the high condition you are in, can make me less your Father or absolve me from performing those obligations which that Relation requires from me, So when I receive any Credible Advertisement of what reflects upon you, in point of Honour, Conscience or Discretion, I ought not to omit the informing You of it, or administering such advice to You as to my understanding seems reasonable, and which I must still hope will have some Credit with You, I will confess to You that what You wrote to me many Months since, upon those Reproacheswhich I told you were generally reported concerning your defection in Religion, gave me so much satisfaction that I believed them to proceed from that ill Spirit of the Times that delights in Slanders and Calumny, but I must tell you, the same report increases of late very much, and I myself saw a Letter the last week from Paris, from a person who said the English Embassador assured him the day before, that the Dutchess was become a Roman Catholick, and which makes great Impression upon me, I am assured that many good men in England who have great Affection for You and Me, and who have thought nothing more impossible than that there should be such a change in You, are at present under much affliction with the observation of a great change in your course of Life and that constant Exercise of the Devotion which was so notorious and do apprehend from your frequent Discourses that you have not the same Reverence and Devotion which You use to have for the Church of England, the Church in which You were Baptized, and the Church the best constituted and the most free from Errors of any Christian Church this day in the world, and that some persons by their insinuations have prevailedwith You to have a better Opinion of that which is most opposite to it, the Church of Rome, than the integrity thereof deserves. It is not yet in my power to believe that your Wit and Understanding (with God’s blessing upon both) can suffer you to be shaken further than with Melancholick reflections upon the Iniquity and wickedness of the Age we live in, which discredits all Religion, and which with equal license breaks into the Professors of all, and prevails upon the Members of all Churches, and whose Manners will have no benefit from the Faith of any Church. I presume You do not intangle Yourself in the particular Controversies between the Romanists and us, or think Yourself a competent Judge of all difficulties which occur therein; and therefore it must be some fallacious Argument of Antiquity and Universality confidently urged by men who know less than many of those you are acquainted with, and ought less to be believed by you, that can raise any Doubts or Scruples in you, and if You will with equal temper hear those who are well able to inform You in all such particulars it is not possible for you to suck in that Poyson which can only corrupt and prevail over you by stopping Your own Ears and shutting Yourown Eyes. There are but two persons in the World who have greater authority with You than I can pretend to, and am sure they both suffer more in the Rumour, and would suffer much more if there were ground for it, than I can do, and truly I am as likely to be deceived myself or to deceive you as a man who endeavours to pervert You in Your Religion; And therefore I beseech You to let me have so much Credit with You as to perswade You to Communicate any Doubts or Scruples which occur to you before You suffer them to make too deep an Impression upon You. The common Argument that there is no Salvation out of the Church and that the Church of Rome is the only true Church is both irrational and untrue; there are many Churches in which Salvation may be attained as well as in any one of them, and were many even in the Apostles time otherwise they would not have directed their epistles to so many Severall Churches in which there were different Opinions received and very different Doctrines taught. There is indeed but one Faith in which we can be saved; the stedfast belief of the Birth, Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour; and every Church that receives and embraces that Faith is in a stateof Salvation, if the Apostles Preach true Doctrine, the reception and retention of many errors do’s not destroy the Essence of a Church, if it did, the Church of Rome would be in as ill, if not in a worse Condition than most other Christian Churches, because its Errors are of a greater Magnitude and more destructive to Religion. Let not the Canting Discourse of the Universality and Extent of that Church which has as little of Truth as the rest, prevail over You, they who will imitate the greatest part of the World, must turn Heathens, for it is generally believed that above half the World is possessed by them, and that the Mahometans possess more than half the remainder; There is as little question that of the rest which is inhabited by Christians, one part of four is not of the communion of the Church of Rome, and God knows that in that very Communion there is as great discord in Opinion, and in matters of as great moment, as is between the other Churches. I hear you do in publick discourses dislike some things in the Church of England, as the marriage of the Clergy, which is a point that no Roman Catholic will pretend to be of the Essence of Religion, and is in use in many places which are of the Communion of the Church ofRome, as in Bohemia, in those parts of the Greek Church which submit to the Roman; And all men know, that in the late Council of Trent, the Sacrament of both kinds, and liberty of the clergy to marry, was very passionately press’d both by the Emperor and King of France for their Dominions, and it was afterwards granted to Germany, though under such conditions as made it ineffectual; which however shows that it was not, nor ever can be look’d upon as matter of Religion. Christianity was many hundred years old, before such a restraint was ever heard of in the Church; and when it was endeavoured, it met with great opposition, and was never submitted to. And as the positive Inhibition seems absolutely unlawful so the Inconveniences which result from thence will upon a just disquisition be found superior to those which attend the liberty which Christian Religion permits. Those Arguments which are not strong enough to draw persons from the Roman Communion into that of the Church of England, when Custom and Education, and a long stupid resignation of all their faculties to their Teachers, usually shuts out all reason to the contrary, may yet be abundant to retain those who have been baptized, and Bred andInstructed in the Grounds and Principles of that Religion which are in truth not only founded upon the clear Authority of the Scriptures, but upon the consent of Antiquity and the practice of the Primitive Church, and men who look into Antiquity know well by what Corruption and Violence and with what constant and Continual Opposition, those Opinions which are contrary to ours, crept into the World, and how unwarrantably the Authority of the Bishop of Rome, which alone supports all the rest, came to prevail, who hath no more pretence of Authority and Power in England, than the Bishop of Paris and Toledo can as reasonably lay claim to, and is so far from being matter of Catholick Religion, that the Pope hath so much and no more to do in France or Spain or any other Catholick Dominion, than the Crown and Laws and Constitution of several Kingdoms gave him leave, which makes him so little (if at all) considered in France, and so much in Spain; And therefore the English Catholicks which attribute so much to him make themselves very unwarrantable of another Religion than the Catholick Church professeth and without doubt they who desert the Church of England, of which they are Members, and become therebydisobedient to the Ecclesiastical and Civil Laws of their Country and therein renounce their Subjection to the State as well as to the Church (which are grievous sins) had need to have a better excuse than the meeting with some doubts which they could not answer, and less than a manifest evidence that their Salvation is desperate in that Communion cannot serve their turn; and they who imagine they have such an evidence, ought rather to suspect that their Understanding hath forsaken them, and that they are become mad, than that the Church which is replenished with all Learning and Piety requisite, can betray them to Perdition. I beseech you to consider (which I hope will overrule those ordinary Doubts and Objections which may be infus’d into you) that if you change your Religion, you renounce all Obedience and Affection to your Father, who loves you so tenderly that such an odious Mutation would break his heart, you condemn your Father and your Mother (whose incomparable Virtue, Piety and Devotion hath plac’d her in Heaven) for having impiously Educated you; and you declare the Church and State, to both which you owe Reverence and Subjection, to be in your Judgment Antichristian; you bring irreparabledishonour, scandal and prejudice to the Duke your Husband to whom you ought to pay all imaginable Duty, and whom I presume is much more precious to you than your own life, and all possible ruine to your Children of whose company and conversation you must look to be depriv’d, for God forbid that after such an Apostacie, you should have any power in the Education of your Children. You have many Enemies, whom you herein would abundantly gratifie, and some Friends, whom you will thereby (at least as far as in you lies) perfectly destroy; and afflict many others who have deserved well of you. I know you are not inclined to any part of this mischief, and therefore offer those Considerations, as all those particulars would be the infallible Consequence of such a Conclusion. It is to me the saddest Circumstance of my Banishment that I may not be admitted in such a season as this, to confer with you, when I am confident I could satisfie you in all your Doubts, and make it appear to you that there are many Absurdities in the Roman Religion inconsistent with your Judgment and Understanding, and many Impieties inconsistent with your Conscience; so that before you can submit to the Obligations ofFaith, you must divest yourself of your Natural Reason and Common Sense, and captivate the distastes of your own conscience to the Impositions of an Authority which hath not any pretence to oblige or advise you. If you will not with freedom communicate the Doubts which occur to you, to those near you of whose Learning and Piety you have had much experience, let me Conjure you to impart them to me, and to expect my answer before you suffer them to prevail over you. God bless you and yours.”[257]

257.Lansdown MS.

It is a long, stilted, tedious letter, read under present-day conditions, and the methods used by the writer in argument hardly commend themselves, but, especially towards the end, the anxiety of the father’s heart is made quite evident. The great lawyer marshals all the force of controversy at his command in the vain hope of influencing his daughter and reversing the decision so dreaded by him. He appeals to her heart, no less than to her head.[258]Husband, children, friends—he placesbefore her the possible loss of all, the harm that may accrue to them; he leaves, as far as may be, nothing unsaid, nothing untried. It is curious and significant that one sentence reveals the fact that Clarendon was aware of his daughter’s unpopularity in certain quarters. “You have many enemies,” he says, as he points to the triumph which her change of faith would afford them as one reason, if an unworthy one, against it. The pathetic significance of this last letter is driven home all the more forcibly for this reason—that she to whom these weighty words were addressed, doubtless with many prayers that they might prevail, was destinednever to read them. Death stepped in, and for ever sealed the page.

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