all his Children saving one Daughter afterward Married to the Prince of Oldenburg following his Example This they looked upon as a good step but what gave them a mighty accession of strength as much as it was a diminution of the Power of the Reformed was their gaining of Mareschal Turenne to their Church who because so considerable a Person and so famed for a great Captain I shall recount unto your Lordship all that ever I could learn in relation to him upon this account It 's true the Mareschal never did appear to be a Person very Zealous for his Religion but as he had from time to time given some Proofs of his Constancy it was attributed to the Coldness of his Temper which made him Calm enough in all things but that Constancy that appear'd in him for a time was attributed afterwards to other Causes and primarily to the ascendency his Wife and Sisters had over him his Lady being Daughter to the Duke De la Force and a Person of Exemplary Piety keeping of him steady in his Profession whilst she lived and his Eldest Sister the Marchioness De Duras always encouraging of him to be constant and so Zealous she was that she began to breed up one of her younger Sons with a Design to make him a Minister but that Design not succeeding that Person going over very Young into Engl. has been since as your Lordship well knows advanced to Honour in the Kingdom The youngest Sister the Dutchess of Trimonill never failed also of her Duty towards the Mareschal in that kind That the Marshal had been often tempted to change his Religion is manifest Cardinal Mazarine who had a great Opinion of him made him many suggred Promises if he would come over when the Dauphine was Born he had Intimations given him that he might one day be made his Governour but that did not move him neither the last Effort that was made upon him was by the King himself at the beginning of the Campaign in Flanders in the Year 1667. when he promised him a share in all his Secrets and higher degrees of Command if so be he would Embrace the Communion of the Church of Rome but this had the same success upon him with the rest and the Mareschal acted his part with so much sted fastness and in so Noble a manner that the King took no Displeasure thereat and for this the Church at Charenton returned Publick Thanks to God who had inspired him with such laudable Constancy but without naming of him but some time after that Peace was concluded when there was no more talk of him upon that Score he entred into the Roman Communion and it was given out he did it voluntarily and of his own accord and I could ne'er learn by whose Instigation it was done or what were the true Reasons that brought him to it but however it was this Change of his was attended with important Consequence which did appear in due time and this is all I could remark or learn concerning this Illustrious Person only that he Abjured his Heresie as they call it in Notre-Dame in presence of the Archbishop of Paris and so concludes My Lord Your Lordship 's most Humble Servant Paris May 31. 1676. N. St. LETTER XII Of a Book Published in France proposing Methods for to Ruin the Reformed which had like to have spoiled the Court-Politicks in pretending Favour unto them at that time My Lord I Have in a former Letter shewed your Lordship the great Care the French Court took to have it believed both at Home and Abroad that their Declaration in Favour of the Reformed was real and like to be permanent and what Politick Ends they had therein but a Book Entituled the Policy of France came out not long after to wit in the Year 1669 that had like to have spoiled all the fine Web they had spun It was supposed to be written by the Marquess De Chatelett a Gentleman of Bretaign and contained one entire Chapter of Methods to Ruin the Reformed and he was so Adventurous as to Dedicate it to the King himself and made him a Present of one of them but his Zeal was but coarsly Rewarded for he was sent to the Bastile for his Pains and the Book supprest but because the Methods he proposed therein were such as were very odd and may be put in Execution in time and that I cannot send your Lordship one of the Books I have taken out the Heads and are as followeth he proposed the Total Destruction of them as a necessary Work and reserved it for the present King and whether he did really know or was ignorant of the Court Designs he did certainly I believe fit his Politicks to the Intentions of the Court He represented them full of Resentment for the loss of their Places of Security and of being always animated with Minds to Revolting Confusion and Anarchy and constantly ready to make use of any Opportunity to Re-establish themselves He made them to be Enemies to the King's Prosperity perpetual Obstacles to his Designs and always to be feared because of their Animosity and of the number of good Soldiers over which they could make Chiefs by giving them Authority to Command them He took upon him to shew that the Protestants of Germany suffered themselves to be ruined without any Opposition and that they had too much need of the King's Protection to Embroil themselves with him He said the same thing of England Swedeland Denmark the United Provinces and of all the Protestants whom he imagined to have been so linked to the King by strong Chains of Interest that they would not concern themselves to hinder his Exterminating of the Reformed Religion in his own Kingdom He put a Malicious Interpretation upon the Reformed's taking up Arms in the last Civil Wars and he pretended to Divine that had it not been that the War had been so soon happily terminated they would have formed Grand Designs made High Demands and endeavoured to set up their Party again He said the Edict of Nants was revocable as having been a thing extorted from the then King and admitting it might have been formerly granted for the Benefit of the State yet it might now be revoked for the very same reason He was far from being of their Opinion who thought that the Reformed were useful to the Church of Rome her self because they obliged the Ecclesiasticks to Study and lead Regular Lives he said that was a Trifling Argument and concluded that the King had sufficient Grounds to seek out ways to put them out of Condition to Hurt or do any injury to his State Having promised this he was not of the Judgment to be rid of them by way of Banishment as the Moors had been driven out of Spain he looked upon that way of Treatment Inhumane and withal prejudicial to the State but he proposed Fifteen Expedients to be rid of them by little and little The first of which was
or otherwise interrupt the only Powers in Christendom that were able to prevent that Disaster and render it quite of none Effect 6. That his Most Christian Majesty Lewis the XIVth of France had solemnly engaged to his Britannick Majesty the King of England that upon the Condition of a Neutrality agreed by Spain he was willing to relinquish all pretensions to the remainder of the Spanish Netherlands and all the other Dominions of Spain and to get that same Renunciation Signed and Ratified by the Dauphine his Son as well as by himself and to leave no room for any future Jealousies even by the consent and approbation of the Three Estates of his Kingdom whom he would take care to Assemble for that very end and purpose as also by the Parliament of Paris that so all occasions and pretences of any future War between the Two Crowns of France and Spain might be entirely and totally cut off by this one Amicable and Advantageous Concession nay and that rather than fail in this particular his Most Christian Majesty would be brought to re-deliver to the Catholick King even all the Towns Cities and Territories taken from him by France in the last War and keep strictly to the other as well as the Pyrenaean Treaty which was as much as the Spaniards could wish for themselves or had upon any occasion insisted upon 7. That the French King would be punctual to give such strict Orders to his Troops and Armies that in all their Marches through the Countries belonging to the King of Spain they should be so far from being injurious and burdensom to the respective Inhabitants of them that they should receive very great benefit and advantage from them by their exact and liberal paying for what ever they had of them and that he would afterward leave such a firm barrier on all sides the Country as should for ever secure them from all Apprehensions of encroatchments from France or any other Neighbouring Nation whatsoever and that by this means the Spanish Territories would remain very fertil and be filled with Money and all sorts of Rich Commodities whilst the United Provinces would be run down and never be in a condition to molest or annoy them more and what advantage and security that would be to them they themselves could tell and a remembrance of former experiences in that kind must needs corroborate and add strength to the same 8. That there was no just cause of Jealousie to be entertained or any great Reason to fear the growing greatness of the Kingdom of France upon such an occasion for that the accession of strength which by such means might in some degree happen to her would be much more than ballanced by that which would accur to England by which his Britannick Majesty would become a much more powerful Assistant to Spain and the Spanish Territories against any Violations of Treaties that might afterward upon any account whatsoever happen to be offered by the French then he could be at this juncture of time even tho joyned with the Republick of Holland and yet rid the Catholick King even at the same time of such a dishonourable as well as dangerous Ally as Holland was at present and which would certainly prove within a small Revolution of Years a destructive Enemy also if they were not now in this favourable nick of time obstructed and throughly prevented 9. That the King of Swedland who was the other Crowned head that had engaged himself in the Triple Alliance for the protection and security of the Spanish Netherlands was likewise of the same mind and disposition to remain Neuter in the present case unless he were provoked to joyn with the French and English But that however he would at the same time joyn and sincerely concur with his Britannick Majesty for the guaranty of this desired and useful Neutrality with France that both Kings would be ready to enter into a League Offensive and Defensive with the Crown of Spain to assist the same with their full force and whole power against any manner of infractions that should happen to be made or fall out against this or any other former Treaty or Treaties on the part of France whatsoever 10. And Lastly That the French King was ready and willing to accept their guaranty and not only so but freely to permit the Emperor of Germany and other of the German Princes that could be brought to stand Neuters and were willing to enter into the same to be made Partners therein that all the World as well as the Council of Spain might be convinced beyond all suspitions to the contrary of his Most Christian Majesties as well as the King of England's sincerity in that matter These my Lord were the instructions Mr. Coleman had and the Topicks he was to go upon for the carrying on this pretty Design but how far he put the same in practise that I could never learn but he was not the only Engine they imploy'd for that purpose they had their Agents in Spain it self who did their utmost to effect this Neutrality of which I may be able to give your Lordship an account another time In the mean while I am My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and most Obedient Servant Paris July 24. 1677. N. S. LETTER XXIII A farther Argument used at the Court of Spain by the French Agents to perswade that Nation to a Neutrality My Lord TO the Topicks used by Mr. Coleman and other French Emissaries of which I have given your Lorship an account already to perswade the Spaniards to a Neutrality they judged fit to superadd another to be more particularly and closely insisted upon at the Court of Spain it self alledging that the ruine of the Republick of Holland was very necessary as upon other accounts so more especially in that thereby the King of England who was so well enclined to the Roman Catholick Religion and only wanted an opportunity to declare for it and to have the Glory to Establish it in His Dominions which had now for above an Age and half groaned under the burden of a pestilent Heresie would become so much master of his Subjects that he would be in a condition without any danger to himself and the Royal Family to introduce the same Roman Catholick Religion into his Kingdoms again which great and glorious as well as meritorious Work the Catholick King and those who had the Administration of his Dominions ought to have to heart above all other Interests and Considerations whatsoever especially since this would enable the Crown of England to do Spain many good and friendly offices in the Court of Rome as well as elsewhere and be a means to ballance the French Faction there when they should take upon them as they frequently did to oppose the Interests and Advantages of the House of Austria as Henry the VIIIth and other Kings of England had formerly done before the Schism broke out and their Kingdom came to be overspread
King would be involved in equal Trouble on that Account as on the other For that if she were given to the Prince of Orange without first engaging him in the Interests of France that thereby he would have a double Claim to the Crown that of Course the King his Brother must be drawn into a War with France and that by so doing both the Royal Brethren would lose for ever the French King's Friendship and Support in case of Extremity which they would infallibly be reduced to by such a War or by but making a Shew of it For if it went on whether there were Cause or no there would be Jealousies of the Duke 's Corresponding with France yea and of the King too And that after all such a Match would be interpreted but for a piece of Policy only to hide from the People their Correspondence with France and would never cure their Jealousies nor take off the Fears they had of a Popish Succession by his new Dutchess but add Strength and Courage to them to oppose Remedies against it That thereupon when they had the King once in a War they would not give him any Money to carry it on unless they saw the laying of it out and had in a manner the Administration of the War in their own Hands in which His Highness would be but a Cypher and would never be trusted That then not content with that it was not to be doubted but that the Exclusion of himself and of his Heirs by the Second Bed unless educated in the Protestant Religion would likewise be hotly urged in the next place in favour of a Protestant Prince so doubly Allied to the Crown of England a professed Enemy of France and a Native of Holland the Country next their own so much adored by them That such an Alliance would strengthen that Faction that was already but too strong That such an Exclusion being press'd the King must either grant it or deny it if he granted it as it was to be feared he might then was His Highness and the Heirs of his Religion lost without Recovery and then it would be out of the French King's Power as well as Inclination to assist him after having been so disobliged against the Power of England and Holland united neither could he propose that Advantage to himself be it as it will That if the King should resist the said Importunity about Exclusion that then he would expose himself to the Distractions of a Civil War which might end both in the Ruin of the Royal Family and the Monarchy it self for that the Republicans would not fail to lift up their Crests again in those Troubles And that besides the Interest of the Prince of Orange the Duke of Monmouth being already very popular might be tempted by so fair an Opportunity to put in for a Pretender to the Succession and that it was not impossible that the King if he saw him favoured by the People might be tempted too to prefer the Interest of a Son before that of a Brother and a Brother too for whom he must be necessitated to undergo so much Vexation and Trouble and run so great a Risque to defend That in the mean while England being in a War with France that King instead of helping him must be obliged in his own Defence to foment those Troubles and abet his Enemies That perhaps he might think some of these Fears but imaginary but that His Highness might assure himself they had better Intelligence than he in that Case and were very well satisfied that all the said Parties were ready disposed and had concerted all their Designs against him and that they were abetted by Men of the greatest power and Interest in the three Kingdoms and then of what Power and Influence such plausible and popular Pretensions would be among the People when promoted and advanced by such Men His Royal Highness could not be ignorant of That therefore all summed up and duly compared the Dangers attending the Espousing his Daughter to the Prince of Orange were as great if not considerably greater than those that would be incurred by giving her up to the Disposal of the French King for more could not be feared from that than what had been mention'd Therefore they conjured him as he tender'd his own Good and Safety or that of his Posterity or of his Brother or lastly of the hopeful Beginnings of the Catholick Religion in these Kingdoms that he should be persuaded and also persuade his Brother to take the Council of France both in the Disposal of the Princess and other things relating thereto for that the Danger of adhering to the French King was no greater than that on the other side but that the Assistance on his side would be great and powerful as well as Cordial whereas it never could be in the other Party's Power much less in their Interest or Inclination to afford him any Succour in his Troubles but rather to add Oil to the Flame And above all never to be so rash as to suffer himself to be tempted to consent to a War against France for that the Factions would then have their Ends of him as having a full Opportunity put into their hands thereby to compleat his Ruin without Controul These were the Arguments used to His Royal Highness against the March with the Prince of Orange And with which I shall at present conclude who am My LORD Your Lordship 's Most Humble Servant Paris Aug. 4. 1679. N. S. LETTER LVIII Proposals made to the Duke of York about consenting to have his Daughter the Lady Mary privately Trapanned into France c. My LORD I Gave in my last to your Lordship a Relation of the Remonstrances used to the Duke in general against his consenting to have his Daughter married to the Prince of Orange I shall now endeavour to oblige your Lordship with some new Proposals made to him upon that Head 1. That the Duke should use all the Power and Interest he had with the King his Brother to let his Daughter the Lady Mary take a Voyage into France to take the Waters of Bourbon or else to consent she might be privily sent away by the Duke as against his Knowledge and Will and that then they would get her speedily married which putting things past Retrieve Matters might the better by good Management be composed and made up to all their Satisfactions 2. That to this purpose the French King would send a most splendid Embassy into England of one of the chief Peers of his Realm with a very numerous Train of choice Nobility But if the King consented publickly to that Proposition the Princess might go over in the said Ambassador's Company Or if he gave private Consent she might be conveyed away as in the first Article 3. If the King should by no means consent to it that then the Duke should contrive a Way to get her seized and shipped off at the Ambassador's Departure without
the Kingdom particularly those of Predestination and Free-Will nor yet to mixt Invective Reproaches Railleries and scandalous Expressions with their Controversies should be republished under a very strict Injunction of all Parties concerned to the observance of them and the least Transgression in that kind to be punish'd with the utmost Severity they did not question in the mean while but that in so ticklish a time there might be some one or other especially in the Diocess of London whom this Bird-lime might catch your Lordship knows how it fell out accordingly in the Case of Doctor Sharp Tho' they were mighty jealous of the old Gentleman of Canterbury that if he were nominated in the Commission and should chance to act which was the least of their Thoughts he should he might rather thwart than promote their Designs yet being pretty confident he would not concern himself with it they adventured to put him in not for his Authority but his Name-sake only for considered they should we get the Bishop of London once into the Toyl he will have no room to plead to the Jurisdiction of the Court seeing the same was founded upon the concurrent tho' in truth but nominal Authority of his Metropolitan to whom he owed Canonical Obedience these things your Lordship may know much better than I but I cannot forbear giving you any Hints of the Court-Designs which whether projected here or on your side we have constant Intelligence of in our I am My Lord Your Lordship 's most humble and devoted Servant Paris Aug. â—0 1687. N. S. LETTER XXX Of the Liberty of Conscience first granted in Scotland and then in England by King James II. My Lord YOur Lordship may call to mind what I have before written to you concerning Tolleration in Religion as necessary to facilitate the King's Designs and now you see it hath sprouted up in Scotland and the Buddings of it are visible enough in England that the Parliament of the former as well as the latter opposed the Dispensing Power is notoriously known so that there was much less Hopes they would have concurred to the Indulgence a Point as necessary to be gained every whit as the other that the Scotch Nation were more modelled to the King's Hand than the English the King himself well knew as having a personal Share in it when high Commissioner in that Kingdom in his Brother's Reign and the French and English Jesuitical Faction knew this as well as he and therefore I am assured both of them concurred to have the Indulgence given there first and that also in so partial a manner in favour of those of the King's Religion that the rest have hardly any Share therein which manifests plainly the Design of the English Catholicks whatever specious Pretence they may otherwise use is to bring the People of England also under the same nay a worse Yoke of Servitude and to have their own Religion predominant quickly and in Time the only one in both Nations And as for the third they are cock sure of that already but that of the French Emissaries is not so visible and above Board for they hope such partial Proceedings must at last incense the People of both Kingdoms and that to so violent a degree that the King must of necessity have recourse to call in French Force to quell them and then my Lord when they have once got sure Footing who can guess at their farther Aim however they have not with all their Intrigues been able to prevail with the King to use the same Partiality in England who according to the Transmission of their Intelligence hither seemed very much inclined to it upon their urging the Tractableness of the Scotch Council in the Matter and what a great Pattern they had set to them of England whom they did not doubt but would abrogate the Laws made against Roman Catholicks c. in imitation of them but a Roman Catholick Lord whom I have formerly named to your Lordship to have interposed upon the like Occasion thwarted them therein he deserves well of his Country in some respects and I do not question but your Honour is of that mind and so shall I be till I see more than I do now to incline me to the contrary who am My Lord Your Lordship 's most humble and obedient Servant Paris Sept. 5. 168â— N. S. LETTER XXXI Of the French Projects to put King James upon desperate Measures in Ireland and their Ends therein My Lord YOur Lordship may remember how I have formerly given you the state of the Irâ—sh Soldiers in the Service of France during the late King's Reign and what Encouragement they have had here from time to time above any of the rest of the Brittish Nations and the large Promises that were now and then made That they should be reinstated in their ancient Possessions in their native Country But this King hath no sooner ascended the English Throne but that they have as readily return'd into England and Ireland as they were willing before even contrary to their Allegiance to remain in the French Service the Reason whereof your Lordship must needs know they having already devoured with their Eyes the most valuable Preferments in England and Ireland in the later whereof they have got a Lieutenant of their own stamp and more than all the Lands which they have been debarr'd from by the Act of Settlement having as I can assure your Lordship a previous Promise from this Court That the King will use all imaginable endeavours to get his Brother of England to consent to abolish it and which has put the Irish so hotly upon renewing their Importunities to the King against the said Act that he hath in a manner agreed to those measures that are pursuant thereunto in which motions the Irish were order'd to be effectually seconded by the Emissaries of this Court who at the same time have encourag'd the Irish privately with a Promise That if after all the King would not give his full Consent or durst not do them Right their Master was resolv'd to do it provided they would chuse him for their Protector which they might lawfully do being at best but a conquer'd Nation against their Conquerors for the recovery not only of their Native Rights in that Land but likewise of those afresh confirm'd to them by the Treaty whether pretended or real I will not determine upon that Head with the late K. Charles II of which the French King was Guarrantee and therefore justly might and ought to be call'd in as a Vindicator And this my Lord is confess'd here That they had form'd so strong a Party among the Irish that if the King had not in some measure comply'd or does not for the future but fail'd their Hopes by keeping it as the Interest of his Kingdom one should think naturally leads him to that side of the Ballance against France and maintaining the Act of Settlement they had bid fair as I have
heard it more than whisper'd here for a general Revolt of the Irish Natives in their favour whom they had provided to succour on a sudden without declaring War or the least Intimation beforehand of their Designs to the King But now having prevail'd with him to make such Advances as he has begun against the said famous Act which they have looked upon as it were the Band of Peace not only to Ireland but even to the Three Nations and perhaps they are right enough in their Judgment they believe they have hereby put him on a Point that will quickly bring him into Distress enough to need them and consequently to the necessity of taking his future measures from them expecting henceforward a more implicite Complyance than ever Thus my Lord have they laid their Foundation the Success and Event Time must determine but from such undermining Politicians Good Lord deliver England c. for the Dangers which threaten both its Religion and Civil Liberty are very great tho' I hope not inevitable Pardon the freedom in these Particulars of him who is and ever shall remain ready to please your Lordship to the utmost of my power and cannot but subscribe himself My Lord Your Honour 's most humble and most obedient Servant Paris Mar. 26. 1687. LETTER XXXII Of K. James's Closetting several Persons and the Arguments he was advis'd to use to them to consent to the Abrogating of the Penal Laws and Test. My Lord YOur Lordship for ought I know may know much better than I can inform you what Arguments the King has us'd to such as have been lately Closetted by him and if Fame be not a you are one of that number for a List of them is not yet come into our but I can transmit into your Hands what has been concerted here in the nature of Instructions to the French Emissaries at White-Hall hereupon they were to represent to the King and he to the closetted Gentlemen That there were four Kings who had endeavour'd to bring the Kingdom of England into an Uniformity in Religion that so the People might live in Amity one with another and notwithstanding all the Expedients tho' seemingly very likely to take effect and succeed according to wish which wise Politicians had suggested from time to time yet they had hitherto proved abortive and their Endeavours had been in vain That therefore the only way left for to settle Tranquillity in a State so as to be no more to be disturb'd about Religion was to grant every one the freedom fully to enjoy his own That such an Iudulgence of all Religions in Holland was as much a cause of the flourishing of that State in Wealth and Greatness and more than any other that could be assign'd and to say that such a Liberty tho' it might be compatible enough with a Republick was not yet with Monarchical Governments was a gross Mistake and Experience shewd it to be quite otherwise both in the Turkish Empire Kingdom of Persia and elsewhere where the Greek and Armenian Christians have been tolerated in their Religion for many Ages and yet have been so far from being mutinous or Disturbers of the respective States they have liv'd under that they are great Supporters of them especially the Armenians who are almost the only Merchants they have in that mighty and extensive Kingdom of Persia That the Persecutions which our Nonconformists in England have from time to time been under had been the cause of the flight of many good Subjects beyond the Seas of whom our neighbouring Nations drew great and solid Advantages and that those who have staid at home have by reason of the Pressures they have labour'd under provd uneasie and turn'd Malecontents and if they have not had Virtue and Constancy enough patiently to suffer under their Misfortunes they were alwaies ready to favour Revolts and enter into Factions whereof they had seen fatal effects in the late Reigns from which no King could be able to secure his Person and his Subjects but that uneasie and turbulent Spirits would be alwaies ready under Pretence of Religion which they abused to disturb and molest them Which Reasons the King was to back closely with large Promises of Favour and if he found any obstinate to mix his Reasons and Promises with some Intimations of his Displeasure and upon an absolute Refusal to proceed to divest some of their Places under him and to alledge for a Reason of his so doing That it was not reasonable that they who refused their Services should enjoy his Favours and that if hereupon any should be so audacious as to tell him That this Practice of his was irregular and contrary to the Freedom which the Laws of the Land allow'd to them especially as Members of Parliament whose Suffrages ought to be spontaneous and free they were to be put in mind that they had forgot the Violences used by King Henry VIII upon the like occasions and the methods so many other Kings had put in practise to engage their Parliaments to subscribe to their Wills that they might consider that two of the most famous Parliaments that ever were in the Kingdom of England had authoriz'd this Conduct in the Reign of Edward III and King Richard II when some of the Pope of Rome's Bulls were contested as being looked upon too much to entrench on the King's Prerogative that the Parliament prayed King Edward and obliged Richard almost against his Will to give their Consent by particular Conferences with the Members to promise to use the utmost of their Power to maintain the King's Prerogative and the Rights of the Crown against that See c. But if that after all the King should find that neither Arguments Promises Threats nor Examples would do he was advis'd to proceed in his Brother's Steps by â—uo Warranto and so to concert measures with those that presided over Elections for the regulating of Corporations whereon they depended tho' this was by far the more tedious way but yet there was one way to hasten it for whereas new Charters in his Brother's time granted in lieu of the old ones were many of them retarded because the Court-Officers insisted upon too much Mony the King now might give positive Directions to such persons to dispatch them without such Considerations with a Promise to gratifie them another way and if he found that would not do then he was to cashier such Officers and put others in their room who would engage to do the business to effect I am afraid my Lord I have wearied you with an impertinent Letter and therefore if an abrupt conclusion will any way mend the matter I remain My Lord Your Lordship 's most humble Servant Paris Nov. 19. 1687. N. S. LETTER XXXIII Of my Lord Castlemain's being sent Ambassador to Rome by K. James and of his receiving the Pope's Nuncio in England My Lord THAT my Lord of Castlemain was sent Ambassador to Rome has been transacted wholly on your
THE SEâ—â—â—T HISTORY OF White-Hall FROM THE Restoration of Charles II. Down to the Abdication of the late K. James Writ at the Request of a Noble Lord and conveyed to him in Letters by late Secretary-Interpreter to the Marquess of Louvois who by that means had the perusal of all the Private Minutes between England and France for many Years The Whole consisting of Secret Memoirs which have hitherto lain conceal'd as not being discoverable by any other Hand Publish'd from the Original Papers By D. JONES Gent. LONDON Printed and are to be Sold by R. Baldwin near the Oxford-Arms Inn in Warwick-Lane MDCXCVII THE PREFACE I Do not question but the Reader will expect somewhat should be premised by way of Satisfaction to such Scruples as may be suggested in general concerning the Authentickness of the ensuing Letters which as I conceive they are reducible to the following heads viz. An Account of the Author and the Means whereby he got his Intelligence the Verity of the Matters related the Nature of the Correspondence and what part the Methodizer has had in the Undertaking so I shall endeavour to give as distinct and satisfactory a Solution of each Particular as may reasonably be expected from me or the Circumstance of the Things will justly admit of First then for the Author and his Intelligence The first time he went over into France was in the Year 1675 where he had not stay'd above a Year but that the place of General Commis or Clark of the Dispatches and Particular Commis Interpreter to that great French Minister of State the Marquess de Louvois for the Affairs relating to our Three Kingdoms falling vacant by the Death of one Mr. Kilpatrick a Scotchman ' s Son that same Imployment was conferred by him upon a Frenchman a Favourite of his named Belou Who understanding no English and therefore not being able to manage the Affair without an English Man our Author was recommended to him for that service as he hints in his first Letter which yet you are to Note by the way was not the first he writ from that Country to that Noble Person he corresponded with and to whom he was previously engaged to transmit all the Intelligence he could learn of the Proceedings of the French Court before he entred upon the said Imployment but they being not very material he took no care to reserve the Transcripts by him and continued to be Interpreter of the English tongue till after the time of our Grand Revolution when he came over into England where his stay was not long but that he was imployed by the same Noble Person to return into France again where the dangerous part he was to Act may be better conceived than now exprest but concerning which you may hear more hereafter It s no hard matter to imagine what Qualifications were necessary to recommend our Author to the Imployment afore noted and how far his out-side must differ from his in-side during his aboad there which together with that part which he has Acted in that Kingdom since his present Majesty King William ' s Accession to the Throne and that he knows not how soon he may still be engaged to return though he be at present in London are Reasons of themselves without superadding any other of the many that might be produced more than sufficient for the suppression of his Name and of my being engaged in the Work which yet rather than Truth should suffer I am satisfied he will be as forward to render as well known to the World as 't is to that Noble Person who has imployed him I am of Opinion the Reader will be much better perswaded of the verity of the Facts as well as much more pleased with the new Discoveries of State-Mysteries he will meet with here by the perusal of the Work himself than by any thing I can pretend to say in the Defence of the one or the Commendations of the other And were it not to obviate a vulgar Error and Objection that I foresee would be made upon this Subject That all that could be Writ has been written already concerning the late Reigns I should dismiss it But now I am necessitated not to single out but promiscuously to call to mind a few Heads for to make an Enumeration of all the remarkable Particulars were to run through the Contents of every individual Letter and to ask the Objector where it is he meets with an exact Account of the Private League between King Charles the Second and the French King The Duke of York ' s secret Correspondence with that Court Coleman ' s interventien with both for his own Advantage The Interest the French made both in England and Holland among the several Sects and Parties of Men to prevent the late Queen's being married to his present Majesty The Methods concerted to Trapan her into France with her Father's concurrence and how prevented Father St. Germain's attempting King Charles the Second in his Religion with the King's Answer c. His unseasonable boasting of it the Occasion of his flight into France and the Censure he underwent from those of his Order for it Coleman ' s Wife's Petition to the French King the Answer and her destroying her self Monsieur le Tellier ' s Speech about the Invasion of England the Duke of York his pervertion to the Church of Rome King James his Private League with France when Regnant the Essay made by Don Ronquillo the Spanish Ambassador to draw him into the Austrian Interest with his Answer and Refusal in savour of France How Father Petre came to be made a Privy Councellor wherefore Mr. Skelton was imprisoned in the Tower c. which to name no more though the rest are of equal curiosity as they had in all likelihood been for ever buried in the profoundest Oblivion had not the Fate and Address of this Gentleman led him to fetch them out of the Dark and almost inscrutable Recesses of the French Cabinet-minutes so the Reader will find they carry so much Evidence of Truth with them not only by the Connexion they have with many material Passages in Sir William Temple ' s Memoirs Mr. Coke ' s Detection of the Court and State of England during the Four last Reigns c. but by so natural an unfolding of what is obscurely or but transiently hinted at by those learned Authors who could not see beyond their light and yet so remote from those Scurrulities as well as Inconsistencies to say no worse which occur in some other pieces of the same Reigns that it were a Crime to make any farther Apology for them Yet it may be noted by the way that this same doth evince the necessity of this Supplemental Part as well for the detecting of past Falsities as for the perfecting of past Discoveries And 't is hoped no body will quarrel that this Piece which is Entituled by the Name of a Secret History c. should be written in an
time be interpreted much to his disadvantage by those of other Nations and particularly that there was no hopes to break the said League or to disunite it especially the King of England of whom he conceived the greatest hopes and had the greatest Eye upon as being not only nearest but also most powerful of any of the rest it was resolved to put forth an ample Declaration in Favour of the Reformed which revoked several unjust Judgments given against them and remedied many Important Difficulties and Severities they laboured under whereof they had made their Complaints to the King and which gave them hopes that they should for the future be left to live in Tranquillity and Peace They knew well enough unless this were done there was no very great likelihood to bring our King to their Bow of whom the Parliament had already entertained some Jealousies and who would not fail to be enraged when they came to understand he had entred into an Alliance with a King who gave way to the Oppression of his Protestant Subjects but this specious pretence of the French Indulgence might serve him very well to amuse his Parliament and at the same time to deceive himself and the Protestant Nations in general without might very well believe the French proceedings herein and especially that part of it which related to the Reformed's future Tranquillity were real when they themselves in France were fully perswaded of it and imagined that the Days of Henry IVth were returned upon them again It 's certain there had been considerable Efforts made since our King 's entring into the aforementioned Tripple Alliance to have it further strengthned by the Accession of other Protestant Confederates into it and that there was a certain Person whose Name was Marcilli a Rocheller Born and a Professor of the Reformed Religion that took indefatigable pains in it the true Story of this Man is very odd and falling pat with the Design of this Letter I shall give as concise an Account of it as I can not doubting of your Lordship's kind Acceptance this Person I say taking the Advantage of the Conjuncture of the League between England and Holland and very much doubting of the sincerity of the Declaration made in Favour of the Reformed in France thereupon made his Application to several Protestant Princes about entring into the said Alliance and was no small Instrument to induce the King of Swedeland to come into it which gave occasion of its being called the Tripple League He had been also at our Court and opened the King's Eyes in relation to many things that had been misrepresented to him and wherein he had been imposed upon either by the French Agents or the falsity of his own Ministers of State but these Addresses of Marcilli were not long concealed from the French Court wherefore they took Council and dispatcht away the Mar-Marquess De Ruvigniâ— into England with Instructions to take off those Umbrages our King had taken upon the Conduct of the French Council towards him the Marquess his Religion being a Protestant as well as his Capacity recommended him as the fittest Person to assure the King of the sincerity of the French proceedings and that the Reformed should have all the Justice in the World done them in short the Marquess did his Business so effectually at our Court that tho' he were the Reformed's Deputy-General he had almost Bankrupt his Credit with all the Churches who did not a little resent his Complaisance upon that Head Marcilli having done as he thought his Business in England was gone upon the same Negotiation to the Swiss Cantons not without Directions as 't was believed in France tho' dissembled for a time from our King to induce the Swiss to come into the Alliance whereof when Ruvigni had advertized the French Court the King gave Mareschal Turenne who yet made Profession of the Protestant Religion Orders to Seize him if possible and Kidnap him back into France the Mareschal to disguise the Matter as much as might be and to give as little umbrage of any such Design as was possible pitcht upon Three Officers making Profession of the same Religion with himself to go into Switzerland to Seize him the sameness of Religion between Marcilli and them gave them easie familiarity with him so that at last having got him into a place where he could not be rescued they hurried him into France where he was Tryed forthwith and Condemned the Man during his Imprisonment shewed all the Constancy both of a Brave and Innocent Mind and all the Application of the Judges and Rigour of the Questions put unto him could never make him change his Language but he maintained his Innocence to the last and the Secrets he had been entrusted with by a great Prince whom I have heard some of his very Enemies blame for not interposing in his behalf or afterward resenting of it at all when there were some things put to him in relation to that Princes Person that little suited with his Honour even upon the publick place of Execution just as the poor Man was broken upon the Wheel and now my Lord they had Murdered his Body they went about also to Murder his Fame by giving out that they were forced to expedite his Execution because that having found a piece of Glass in the Prison he cut off his Privy Parts therewith as thinking he might quickly bleed to Death and so be his own Executioner which notwithstanding being soon observed by the Goaler he gave the Officers notice thereof who put him to Death Two Hours after And that France might seem to be sincere at all Points in respect to the Liberty of her Reformed Subjects out came another Declaration in August 1669 inviting all of them that Sojourned abroad or were in the Service of Forreigners back into their Native Country and particularly out of the United Provinces where there were of them great numbers as Officers Soldiers Merchants Seamen c. but tho' they were thus liberal in their Promises to the Reformed and made all the semblance of Sincerity in the World hereupon yet they never ceased underhand to tempt the most Considerable Persons amongst them by large Donatives and Hopes of Preferment to come over to the Church of Rome and what Success they had therein will be the subject of another Letter and so I am My Lord Your Lordship 's most Humble Servant Paris May 23. 1676. N. St. LETTER XI Of the Pervertion of the Prince of Tarent Mareschal Turenne c. to the Romish Religion about the Year 1669. My Lord FRance as I have informed your Lordship in my last having invited her Subjects of the Reformed Religion home out of all quarters the Prince of Tarent who had been settled several Years in the United Provinces and possest of great Employments quitted their Service thereupon and returned to his Native Country where he had not been long arrived but he was Charmed into the Popish Religion and
from the Ravishment of the most enterprizing Monarch and break that mischievous Devil that had of late been so busie in asserting pretended Liberties and advancing the Soveraignty of old hateful Laws above the more Sacred Majesty of the Princes the only rightful Legislators whilst the Crown as securely as unregardedly might seize and seizing â—or all Perpetuity appropriate as to it sell the important Jewel of Dispensing Power which would fix and fasten the whole Chappelet of unbounded Soveraignty by making usâ— of that Popular Relaxation to indulge the Faction esteemed the most dangerous to the Monarchy and to decoy them into a favouring of those Encroachments upon the Laws and upon the Peoples Fundamental Right and therein the Legislation who seemed of all Men the most deeply principled against them And so in effect to make those very Persons the tools for the Erection of Absolute and Despotick Sway who otherwise could hardly be reconciled to the most Just most Legal and most Moderate Royalty So far were the measures to be observed at home and those which she and their Brother of France advised to be used abroad were 1. To endeavour by all possible means the Subversion of the Republick of Holland the perpetual Source of Rebellion in England 2. In order with so much the more Expedition certainty and Safety to effect the Reduction both of his own People and of that â—ntâ—ward Neighbouring Nest and receptacle of Plotters and Rebels To resolve upon a firm and inviolable adherence to the Interest of the most Christian King who in that Case would no way desert him but vigorously and powerfully aid him and carry him through all Difficulties But in Case added she his Majesty could not satisfie his Conscience weâ—l enough to attempt any such Change in Religion as she just now had mentioned or notwithstanding all remonstrances to the contrary should continue over-perswaded of the two great Difficulty or impracticableness of such an enterprize that however as a Protestant of the Church of England which was firm to Monarchy if he desired to put himself into a Condition to Protect and that Reciprocally to Defend him and his Successors in time to come It would be absolutely necessary for him at least to concurr with his most Christian Majesty in Subduing the Republick of Holland That besides the Advantage of such a Repartition of the Conquered Country as he could reasonably expect he should find upon the reduction of it that the Commonwealth Faction in England and her Two other Sister Kingdoms would dwindle away of it self and so the King would not only become Absolute Master of his People but as his Christian Majesty would concert the Sharing of those Provinces with his Brother of England the Naval Power and Trade of Great Brittain would receive an incredible augmentation by the Destruction of a State that was her only Competitor at Sea and for Commerce and Riches promoted thereby For that not only their Shipping and Seamen together with their Chief Sea-ports and beâ—t Sea provinces all entire would be his Majesty's but also that all the most Wealthy and Substantial Merchants and Industrious and Ingenious Tradesmen and Artificers even of the Provinces and Parts that should fall to the Share of the most Christian King would in all appearance transplant themselves either into England or Ireland as lying more convenient for Trade than their own Country or at least into those Parts of the Netherlands which should be reduced under the Power of the King of Great Brittain To whose Domination as approaching nearest the Sweetness and Freedom of that they now were under they would certainly more willingly submit their Persons and Fortunes than to that of the more Absolute one of the French Monarch for which they had entertained a Thousand Prejudices In fine she most earnestly and affectionately besought him to take those Matters into his most serious Consideration and to return a speedy and if it might any ways be a favourable Answer that she might have the Happiness to return back the Messenger of good News and such News as might prove a Foundation of a lasting Felicity to both the Illustrious Families from which both his Majesty and her self were descended The King after a little silence told her by way of Reply to the things she had represented to him That it was impossible for him to doubt of the ardency and reality of the Affection of a Sister so Amiable and who had always exprest so much Tenderness for his Interest That he as little questioned but that she had penetrated as far into the Interiors of his Brother of France as it was possible any one could into the Heart of a King and therefore upon her Representation of him chiefly which he assured her would induce him to give the more Credit to the Favourable Conjectures he had made of his Temper during the little time he had the Honour to Converse with him whilst in Exile and to the general Character he had since his Personal Administration of Publick Affairs obtained in the World of being a Prince of great-Honour and Generosity and thereupon passing by some former unhandsom and unkind Treatments in his Court as pure Effects and Influences of the over-ruling Ascendant of the then Regnant Mazarine and not of that Prince's own Inclination he should put much Confidence in the sincerity of the most Christian King and accordingly desired her to return his said Majesty his Royal and most Hearty Thanks for those obliging Expressions of Amity and Affection he had signified to him by her and to assure him in his Name he should ever have his Friendship in high Esteem and would go as great lengths as in Prudence and Interest he could to serve him and to comply with his Desires But that the Matters proposed being of the highest Consequence he must beg his Excuse if he required more time to give him a positive and satisfactory Answer thereto than the short space limitted for her stay in England would permit however that he would with all convenient Expedition give him a better Account In the mean while he should Request his most Christian Brother by her to do him the Justice to believe he was as sincerely affectioned to his Person as he could be to his and should ever persist to be as far as a King of Engl. could his constant and most Obsequious Friend The like Complement as far as it was agreeable to his Circumstances was returned by the Duke After which the Princess renewing the Charge in the Business of Religion the King freely told her That as to that Point tho' he had entertained very kind and favourable Thoughts of the Roman Religion and its Professors for several Reasons he instanced and did believe that if it were Re-established in his Dominions the Monarchy would be safer and easier than it could be under the present state of Protestancy yet he was not so fully satisfied in it as to make it his own Religion and
that on the other side he foresaw such unsurmountable Difficulties in attempting such a Re-establishment that he did not think any Policy no nor the whole Power of France could he Command it all entire without any divertion from other Interested Neighbours too extraordinary a Juncture to be probably expected could be able to carry him through them To which the Princess who saw well enough as well by his Looks and Actions as by his Expressions that she had made more sensible Impressions upon his Spirits than he was willing to acknowledge thinking she had done enough for her part and sufficiently broke the Ice for those that should be designed to push the Point further at more leisure modestly replied That since that was his Majesty's Sence in which he was fixed she would wave all farther Importunities on that Subject and leave it wholly depending between himself and God whom she would continually pray to Inspire his Majesty with Light enough to know and Courage enough to embrace the Truth in his appointed time But however she should be glad to know his Majesty's Sentiments as to the Design against Holland adding that she was confident he could not but think it was at least for his Interest and seasible too Yes Madam answered the King I am Convinced that if crowned with Success it would be enough for the Interest of this Monarchy and of my People too but yet as practicable as it seems to be to you it is likewise not without its Difficulties and those very great ones too for the ill Success of my last War with that Nation the Dissatisfaction of my People thereupon the Tripple League in which I am lately engaged with Holland the Inclination my Subjects have for the Dutch as being a Protestant Nation and the Implacable Avertion they have to the French and their Jealousies of their Power and of their Religion are mighty Obstacles in the way However if my Brother of France can propose me any practicable Expedients to remove them which I much doubt I will as I have said do what I can to comply with him in that Enterprize And so the Princess declaring her self well satisfied with what had been said upon the Subject of her Errand they passed from the Businesses of State to the Divertisements of the Court from which being obliged much sooner to break off than they were willing by the more swift than welcome approach of the time Limitted for her departure with unconceivable Regret and ill-presaging Tears she took her leave of her Royal Brothers tho' little did she or they imagine it to be her last Farewel for soon after her return to France she died not without vehement Suspicion of being Poisoned But that her Husband the Duke of Orleance had any just Cause given him further to foment his Jealousie of her upon this Visit for he certainly was suspitious of her Conduct before any mention of that Journey and so pushed him on to the practice of undue means to accelerate her Fate has been a Matter of much Discourse both in England and France and continues to this Day a Mystery which I will not nor cannot pretend to determine and so begging your Lordship's Pardon for this tedious Epistle I remain My Lord Your Lordship 's most Humble Servant Paris Feb. 3. 1677. N. St. LETTER XVIII Of Mrs. Carewell's coming into England in 1670. and introduced to be the King's Miss My Lord IN one of my Letters to your Lordship concerning Monsieur Le Tellier's Sentiments in regard to the Management of the Affairs of England to the Advantage of the French among other Expedients he proposed the sending over some Choice Female as might be capable to Charm a Prince whose Heart was so susceptible of an Amorous Flame as that of the King of England In Conformity to which Project they made Choice of the Opportunity of the Princess's going over to effect it and therefore she upon her Arrival presented our King her Brother with her Woman known then by the Name of Madam Carewell but much better since by the Title of Dutchess of Portsm to serve the French King as a Heifer afterwards to Plow withal as being such as was not carelesly or fortuitously picked out from among the French Herd but expresly singled out for that purpose And how well she acted her part in time coming will appear in its proper place so that if they failed in their Ends of furnishing the King with a French Wife they were resolved to make it up by supplying of him with a French Whore and this being an Omission in my last and having nothing of greater Moment to write at present to keep my Correspondence with your Lordship I have taken the Opportunity to testifie unto you how ready I am My Lord To Serve You. Paris Feb. 13. 1677. N. St. LETTER XIX The paces made by the Duke of Buckingham and afterward by the Princess Henrietta Maria Dutchess of Orleans towards bringing the King over to joyn with the French against the Dutch not fully succeeding according to expectation they resolve upon other methods First by making sure of the Duke of York and then by inciting the Dutch to provoke the King to a War with them My Lord I have given your Lordship an account of the Princess Henrietta's Negotiation in England and of the Kings dilatory Answer in regard to his Conjunction with the French to make War upon the United Provinces which put the French Polititians somewhat to a Nonplus but considering how well inclined the Duke was to the Popish Religion and how he had exprest his thoughts to the Princess the King being present of the advantage and reasonableness of the French Proposals they made an Essay to see what they could do that way and whether the great confidence he had with and Influence over his Brother might not induce him to accept of the offer They found him plyable enough but upon Application he did not find the King so but much more disposed to live at Rest and Pleasure than to engage himself in so much Sollicitude as a War would inevitably bring him to And besides he was much afraid to discontent his People further who were already so ill satisfied with the ill Conduct and Disasters that befel them in the last War and whom he knew so wholly averse to a new one unless the Fresh Water-Gandy-Caps and Feathers especially were dismissed and the Conduct of it wholly left to the Old Tarpolians who so successfully asserted their Cause with those People in the Republican and Oliverian times the happiness of which the late ill Success had much enhaunsed in their Eyes Yet the French Agents continued pressing of him and tampering with his Ministers to compass their ends urging all the specious Motives in the World and sparing neither present Advances of Money nor the most Magnificent Promises of future Acknowledgment but finding still a great Resistance to any such Overtures they at length resolved to play their
brought our Nation under such Convulsions that without the help of kind Heaven must end in a total Dissolution Sed futura nesâ—imus I am My Lord Your Constant and Faithful Servant Paris Decemb. 16. 1677. N. S. LETTER XXVI The Opinion of the French Court concerning the five Persons that made up the Cabal in England in the Year 1671 2. My Lord THE Ministers of this Court are not only the most inquisitive Persons in the World into the Affairs of other Courts but even into the Persons that manage them whose Natures Dispositions Religion Natural and Acquired Abilities as well as Respective Infirmities they endeavour to sift out to the quick that so they may use them or shun them as they find occasion and for this reason it is that they make some Remarks upon them in their Minutes as well as upon the Affairs transacted by them And therefore since the Five Persons who made up the Cabal in England a few years ago and who your Lordship may remember were the Dukes of Buckingham and Lauderdale the Earls of Shaftsbury and Arlington and the Lord Treasurer Clifford were very distinguishable for the Stations they were in the Offices they held and the Parts each of them acted in the Government I find this Character given of them For the Duke of Buckingham as he was the Kings Favourite so he really deserved to be so as being very capable to be a Minister of State if his application to business had been answerable to his Talents if his mind which was furnished with excellent Endowments had not been distracted with Libertinism which was in him to an extream degree and by a love to his Pleasures which made one of those Persons in the World that was fittest for great and solid things vain and frivolous Of the Duke of Lauderdale there is little or nothing said but that he is a great and quaint Politian and no question but he has merited that Character at their hand Of my Lord Clifford they are as profuse in their Praises as I doubt they have been too of their Money saying he was a Person who wanted nothing but a Theatre where Vertue and Reason had been much more in use than it was in his Country in the Age wherein he lived for to be superiour to and overtop the rest My Lord of Arlinton they make to be a Person of a meaner Capacity and more limitted Genius than any of the Five but say his Experiences supply the Defect and has acquired him especially a very great knowledge of Forreign Affairs last of all they bring in Anthony Ashley Cooper the Renowned Earl of Shaftsbury of whom they say he was by far the fitter Person of any of them to manage a great Enterprize and so was as the Soul to all the rest being endued with a vast Capacity clear Judgment bold Nature and subtil Wit equally firm and constant in all he undertook a constant Friend but an implacable Enemy with many other Expressions such as his not being terrified neither with the greatness nor the multitude of the Crimes he judges necessary for his own preservation or the destruction of others much to his Lordships dishonour which is a clear Argument he was not for their Interest and for which he is much beholding to them Your Lordship will pardon the freedom I take with You and accept of the sincere endeavours to serve you of My Lord Your Honours most Humble and most Obedient Servant Paris Jan. 12. 1678. N. S. LETTER XXVII Of the Methods practised by the French Ministers to corrupt our Embassadors My Lord HAving given your Lordship some account of the opinion the French Court have had of some of our Statesmen it may be it will not be unacceptable to recount to your honour in this place some of those ways they have taken here to corrupt and pervert our Embassadors And I can boldly affirm that there has been hardly any one Embassador sent from our Court hither since the Restoration whom they have not endeavoured to corrupt and to get into a private Intreague to traverse not only what he was to Negotiate but even something of what themselves prest on our Princes by their own private Agents and on some of whom I have named one to your Lordship formerly they have made very great impressions to our Nations detriment for matters of main Consequence were treated of by private Ministers or Messengers between both Kings which were not as much as mentioned to the Embassadors sent in Publick who have been on our side sent only for Parade to Negotiate many times things whereof the contrary had been most commonly agreed upon especially in private only to blind by that piece of Formality the Eyes of our Subjects at home and of our Neighbours abroad or else to treat about matters of meer Complement or of but ordinary concern and tho' what has been privately treated on between the Two Kings or but only proposed was of great Concern to be kept secret and that for that very reason they knew our Embassadors were not made acquainted with it yet such has been their Malice and Treachery to our King and Country as to discover to our Embassadors or Envoys and their Secretaries such parts thereof as they have thought being once known to them would be most proper and effectual to induce our Ministers to enter into a particular Cabal with them for by-ends and many times to affirm things more invidious than ordinary to have been agreed upon between both Courts which were only proposed which kind of Communication of theirs had a very powerful influence by the curiosity that is natural to all Mankind to work upon our Ministers to entertain such a Correspondence with them to the dishonour and detriment of their King and Country for they have told them sometimes that not only the Points proposed by the Dutchess of Orleans but other things of as bad and dangerous consequence for the Subjects and Religion in England were absolutely concluded on between both Crowns unknown unto them and that our King and Duke of York had taken such and such Measures to put themselves into a Condition to do what they pleased and that the King their Master was willing to flatter them in such hopes and feed them with a little Money to keep them from taking part with his Enemies yet that truly at the bottom he had no such Zeal for Religion nor for the Pope of Rome as he had not for the King of England's over great Power and Absoluteness in Rule being things which could not but be prejudicial and very incompatible with his own greatness and therefore he should not fail underhand to favour the People of England in supporting their Liberties and Rights and defending their Religion and confining the Kingly or Regal Power to its own due limits And therefore if they Viz. our Envoys or Ministers would serve him in that design they might assure themselves they should be well gratified for
of them according to the Letter of the Treaty and your own repeated promises for which pretended expences persued they still your Majesty may instruct your Ministers to demand such excessive Sums as you know they neither can nor will disburse And as for their asserting their claim by a War after your seizing of Amsterdam that great Magazine of the dead riches of Europe and both Indies and of Warlike Provisions both by Sea and Land and the total reduction not only of that Potent Republick of which it was the Head but likewise of the living sources of Treasure both in the East and West by making their great Fleet Merchants Colonies and Commerce all your own which cannot but clear your way to Guinea and Peru What stomack said they can the English after this have by taking of their Out-works the Low-Countries debarr'd from all assistance from Italy Spain and Germany if in their right senses to have recourse to Arms. Alas what power to attempt any thing but what will move your pitty more then your indignation nay rather what greater Ambition will be left them than to Court your Majesty by an easie and voluntary submission to receive them as Honourable Tributaries thereby to retain a shadow of their Ancient Government and Liberty without incurring the certain destiny by an impotent and fruitless resistance of being forcibly reduced into a Province of your growing Empire to which the Roman Eagle it self abandoning the defenceless Towers of Austria shatterred both by Eastern and Western Hurricanes for the better preserving and re-establishing its Ancient State and Majesty will then be glad to retire This may be your Majesties method continued they to preserve Peace a while with England or stave off at least the War till your present grand design be accomplished and these your Measures how to deal with them afterward in case they suffer you quietly to atchieve this important Conquest But should we be able by no Art to buoy up the King of Englands Spirits against the head-strong opposition of the popular party about him nor so much as to delay a Rupture nor to hinder that violent People from immediately declaring against us yet all considerations on all sides duly weighed and perpended it will be much greater and more certain advantage to your Majesty and of much less dangerous consequence to your Affairs in general to venture a War with them now about a Town which with all they can do they cannot assist time enough to rescue from you and by whose acquisition against their wills you will not only be quit of all their Pretentions but gain power to crush them too at pleasure than after you have for fear of them quitted so great a Conquest to have a War in a little time after both with them and all the rest of Europe not only without those advantages but with the greatest disadvantage imaginable as without setting on work an hundred expensive and troublesome Intriegues you now will have no need off your Majesty will certainly have then notwithstanding all pour complyance to them if you quit your present Design For said they suppose upon your proceeding to the Expedition in question the English declaring a sudden War against you should cause the Amsterdamers to assume courage enough to repulse your Arms how easie were it for your Majesty upon advantageous Terms to clap up a sudden peace with those distressed People and by returning out of their Country to pacifie all those powers now preparing against you and then with your whole Force to fall upon the English with which perhaps too the Hollanders would easily be perswaded to joyn theirs as glad to see themselves delivered so unexpectedly their old Enemies drawn so genteely into the Snare and so fair an occasion put into their hands to revenge themselves on that Rival Nation for joyning with us against them with which it will not be amiss however by your Envoy to threaten the English King Nay and how probable it is that the popular party in England would on that occasion favour the Hollanders to keep down Absolute Power and to preserve their Religion against the aspiring Duke and Popery all which they strongly feared would have come in at once upon them after the ruine of that Protestant State At least said they how effectual may it be to let you Majesties Envoy add that threatning amongst the rest to the King of England But Alas continued they it is but a matter of meer Speculation never likely to come to pass that any thing the English can do at present should as the posture of their Affairs are now in hinder your Majesties taking that City whose Richest and Eminentest Citizens being already gained to your Party the very terror of your Majesties Navy and the appearance of your Forces will quickly open it unto you notwithstanding the weak opposition of a Party formed in a tumultary way among a Mobile by a few particular biggoted Citizens who at the noise of your Cannon would immediately turn to the other extream and cry out as loudly for a surrender And as for the English said they our Emissaries have been so busie and so successful at Amsterdam that it can never be thought what ever good Opinion they may have of the People of England that they can be induced to confide so much in their King whom they have so personally and so grosly affronted in all that can be sensible to a Prince and whom they know so much Frenchified as to think he can heartily intend them any good or that they can expect any milder terms of subjection under him either in respect of Religion or Property then under your Majesty Since they are daily and by very good tokens assured that he is privately advanced already towards Rome as far as the other and waits only the subvertion of their Republick to assume every whit as Despotical and Tyrannical a Dominion over his Subjects in both respects as the French Monarch had over his or in fine that they had so great an opinion of his Power in that Posture of Affairs as to think him able to rescue them time enough or remove the French from them if he went really about it And consequently that in the great Consternation they then were in and the little hopes they had of the slow Forces of Germany and the distrust they lay under both of their own strength and of the Faith and Power of the English together with the Apprehension they were possest with of losing the great Riches they had there by an obstinate resistance which they might secure by a timely composition they would undoubtedly submit upon the first Summons of his Majesty or any famed General of his at the head of a considerable Body of Men especially when his Majesty should offer them such advantageous Conditions as they advised him to do the more effectually to avert them from all thoughts or temptations to close with England and to propose
chosen by this Court purely for his Capacity is not to be admitted of You know my Lord the Triple League stuck then close in the French King's stomach and that the danger Religion was in as well as Property from the progress of the French Arms before in the Netherlands contributed very much to the cementing of such an Alliance which this Court were labouring tooth and nail to break to pieces and more especially to get the King of England out of it and to that end Monsieur Ruvigny's Religion he being a Protestant highly recommended him How well he discharged his Commission then I need not recount to your Lordship the Event has sufficiently discovered it to England as well as to Holland's sorrow and to the no small regret of some of those of his own Religion and Fraternity in France It was much about Six years after that the same Marquess was entrusted with another Negotiation at the English Court to no less pernicious an end than the former and I fear at long run with worse effects They had my Lord besides the Instruments I have formerly mentioned for some time before this imploy'd several of their own Hugonots in England for the carrying their Intrigues more effectually on among our Protestants which Hugonots have been the more forward to please and obey the Instructions of their Prince and his Ministers in that they have believed them very compatible with their own particular Interests wherefore they have done all they could to contribute to the Elevation of the Presbyterian Government in our Nation which because the same with their own they have naturally had some desire to see established in a Kingdom so able to protect them and which had hitherto been the great impediment to their extirpation in France But to return from this Digression for which I beg your Lordship's pardon to the Marquess de Ruvigny his Instructions were to endeavour to possess the Protestants in general in our Nation which were now my Lord full of fears of some Secret Designs a brewing between the two Kings in prejudice to their Religion and Civil Rights too that they needed not to be so much concerned at Appearances that it was far enough from the thoughts of his Master to make their King great to his Subjects prejudice and that he was not so zealous for the Roman Religion as they might imagine whereof he was to urge several instances and to endeavour to throw off all the odium from him upon the Pope and the Court of Rome and thereby make them level all their Fears Jealousies and odious Reflections that way to the end that by the Royal Church-Party who had the King's ear they might still secure him further in their Interests and have their helping-hand to carry on those Points they aimed at that way viz. the hindring the Princesses matching with the Prince of Orange and the Offensive Alliance so much feared then and now with the Confederates c. But this was but one Party of the Protestants his Instructions also were to make a particular Interest among the Dissenters and such as inclined to them at the same time that in case they were defeated in the one and saw no likelihood of staving off the other they might have them ready prepared to enter the lists against the former and when War was ready to be declared against France to push them on if possible to raise a Civil Combustion at home and to insinuate into them That the King his Master was willing privately to assist them as his Predecessor had done theirs in the late Civil Wars upon occasion c. in which sort of Negotiation the Marquis was effectually enough seconded by his Countrymen Hugonots then in England and particularly by a man of singular Parts and Learning and exceedingly well versed in Intriegue named Monsieur but on the contrary in case they should have been able by the Royal Party to have been strong and successful enough to gain the two said Points and hinder both the Match and the War which was their business and is still in part to oppose they had Orders to have the same Dissenting Party still ready when King Lewis and his Cousins of England should have had that part of their ends of the Conforming Party to make use of them against them if they would not humour them so far as to suffer themselves to be carried quite back to Rome And because all our Protestants however differently denominated should take no umbrage at any of this Court's Proceedings they thought fit once more to let their Sun as they so often term him to cast some warm beams on the Hugonot Party at home and to entertain them awhile with some Courâ—ly Smiles whereby they have designed to amuse our people and at the same time make their own Protestants to be their Instruments to carry on the Divisions of those who while united are their only Protectors for hitherto while they have had War with the Confederates and chiefly with Holland and are in fear of one with England it being yet out of their power to destroy these people they have thought it their interest not to exasperate them whereby they may be tempted to run over to the Enemy but rather for the present to court them and make them serviceable unto them by working in the very Mines which in all human probability are designed to blow them up withal I will not intrude When Captain E returns I should take it as a singular favour to receive a line from your Lordship and particularly your Sentiments of our Home-affairs by him whom I shall expect with utmost impatience who am My Lord Your Lordship 's most Humble Servant Paris Iuly 20. 1678. LETTER XXXVI Of Prince Lobkowitz's being disgraced by the Emperor for Corresponding with the French about the Year 1674. My Lord YOUR Lordship cannot be ignorant that during this Intrieguing in England and Canvassing of Designs against our King and Kingdom the War went on on this side with various success but I find England is not the only Country that has been bubbled by the French Emissaries and had its Secrets betrayed I cannot tell any one part of the Confederates that have been exempted but Germany more particularly has suffered in this kind variously but in nothing so remarkably as in the business of Prince Lobkowitz's being disgraced some time since by the Emperor and which has made so much noise in the World that your Lordship could not but hear of it That he corresponded with this Court there is nothing more certain though when the business was once winded their Emissaries thought it adviseable to be the first Rumorers of it but related the same with Particulars so extraordinary that were scarce credible that thereby they might turn the whole at length into a ridicule But the way of their Correspondence with the said Prince and others in the Empire was so intricate to be fathomed that 't is no wonder the matter
their Church whatever they might suggest with themselves to the contrary than they were aware of or was easily indeed to be imagined were of the same Sentiments but that they were under a restraint and durst not declare themselves to be such for fear of the Mobile and of the Presbyterians other Sectaries and Republican Parties which like so many evil Spirits presided over those Savage kind of Animals and stirred them as they pleased themselves against their Superiors But to those My Lord whom they found to be of the more inflexible sort they were instructed to make use of great Flatteries and Complements and to acquaint them that they had a great deal of reason to love the Roman Catholicks as the Roman Catholicks had to do so by them for that they had had for a long time the same Common Enemies had suffered much with them conjointly for the same Royal Cause in the late Rebellions that their Adversaries were numerous enough to require their united Power and Strength against them and that their subtilty was no less to be dreaded by them whose effects could not be warded off without such a double Force that there was much more danger to the Church and State of England and to the Monarchical Government now from the Sectaries than from their Church for it was plain to any one that was but willing to see That it was now no more the Roman Catholicks Interest since they were out of all hopes of being the predominant Religion in the Kingdom to act against the Church or State of England under whom they had such mild Treatment but much rather to join and fall in with them against the Sectaries and Common-wealth's-men under whom they could never expect any thing but utmost Rigour and Cruelty That it being impossible for them alone to support and maintain themselves in England against so great a number of Sectaries as were with the greatest inveteracy imaginable animated against them without the Protection of the Church of England and the Monarchy tho' but by way of Connivence It was therefore so much their Concern and real Interest to Pray for and endeavour after the Prosperity of both Parties tho' different in Perswasion that they had no reason to fear any thing from them nor be alarm'd at the Conversions they had happened to make which were so few and inconsiderable as never to be able to do them hurt had it been so designed as it was not That there was no danger neither from the French King's Friendship or close Alliance with their King it being the only Foreign Security as matters then stood that he could have against the intriegues and power of the United Provinces who not only ruined their Commerce by Sea but were the only People that buoyed up and supported the Sectaries and Republican Party and harboured and abetted all Designs both against the Church and State of England under the then Monarchy it being their inseparable Interest in all things to thwart the English almost in every particular they valued themselves upon in the present Establishment Whereas there was no exception to be made but that it was his Most Christian Majesty's undoubted Advantage and fixed Interest to cultivate by all good Offices the said Friendship and Alliance and to avoid by all manner of means any Rupture or Mis-intelligence with England and to oppose above all things the change of our Monarchy into a Republick In the last place continued they Whereas there had been for some time Reports spread not only of the Duke's but the King himself 's being of their Perswasion they were to give out to this sort of Men that that was only a suspicion and as they really believed ill-grounded enough for tho' they had reason to wish them and all Mankind else of their Opinion in that case yet they had no such reason to think them so but that the King 's having shewed some favour to them upon the score of their Sufferings for and Fidelity to his Father and himself and out of respect to the Most Christian King with whom he was so closely Alli'd for his better support and establishment against the enemies of Monarchical Government was the only grounds People had had for such Rumours which were industriously fomented only by the Authors of the former Fears and Jealousies against his Father in order to get an opportunity thereby once more to destroy the Regal Government And that they made this noise indeed against Popery but levelled it only at Episcopal and Kingly Government not at such contemptible Adversaries as the Roman Catholicks were at that time of day Then as for the Duke they were to affirm They thought and had reason to believe he was no more a Catholick than the King but that being a Prince of an high and inflexible Spirit and Heir presumptive to the Royal Diadem disdained to be compelled by any Subjects either to take an Oath or give any account of his Religion only to gratifie their Humours and Fancies and chose rather to forbear acting in any publick Employment But that for their part as he had not yet declared against the Church of England so he had as yet made no profession of the Roman Catholick Religion as they knew of but took care to keep himself as much reserved towards them as towards those of the Protestant Perswasion By such sort of Sophisiry and cunning Artifices thrse French Incendiaries were instrumental to endeavour to Keep up the Stiff Church Party in a perpetual Animosity against the Protestant Dissâ—nters and Dutch Party as both of a Party and to stir up the Government to side still with the French Interest against the power and growth of the one and provide with severity against the Practices of the other in order to exasperate as much as possibly they could the Spirits of both Parties against the other and widen the Breaches beyond all possibility of restoring them again Which how well they have already effected is but too well known and no less sorely felt in the Bowels of the Kingdom for me to take upon me to Descant upon and therefore I shall forbear and only subscribe my self My Lord Your Lordship 's Most humble Servant to Command Paris Mar. 28. 1682. LETTER XLIV Of the French Intrigues to raise a good Opinion in the Protestant Dissenters of England of the French King 's Proceedings and to Calumniate their own King My Lord I Am come to the last Body of Men within the Kingdom whom this Court by such like Engines as I formerly mentioned has endeavoured to manage for to serve their own turn to the Kingdom 's disadvantage and they are the Protestant Dissenters but they were necessitated to give the less umbrage to change their shapes and form of expression to those of that Party whom they had the design upon and to whom they closely and warmly remonstrated That they had no occasion to be jealous of the Proceedings of France and be animated so
Engagement with him that all he can say or do will never convince them of the contrary or induce them to trust him with Money to make War against France for fear he should use it against themselves and not only so but it would make him as suspected among the Confederates that none of them from hence forward would trust him either for an Assistant Allie or Mediator and so would render him of insignificant force to thwart our Designs But the King did for once Trick the Trickers by the care he had taken of the Princess as I shall note elsewhere to your Lordship and by his sudden marrying her to his Highness the Prince of Orange so much to the surprize and disappointment of this Court that I cannot express it and therefore must conclude subscribing my self My LORD Your Lordship 's most humble and most devoted Servant Paris Dece 7. 1679. N. S. LETTER LXIII Of the Popish Plot and Father Kelley's Menaces My LORD THE discourse about the Plot cannot be more in England than 't is here but the Particulars of the prosecution of it your Lordship must know much better than I I do not question but there is Villany enough at the bottom of it but our Ministers are as deep in the sudds as any other whatsoever who by their slights and wicked practises have drawn the English Papists into such Combinations as hath put the Nation into such ferments incurable Jealousies and divisions as hath effectually diverted the English from hunting the French in Flanders by imploying them to hunt the Papists and Jesuits at home as they have been pleased to word it My Lord It may not perhaps be unpleasing to give your Honour an account of some passages that happened between one Father Kelley an Irish Priest and my self in this City lately concerning the King c. I know very well that there were and and perhaps may be still some of that name in England but this same has lived for some years at Paris by St. Jean de Greve and tho' a Priest is a great Banker paying most of the pensions for secret service transmitted to the English Romanists but chiefly to Irish Papists in England and Ireland and who by his discourse upon the late English Fleet and Armies being ready and the War likely to be declared against this Kingdom was pleased then to say somewhat in relation to this Conspiracy that I have little thought on till very lately and that may give your Honour some light into the designs of this Court say'd he the King of France will find him meaning our King work enough by Divisions at home and discovering if needs be his and his Brothers intreagues in France and does not care tho' he expose all the Roman Catholicks in the three Kingdoms to a general and hot persecution so long as like the Turkish Asaphi they serve to blunt the English Men's fury and divert them from thwarting the designs of the potent Catholick Kingdom of France which would afterward set all right again but that he was in hopes by their hunting of Papists they would never leave hunting the King and his Brother too if they proved refractory till they had brought them to take Sanctuary in a stricter Alliance with the French King than ever as their only Safe-guard and that it was in the French King's power to spring up a Plot next day to give the King of England Game enough for his life time for that the Mines and Trains were already lay'd and that there needed only putting fire to them c. I am very sorry I could not have oblieged your Lordship sooner with these passages which yet I hope comes not too late but it may in some measure be grateful from My LORD Your Humble Servant Paris Feb. 28. 1678. N. S. LETTER LXIV Of the Duke of York's being Commanded to retire to Bruxells in the Year 1679 and of the Promises made him by the King before his departure My LORD I Know not how Matters go in England nor what the Sence of the people is in general concern the Duke's retiring to Bruxells but I can assure your Lordship they seem to be mightily allarmed here at it tho' they put a good meen upon it Perhaps your Lordship may know much more of the Secret of this Journey than I can inform you but if what is transmitted hither by the Agents of our Grand Minister be acceptable they give us this account That the Earl of D was the person who advised the King to remove his Royal Highness from his presence and that his Reasons for it were that the Parliament might have no pretence for to complain of his Majesty that he had not taken all the Measures necessary for the Security of their Religion and Liberty but they tell us how true I leave it to your Lordships profound Judgment to determine that the Earl by the foresaid Advise did not so much consult the King and Kingdoms true Interest as he did to please the Parliament with whom he was at odds because of the Money received to disband the Army and the French Alliance finding now by Experience that that Artifice of his in bringing the Plot upon the stage in order to amuse them had failed They further inform us that the Duke was mightily surprized at the Message for his departure and made some difficulty to bring himself to resolve to obey it but that at length recollecting a better Temper it gave his fast friends an Opportunity to advise him That though it were at that juncture necessary he should obey the King yet it was no less prudent that he should in so doing take all necessary Precautions not to abandon his Fortune to the discretion of his Enemies that they did not doubt but that the Duke of Monmouth would push hard to get himself declared Legitimate by the ensuing Parliament That the business of the Exclusion would be renewed and that there was room enough to fear least his Retreat might be rather interpreted for the flight of a guilty Person than for the Obedience of a submissive Subject that therefore it was expedient he should get the King first to promise him that he would declare and get it Recorded too in the Courts of Justice that he had never been Married to the Duke of Monmouth's Mother That he would by no means consent to the Exclusion that was now likely to be prest upon him and lastly that he should give him express Order in writing to require his Retirement All which they say he has happily accomplished the truth whereof time must determine whereunto I leave it who am My LORD Your Humble Servant Paris Apr. 6. 1679. N. S. LETTER LXV Of the Noise of King Charles's Divorce from Queen Katherine My LORD THE business of the King's Divorce has made a mighty noise on this side and I cannot with any certainty inform your Lordship which way this Court stands affected for I find on the one hand
conceiv'd in very easie Terms for the promoting of the Re-union as 't is call'd by them but among others this that follows I thought very remarkable and whereby your Lordship may see the Latitude they assume to themselves for the promoting their Interest tho' no doubt it is but a Bait to catch some of those harmless Gudgeons the words were these I own and confess the Catholick Apostolick and Roman Church as it was in the time of the Apostles and I Renounce and Abjure all those Errors which have crept in ever since The Bishop of Meux hath to make the way still smoother in his Preface to the Second Edition of his Expostulation of the Catholick Doctrine gone so far as to say We do not serve Images God forbid we should do so And indeed there is some likelihood that the Clergy would have stretch'd their Complaisance yet farther this way had not an unexpected accident hindred it for the Pope's Nuncio being inform'd that the General Assembly or rather the Arch-bishop of this City under the Covert of that Name and by the Advice of the Jesuits were about to draw up and form a Profession of Faith more adapted for the satisfaction of such of the Reformed as became New Converts than that of the Roman Church he bestirr'd himself and interposed in his Master the Pope's Name and made several Remonstrances to the King upon the Authority which the French Clergy were about to assume to themselves of setting up other Forms of Doctrine then that which the whole Catholick Apostolick Church had received since the Council of Trent You cannot imagine my Lord how much this little unexpected Traverse from the old Dad disheartn'd the Court whether it were that it came from a Pope whom the King did not care for or that they were afraid it might retard the Work of Conversion is not certain but the result was as I have been first informed and since seen somewhat verify'd by the consequence that the Pope should be comply'd with and the rather because they were well satisfy'd with his inflexible temper and that as they believ'd it would be dangerous to sow Division between the Clergy of France and the Pope at a time when they were labouring to reduce all Frenchmen to the Unity of the Church it would be more advisable for them to keep to the usual Profession of Faith And now my Lord the Clergy give out every where that they will not qualify any Points but vaunt that in reducing the Reformed they will not put out any one Taper that Adorns the Altars I shall not detain your Lordship at present with any farther account of a matter that suits not with your Gusto tho' I know you have goodness enough to accept my endeavours though never so contemptible in themselves and to pardon my weakness who am My Lord Your Lordships very obedient servant Paris Sept. 17. 1685. LETTER X. Of Popish Guardians imposed upon Protestant Children and of Protestant Physitians Chyrurgeons and Apothecaries being forbidden to follow their Practise with the pretended Reasons alleadged for such a Prohibition My Lord WHatever underhand-brewing may be in England in matters of Religion they be bare-fac'd enough â—â—re in carrying on their Designs for the Ruine of the Reformed Churches tho' still they retain some specious pretences for what they do 't is but lately that we have had a Declaration publish'd forbidding any to take upon them the Office of Guardians to Children whose Parents have died in the Protestant Religion excepting such as are Roman Catholicks and tho' that part of the Edict that concedes this Privilege to the Reformed is couch'd in the most clear and express terms that could be conceiv'd yet the Declaration takes no manner of notice of the said Article nay and the Expressions wherein it has been conceiv'd are such as would bespeak that such an usage has been without foundation but indeed this is a method that the French Council has for some time used when they have been mindful to put out any Order in prejudice to any of the Privileges granted in the Edict that are exprest so clearly as that no Cavils raised by them can render them dark and and absurd And as they found it too difficult a Task to find Reasons forcible enough to elude such formal Concessions they made a shew of being ignorant of them and they were willing to put forth such Orders that might only seem to Regulate such New and Extraordinary Cases But yet that they might have some colourable pretences for what they did herein they charged the Guardians of the Reformed Religion with Two Crimes First That they abus'd that Power which they had in that quality over those in Pupillage to them and hindred them to become Catholicks Then that they Imbezell'd the Estates of such Minors when they became Converts against their Will which was a great Obstacle to their Preferment when they came of Age These two things were spoken of as if there had been nothing in the World more certain and truer and of which they had had abundant experience but they are of the number of such instances that are alike easie to be raised as impossible by any proofs to maintain and any ones Reason my Lord will give him especially as to the last Article that it must be notoriously false For can any one believe that such Guardians who would adventure in a malicious way to imbezill the Estate of their Pupils could go unpunish'd in a Countrey where their Religion and Power was so much in the Wain and surely he must be next to a Madman that would thus adventure to play with the Zeal of the Parliaments of this Kingdom animated by the Recommendation of the Clergy who are forward enough to make their Court into them And if my Lord the Protestant Guardians are thus Injuriously used the Physicians of the same Perswasion have fared much worse as being deprived by another Declaration of their Means of Living upon the most ridiculous pretences in the World they alleadging that since those of the Reformed Religion were already deprived of all Judicial Affairs and the freedom to exercise the Functions of Counsellors at Law it were to be feared the greatest part of their young Men might fall to the Study of Physick That that would considerably augment the number of Protestant Physicians and that those of the Roman Catholicks must by that means as much decrease and that hereafter that would become very prejudicial to the Salvation of sick Catholicks in that the Reformed would take no care to put their Patients in mind of Receiving the Sacraments of the Church when they found them reduc'd to such a condition as did require them I know not my Lord but that there may be a Snake in the Grass here and that the Crafty Jesuits amuse the World with such Illusions and would buoy People up in a belief that since they have taken â—â—ch great Precautions for futurity it 's the
them And it was agreed in general That our King should joyn with the French King in a War against Holland both by Sea and Land but in order to carry the same effectually on it was more particularly concerted I. That they shall both endeavour to draw the Prince of Orange to connive at such a War and to consent to the Abolition of the Penal Laws and Test against the Roman Catholicks with specious Promises of making him Prince of Holland secure his Succession in England and of many other great Proffers and Advantages but in case he proves stiff to endeavour to make a total Conquest of that Country and share it between themselves as was projected in the last Dutch War And whereof to the best of my Remembrance I have give your Lordship a particular Relation and then to find out some effectual Expedients to put the Prince of Orange by too of his Succession in England II. That upon supposal that the Prince shall refuse to comply with them in their projected Designs that then the English and Scotch Forces shall be recalled out of the Dutch Service and be sent immediately into that of France to be employed for a Time in remoter Campaigns towards Spain or Italy and for want of such Service in Garrisons for fear they shall turn Tail and revolt and so the Prince and the States of Holland shall be before-hand weakened and the French considerably strengthened III. That some thousands of the French choice Men as of the King's Gentlemen Musqueteers and others shall insensibly be brought into Enland if the King finds his Occasions so require it to be mixt with the English Troops under Pretence of learning the other a more perfect Discipline IV. That they shall both joyn their Forces at Sea with all Strength possible V. That a good Body of French English Scotch and Irish Troops shall be put on Board both the Fleets that so a Mixture may be made in both to the end it may create less Jealousie and that the rest of the English and other Brittish Troops that can be conveniently spared from England shall be employed in the Land-Armies against the Republick of Holland VI. That after the War be once declared such French Refugees as will shew themselves willing to serve under the English Banner against Holland shall enjoy the Revenues which they had in France tho' they shall not be suffered to dwell there VII That neither side shall desist from the War till a total Conquest be made of the said Country which they think themselves sure enough of And that when Holland shall be subjected by their united Force there will then be no more Fear of any Opposition in England to prevent the King from raising Arbitrary Power and the Roman Catholick Religion there to the same heighth as it is in France nor from concurring with the French King till he shall obtain the Empire for himself VIII That the French King shall pay all the Brittish Forces in Flanders and elswhere and be content to defray half the Charges of the War that our King with his Pecuniary Assistance may be enabled to hold on the War with Vigour and Constancy enough for to make a Conquest but that afterwards for a Recompence he shall be obliged to assist France in any future War with thirty Capital Ships and twenty thousand Men at half Charges born Your Lordship knows much better to make a a Judgment of such a League than I can pretend to but I perceive the effect will be dreadful not only to poor Holland but to England too without the neighbouring Potentates be timemously awakened to ward the Blow and that such worthy Patriots as your self rowse up and stand in the Gap But I pretend not to dictate to your Lordship what every generous English Man's Duty is to God and his Country upon such an occasion and so conclude with subscribing my self My Lord Your very humble Servant Paris Jan. 24. 1687. S. N. LETTER XXIII Of Methods to be practised by King James for keeping up the Dispensing Power and and particularly about discarding the Militia of the Kingdom My Lord I Have upon another occasion hinted somewhat to your Lordship of those Arguments urged to the King for the promoting of the Dispensing Power and you know very well since it has been put in practise in Westminster-Hall in the Case of Sir F. H. and how that matter terminated to the King's Satisfaction and further heightening of his Perogative Royal and how the same was established by the Concurrence of the Judges of the Land if they may be so called who authorized the same These Points being gained another Matter and that of an higher Consequence was agitated in the Cabinet Council viz. to use some means totally to discard the Militia of England and in liew of them to retain standing Troops in the Nation and to throw a little Dust in the People's Eyes and amuse them so as that they might take little notice or at least not oppose those their Proceedings it was advised to act these previous things In order to Ballance the great Power of the City of London it was projected to grant a Charter to that of Westminster and that under the Pretence of its being the Royal Residence of the Kings of England and of the supreme Court of Parliament and therefore ought to be dignified with as ample Previledges as any City in the King's Dominions London it self not excepted and to have a Lord Mayor Court of Aldermen Sheriffs and all other Officers necessary both for the Support and Grandure of it that great Encouragement should be given to rich Merchants wealthy Tradesmen c. to dwell there and to transport a great part of their Trade thither which would cause them to stick close to the Court and Interests thereof And had this same Project gone on it was also projected to have a new Stone-Bridge imitating that of London but built much broader and more convenient erected between the Palace-yard and the Horse-Ferry and the King seems very eager and forward to promote so useful a Work Then the Mews was to be ditched round and great care taken as well as Expedition used to have it filled with Stabling and other Buildings fit to receive and lodge a good Body of Horse and to be made a Cittadel under Pretence that such Troops should not be Troublesom and a Burthen to the said City And when all this was accomplish'd which was concerted to have been brought about in a short Time then the Militia of the Kingdom was to be new modelled two or three Times over and the new Lords Lieutenants of Counties and other Officers chopp'd and chang'd to the Court's Mind who should shew themselves willing to obey the Orders they were to follow which were to this effect That the Militia should be ordered to meet in their several respective districts and there the Lord Lieutenants for the Time being were to acquaint them That since to
serve in the Militia was but a trouble to them as well as a Charge and Burthen to the Country yet without any Use or Security to the Crown or Kingdom when all our Neighbour Nations were armed with Veteran Troops the King was advised and now thought fit to discharge them of the Trouble and the Country of the Charge of maintaining of them for the future and so order them to deliver up their Arms to be distributed among regular Troops that would be more useful and serviceable But before this was to be put in Execution it was my Lord resolved a Toleration of Religion should be first granted and severe Orders given to the Soldiers for to pay their Quarters duly demean themselves quietly and orderly and to abstain from any manner of Violence and all manner of Persons as well Protestants Dissenters from the Church of England as others of the Roman Communion should be admitted into the Army either as Officers or Soldiers and if any of the Church-men should grumble thereat and begin to stomach it it should be alledged There was no Reason in the World the King should be deprived of the Services of any of his Subjects however denominated as to their respective Religions for the Carping of a few Churchmen who were more concerned for their own worldly Interests and so would have all Places of Profit confined to those of their own Stamp than they were for the real Interest of the Church Then there were to be sufficient Bodies of Soldiers to be placed all over England to assist the Lords Lieutenants to see all the forementioned Orders put quietly in Execution and ready to suppress any Tumult that might be occasioned thereby This my Lord was the Projection I shall endeavour to give your Lordship in my next an account of the Opposition made hereunto as this and the rest have been lately entred here in our Minutes from Papers transmitted by the Resident of Modena and Count Dada the Pope's Nuntio in England to the Resident of that Name and Papal Nuncio in this Kingdom and by them communicated to Monsieur Louvois till then I am and ever shall be My Lord Your humble Servant Paris Feb. 9. 1687. N. S. LETTER XXIV Of the Opposition made by several Noblemen and particularly by the Lord Marquess of Powis against discarding the Militia of the Kingdom My Lord 'T Is but a few Days since I sent to your Lordship the particular Resolutions formed in the Cabinet Council of discarding the Militia and other Methods that were to be pursued as either previous to or subsequent of such a Design and now I can assure your Lordship That same Project was chiefly broken by the Marquess of H. D of N. and some other Noble Persons and worthy Patriots but the Marquess of Powis had a greater Hand in it than any of them as being of greater Credit with the King who represented how dangerous and in a Word how impracticable such a Project was For said he it will be impossible to find such Lord Lieutenants in the Kingdom as will undertake to put the same in Execution nor no Officers that will obey If they could find such that such a Practice would necessitate the King to call in a French Army which would as much inslave his Majesty to the French as his own People would be thereby inthralled to him and that he might assure himself the French Faction had no other Intent in advising him to it So that I find my Lord it was resolved to let the Militia alone as it is and go on to secure their Proceedings by stuffing the Army with a Mixture of Nations as well as Perswasions and to chop and change them so often till at last they shall get Roman Catholicks enough in their Troops so as considerably to out-number the Protestants there without calling in any Bodies of French Which Resolution as I find it did not fully content this Court so it hath madded them to use Stratagems to counterpoise it by putting the King upon unseasonable and impolitick Artifices and among others to model and pack Parliaments whereof I shall be able in my next I think to procure your Lordship the Projects laid before him humbly hoping you 'll take all in good part from one that has an English Heart and will love both his Country and your Lordship whilst I am Paris Feb. 17. 1687. N. S. LETTER XXV Propositions made to King James II. by the French Agents for modelling and bridling of Parliaments My Lord I Find abundance of Projects offered to the King by the Agency of this Court concerning modelling and bridling of English Parliaments some were for putting in Execution the Advises given formerly for that purpose to King I. I. specified I think in Rushworth's Collections to which I refer your Lordship but that Proposition was rejected and others of more modern date urged upon him and particularly there were some who would have him procure a Parliament by Oliver Cromwel's Methods chiefly to be composed of the Officers of the Army with an Intermixture of some few others and that being effected he might by them increase very much the Revenue of his Crown by setting up again the Court of Wards and the Right of Purveyance and by obliging all such Noblemen who were by their Tenures anciently obliged to furnish so many Horse and Men and other Necessaries in the Wars either against France or Scotland to supply a full Equivalent towards Ships Men Artillery Provisions c. for a War with the Republick of Holland or any other Enemy whatsoever which they would have called for the greater Amusement of the People a restoring to the Crown the Jewels which had been usurped from it which that it might be further secured it was likewise advised That a Star Chamber with the same Jurisdiction as in the King's Father's Time should be set up again as also an High Commission which last tho' a sort of Tribunal introduced into England since it had proved schismatical and that the Kings thereof had been declared Head of the Church yet it might very well serve a present Turn and give the less Jealousie of his designing to introduce the Roman Catholick Religion among them thereby but that if he did not look upon that Expedient seasonable and that the rather because it had been abolished in Parliament as a Grievance to the Subject he had no reason to oppose the setting up of an Ecclesiastical Commission since the Parliament themselves had erected the same tho' with a more limited Power than the other in lieu of it and since they had judged it necessary for the repressing of the Insolencies of the Churchmen regulating their Manners and obliging them to discharge their respective Duties in their several Stations He being a Catholick King had more reason than any other to make use of it the last your Lordship has seen they have gained and tho' the King hath a great Stomach to that other yet my Lord Powis's
Party hath yet prevailed and affrightned him from venturing upon such things without he had been able as he found he was not to have succeeded in pulling down the Militia of Kingdom or at least in getting such an Army which he could fully rely upon and that he hath not yet got neither but till then he could not pretend to declare the Grand Charter void as obtained by Force of Arms and since infringed and nullified by several Rebellions but especially by that in his Fathers time on the Subjects side and now rule by a Council only without troubling himself with any thing more like unto a Parliament as his French Friends Advised him to your Lordship will excuse the Freedom I have now and always used in my Correspondence and accept of my humble duty who am and ever intend to continue My Lord Your Honours to Command Paris April 7. 1687. N. S. LETTER XXVI The substance of Pope Innocent XI First Letter to the French King about the business of the Regale I Cannot think but it will be acceptable to your Lordship to understand what the Contents of the Pope's Letters to the French King are especially in such a conjuncture as this is and when I believe you cannot be furnish'd with a genuine account by any other hand after the prefatory part which is short and concise and somewhat different from others of his Predecessors he comes close to the matter and says that he could not but reflect with no small Astonishment as well as great Grief and sadness of heart upon the late unaccountable Conduct of so great a Prince who would be thought to be and called himself the first Son to the Catholick Church and withal the most Christian King against the holy See of Rome that he should as much as pretend to so much Zeal for Religion and yet at the same time to invade the known rights of the Catholick Church not only in the Kingdom of France but even in the City of Rome herself by pretending to a pernicious Freedom of Quarters which all other Catholick Princes had freely and generously renounced as a gross abuse That his Persecuting the Protestants in the Kingdom of France ought no ways to priviledge him to put affronts upon the holy See it was very plain that was not the way to reunite those people to the Church when he himself was so ill a Pattern and shewed them so bad an Example by contemning and outraging that same Authority which he used Force and Violence to make them own That he was much in the wrong and acted preposterously to Prosecute them for not believing what he himself so Scandalously opposed And that for himself at the bottom he was not of a Persecuting Spirit and Principle but that he was fully convinced it was never Christ our Saviour nor any of his Apostles way who themselves never were nor ever used any Preachers with long Tails Boots and Spurs c. That such a practice had done most disgrace to and created as well it might more implacable prejudice against the Roman Catholick Religion than any thing else whatsoever and so by Consequence had much more obstructed than advanced the propagation of it That it ought never to be used in any Kingdom already infected with heresie tho' it 's true it were a very good fence against its creeping in where it had yet got no footing That it would be a means to blast all the blooming hopes of the Catholick Cause in the Kingdom of England and ingender pernicious Jealousies and a most cruel Opposition in the English a stiff necked people and the most Jealous of their Religion and Liberties of any Nation upon the Earth against their King who was a true Son of the Church and break the Neck of all his designs for the Introducing of it into his Dominions And in a word that he was so far from approving of it that he every way disliked it and that it should not throw dust in his Eyes from inspecting into and opposing of his incroachments upon the holy See which he was resolved to defend to the utmost extreamity and so concluded with a short admonition and with which concludes this Letter to your Lordship from him who is My Lord Your most Devoted Servant Paris June 3. 1687. LETTER XXVII An account of Pope Innocent XI Second Letter to the French King about persecuting the French Protestants c. My Lord SInce my last I have had the opportunity to take the Heads of another Letter written soon after that I have already sent you by the Pope to the French King and is to this purpose In the first place he takes upon him to refute the Answers and frivolous Complaints of the French King and then descends to ridicule his vain pretence of Piety in persecuting the Protestants of his Kingdom for denying him Obedience while he was no less severe to the Bishops of Alet and Pamiers and some other Ecclesiasticks and even to some poor Abesses and their Nuns for paying that Obedience which was due to the papal Authority that this â—id not only look like it but really was nothing less but building up the Church with the Left Hand and at the same time pulling it down with the Right That he was well informed what writings came out in France against his Authority which he well knew was that of the holy Apostolick See what Theses were there maintained and what was done by his over awing the Assembly of the Clergy of his Kingdom how and what method he had taken to vel the French Jesuits against him and imployed Maimburg to represent his supremacy as precarious Itineran and Ambulatory and not fixt to the City of Rome herself but only to the Capital City of the most powerfull Christian Prince in the World for the time that is gallice to Paris in the present Age that he well understood not only this but also the designs that were formed by him to erect a new Religion which should Totally swallow up and deâ—our both Roman Catholicks and â—rotestants and how far he purposed to imitate King Henry VIII of England who writ a Book for the Pope's supremacy and not long after Burnt aed Beheaded people for owning it when also at the very same Time he persecuted the Protestants for opposing other points That it very ill became and it was not the part of a Dutifull and Religious Son â—s he pretended to be and would have the Woâ—ld believe to abuse his supream Pastor to dispoil him not only of his Ancient rights granted him by his Pious Predecessors but even of those very ones which he then injoyed and were derived by Universal consent and constant tradition of all good Catholicks and of the rights of his just Sovereignity in the City of Rome herself That however let him the French King do what he pleased yet all that ever he should or could do should not make him abate the least jot or tittle of his
to procure a more familiar Intercourse between the Reformed and Catholicks Secondly That they should be Rewarded with Estates and Honours that would be Converted and to have a Fund setled for that end which should ne'er be alienated that for the exciting of their Ambition and not suppress that Passion in them which might serve as a Sting to their Conversion He was of Opinion that they should be permitted to Exercise the smaller Offices But not to give them great Places but to the Catholicks only for to Allure the Reformed to a Change of their Religion in hopes to attain unto them Thirdly To Embroil the Affairs of particular Persons so as to make them attend the Council and principally the Gentlemen concerning all the Dependances of the Exercises of their Families Fourthly To oblige them to Rebuild the Chappels they had Demolished or Prophaned and that not by proceeding against them in general upon that Head but by Suing of particular Persons upon that Score and to Recommend it to the Care of each Bishop in his Diocess Fifthly To hinder the Deputy-General to interpose therein which he believed might be easily effected because the Hugonots could not form a Body in France and that particular Cases ought not to pass for publick ones and that the King would Administer Justice without any Intervention he would not have the Office of Deputy-General supprest but reduce it only to a Name without any effect and that no regard should be had to the General Remonstrances of the Deputy Sixthly To order it so that none of the Reformed should be suffered to dwell in Cities or the Seigniories which did appertain to such as were of their Religion and he would have it so as they could never want specious pretences to colour that Innovation 7thly To suppress by Death the Charges of Councellors among the Reformed Eighthly To send Catholick Commissâ—ries into the Synods and to chuse such Persons for that end as understood Controversie and knew how to foment any Differences which might arise in the Assemblies to allow no National Synods and to require Money of the Ministers for the King's Use under pretence of Loan Tythes or some other Imposition Ninthly To Commence some Law-Suits against them for their Debts in common and to cause some of their Churches to be Sold. Tenthly To Enjoin all the King's Subjects not to depart the Kingdom without leave for the Reformed would be comprehended under such a general Order Eleventhly To prevent any Catholicks by means of the Confessors to put themselves into the Service of the Hugonots Twelfthly To oblige them to observe the Fasting Days under pretence of State Policy for the same reason as they were obliged to keep Holidays Thirteenthly To endeavour to Marry the Reformed into Roman Catholick Families and to take Care that all the Children proceeding from such Marriages were brought up in the Roman Religion Fourteenthly To hinder the Reformed to Sell their Estates in Land for that such sort of Estates being not to be carried away it would oblige them to keep within the Kingdom And Lastly he advised That the University of Saumur should be removed to some other more inconvenient place for which he furnished them with several pretences and he was of Opinion that for lessening the number of Ministers that the Candidates before they were received should be obliged to go through a Course of Philosophy or Study Divinity for Two Years that they should be Examined before no other Commissioners than such as the King should name and that none should be suffered to take the Function upon them till they were twenty-seven Years of Age. I have troubled your Lordship with a long Letter upon this ungrateful Subject but I hope you 'll pardon me since I think it 's not altogether Forreign to what I have some time since writ to your Lordship about the French Courts procedure in reference to the Reformed whom they made it their chief Business to Cajole into a profound Severity that they might have leisure to carry on their Villanous Designs more securely and therefore it was that this Book and the Author of it run the Fate I have already recounted to your Lordship whom I shall always endeavour to oblige to the utmost of my power who am My Lord Your Lordship 's most Humble Servant Paris Iuly 8. 1676. N. St. LETTER XIII Of the French Preparations for the War in the Year 1672 and how they compleated their Levies My Lord HAving in some measure traced the Methods the French Councils used to settle their Affairs at Home so as to receive no Molestation from Intestine Motions when they should carry their Arms Abroad they began now to set their Instruments more closely to work in their Neighbour Nations but more especially in England and Holland not only to amuse and play upon those that were at the Realm of Government but to feel the Pulse of and tamper with all the several Factions among the People and to make Creatures among them that might manage them upon occasion as might seem most for their purpose while in the mean time they made vast Preparations underhand for War both by Sea and Land and the better to supply the Defects which seemed to be natural to their Native Soldiers caused Levies to be made for them little or great in all the European Nations insomuch as by a List which I have seen it did appear they had in all of Strangers only about an Hundred and Sixty Thousand Men besides Seamen of whom they had likewise Debauched a considerable number from Holland England Denmark and Swedeland These mighty Preparations without any visible Pretension Alarmed all the Powers of Christendom but the most because of the small Contests then in being with the Pope about the Regale and of some Differences then depending about Lorrain and Alsatia as your Lordship well knows imagined the Storm would break towards Italy and part of Germany till the Preparations of the then Bishop of Munster and the Admission of French Garrisons into the Archbishoprick of Cologn and the Naval Preparations which appear'd last of all filled them with Apprehensions somewhat different from the first among which neither England nor Holland were without some Fears both which they took Care to allay as the Minutes shew by exasperating of them afresh by Secret Agents and Emissaries one against another resolving according as their Instruments should prevail on either to join with one against the other But which of the two they should Attack was a long time the Debate of the French Council for one of them it was resolved without Contradiction must be Invaded it being impossible to make any Successful Attempt upon the Empire as long as those Two Countries maintained the Figure and Power they did then and in that untoward Scituation for them too England was then in a very unprepared condition having almost no Navy at Sea and none but the ordinary Forces at Land whereas theirs were all ready
Game another way and employ'd their Emissaries in Holland to stir up those People to provoke the King's Resentments by all the ways that Artful Malice could devise they caused him to be represented to them as a mean Spirited Prince drowned in Pleasures and by them Bankrupt and that would put up any Affronts rather than be weaned from them a Moment That slender courage he had being Cowed in the last War as likewise were the Spirits of the proudest Merchants and Seamen his Subjects under such an Unactive Prince adding moreover that to their certain knowledge the Duke of York was now a Papist tho' in hugger mugger and that the People had a strong suspition of it how clandestinely soever carried and had thereupon conceived such an implacable Jealousie against the Duke therefore and against the King himself on his account that they would never patiently brook the Command of the one nor heartily assist or fight for the other in a War against a Protestant State but break into Factions and rather abet them then support so Unwarlike so Unfortunate and what was worst of all so Popishly affected a Prince that therefore now was the time to give that finishing stroak to that so Great so Glorious and so Advantageous a Work to their most Puissant and Renowned Republick which they had more than half done in the last War under the favour of the most Powerful Assistance of their great Master Viz. to obtain for ever the dominion of the Seas so highly contended for by the English and ingross the whole Trade of both the Hemispheares to themselves And that in so Glorious an Undertaking As the Great Monarch of France had when in extremity most opportunely and successfully assisted them in the preceding War So he was determined to do in this not with a few Auxilliary Troops and Ships as before But with his whole Force being resolv'd of nothing less than to concur with their High and Mightinesses for the Absolute Conquest of that Queen of Islands that had so long domineered over the Sea and pretended to give Laws upon that Element which God and Nature had left as free as the Air it self And that their High and Mightinesses might enter into no Umbrage of his designing any Greatness to himself that might be prejudicial to them by such a Conquest he was content to share it with them and that so Partially in their Favour that he would satisfie himself with the two Poorer Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland the former for the sake of its Ancient Alliances with his Kingdom and the latter because of the Conformity of the Religion of its native Inhabitants with that of his own Subjects leaving to them the Principal which was England where all the Chief Trade Riches and Power both by Sea and Land of the Brittish Empire was concentred together with all its goodly dependances both in the East and West Indies with which he could not pretend to meddle the success of which Proposals I design shall be the subject of another Letter with the first opportunity From My Lord Your Lordships most Humble Servant Paris Feb. 28. 1677. N. S. LETTER XX. The Dutch upon the foresaid Remonstrances made to them by the French King being induced to enter into a Treaty with him were wheedled by the French Embassador to sign their part of it and to send it to the French King for him to sign it but he pretending specious delays sends it to the King of England using it for an Argument for his compliance with the Proposals he made to him of entring into a War in Conjunction with him against the States But ordering his Embassador withal to acquaint him that in case of his Refusal he must be obliged to turn the Sham-League with the Dutch into a real one My Lord THE Specious Remonstrances and moâ—e Inviting Proposals made on the French King's part to the Dutch as mentioned in my last to your Lordship so tickled the Hogens that they suffered themselves to be deluded into a close Treaty with the French Court for that great Expedition not at all thinking what Ruine was designed themselves and Division of their own Territories between the French and English was then Modelling among the Monsieurs as a further tentative to induce our King to arm with France against Holland and that the very League the French pretended to be making with them was but the master Stratagem to procure that other Allyance that without the unexpected and timely interposition of Divine Providence had proved the Mene-Tekel of their Flowrishing State and turned that great Magazine of the Trade and Riches of the Universe into a sorry bank of Lillies accordingly they began first to insult our King in his Person by multitudes of most scandalous and insupportable Pasquirades and Pictures which the French Agents endeavouring to make him resent as they deserved and finding still that he declined to comply with their desires alledging again for Answer the ill success of the last War caused chiefly by them the averseness of his People to another War c. And farther his unwillingness only for Injuries that personally concerned himself alone to engage those Nations again in so bloody and destructive a War as after all could be of no very considerable advantage to either side be the event what it would They proceeded then to tempt him further by offering a larger proportion of those Provinces when Conquered and besides such an assistance in Money as should enable him to go through with the War tho' his Parliament should deny their Concurrence with him therein and to make their perswasions the more effectuall they did again warmly ply the Duke of York attacking of him on the blind side Viz. his Religion and telling him that tho' he were privately a Catholick yet the People began to have a strong suspition of it and would at long run come to know it and would not fail then to make such strong brigues against him as that they would certainly put him by the Succession unless before such a Discovery were perfectly made he could induce his Brother to joyn his Arms with those of his Most Christian Majesties for the Conquest of Holland where were the Vitals that Administred Life and Spirits to all those Factions he had to fear and which after the Conquest of that United many-headed Hydra would soon be supprest â—ut could be by no other way and that then the introduction of the Roman Religion into these Kingdoms whenever he should succeed to them would be easie else impossible that his Most Christian Majesty was then provided with such formidable Forces and had laid the Empire into such a Sleep of Security and so amused the other Neighbour Princes with such doubtful and contrary appearances that before they could awake and rub off the dust they had thrown in their Eyes they might have done their work on the Hollanders who least of all the rest expected an Attack and were therefore
of any thing that looked black or villanous or seemed too directly to aim at the detriment or destruction of their Country or Religion till such time as they had a long trial of their Tempers and found them fit for such Attempts or that they had got them first into such a Correspondence which tho' in the ultimate intention was not malicious but only an effect of zeal to their several Parties yet would if discovered be construed reasonable and so keep them under an hank to them and then they were to put them on such Barbarities and Villanies as they thought necessary for their purpose which if they then refused their Business was to abandon them and to imploy such Instruments as were as Bankrupt of Religion and Conscience as of Fortune and would be desperately determined to venture at any thing for Money and by these they were to be pretended to be detected as Traytors and prosecuted as guilty of the Designs which they have been only tempted to and so were to serve all People whom they once got within their Toil as occasions and their Interests did require But I see I have already past over the just bounds of a Letter and shall therefore only subscribe my self My Lord Your Lordship 's most devoted Servant Paris May 5. 1681. N. S. LETTER XLI Containing the Practices of the French Agents for the amusement of Foreign Catholicks while they carry'd on their Designs against England My Lord IT would be very strange to think that the Ministers of this Court who have had a hand almost in every thing relating to our Nation should not be concerned in the affair of the Popish Plot but it is so far otherwise that they have been the chief managers and starters of many things which have since come to light Nay I am bold to say That the very actions and intentions of almost all the Instruments of the English Nation and even of some of the French themselves were very wide tho' villanous enough from those of the Machiavillian Off-spring which set them on work My Lord you have heard of Father St. Germain and perhaps of Father Columbiere too who succeeded him in England these were the Persons who together with their other assisting Emissaries disposed of Things and Parties in our Nation to favour their Designs in reference to the said Conspiracy and whose Instructions from Father La Chaise were to take upon them to inform and press upon the Creatures of the Pope and Ministers and Creatures of other Princes of the Roman Communion but of a different Interest from their Master 's the French King That for their parts they were only actuated by a Zeal for the propagation of the Catholick Religion and the re-union in time of so famous a Monarchy to the Church by gentle and peaceable ways and means and chiefly for the Conversion of our two Princes so nearly Related to their King in Blood and for whom he had so much Esteem and Affection and that their Master being their nearest Neighbour and seated most conveniently to assist them on occasion would with his Purse promote all he could the quiet Conversion of all sorts of People that could be drawn in by the Godly Eloquence of their Missionaries or by the more powerful language of Pensions with some and was heartily willing to supply our Princes with what was needful or might be so to maintain themselves against any Attempts that might be made against them upon the jealousie or discovery of any such design and succour them by a sufficient Military Force too in case they were likely to be reduced to Extremity by an open Rebellion of their stubborn and discontented Subjects on that account without once pretending to so idle and impracticable a design as some of them whom they spoke to were tutored to call it as by that means to go about to make the Crown of England seudatory to that of France or to strengthen himself with the additional power of England with intent to encroach afterwards upon the Rites and Prerogatives of the Holy See or give Umbrage to other Temporal Enemies of that Communion or to draw any other advantage to the French from the Alliance of the English Princes than to be able in the quality of Most Christian King and first Son of the Church to promote the growth of the Holy Catholick Religion in their Realms and Dominions and make use of their Mediation and Friendship to ballance in some measure the present force of so formidable a Confederacy as was lately formed against him That it was a thing ridiculous to think or once as much as imagin that whilst he was in actual War with so many considerable Powers at that time he could be so simple as to attempt England by force or if he were out of War with them that he could as much as offer at so considerable an Enterprize upon any pretence whatsoever without allarming them or expecting to be opposed Vigorously by them as well as by the other Protestent Powers of Europe or that he could be thought to be so rash as to venture on such a difficult Expedition whilst he foresaw so powerful an Opposition But that indeed upon the happy conclusion of a general and lasting Peace among the Catholick Princes he would most willingly and readily join and concur in any holy League with them and contribute his full proportion of Forces with theirs to so glorious and laudable a Work as would be the restoration of the Kings of England to their pristine Power and Majesty and the Holy See to its former just Authority and Jurisdiction in these famous Islands which for so many former Ages had made so considerable and profitable a Province of the Roman Church and therefore they were to desire and press them not to let any particular Interests which they had against their Master in worldly and secular Concerns prevail with them to go about to mis-interpret or any ways obstruct their Conversion of Souls which could be of no manner of prejudice to them in those other respects but rather readily to concur with their Endeavours in so pious and charitable a Work wherein they ought wholly to lay aside all distinction of Nations or Interests and Cooperate as Members of one Body and Subjects of one universal Prince Christ Jesus and his Vice-gerent-General the Pope With which Arguments and sly Suggestions they were to wheedle all Foreigners to at least a careless security and unconcernedness about the Affairs of England whilst they play'd their pranks to destroy both our Religion and Government and make us an Appennage of the Gallican Church and Crown which I pray God I may never live to see nor my Country feel and shall ever do so whilst I am as I am resolved always to be My Lord Your Lordship 's Most Humble and Most Devoted Servant Paris Mar. 11. 1682. LETTER XLII The Arguments of the French Emisaries for the Amusement of some of the
fiercely against King Lewis if they would but once consider the great Liberty and Priviledges which their Protestant Brethren enjoy'd in the French Dominions their former assisting the oppressed Protestant Dutch and other Protestant States against the Bloody Inquisitors and Unchristian Inquisition the severe Persecutions of the House of Austria the frequent differences of France with the Court of Rome and the little power the Pope was allowed in the Gallican Church no more than what was Titular and that if these things were but duly weighed it might be more than presumed the present French King would little concern himself or any way intermeddle with Religious Contests in England But that whatever opinion they might have of that Neighbouring King to his disadvantage which yet did but little affect or concern him they had on the contrary much occasion to look about them at home and to that end these Emissaries were to promote tooth and nail the belief of the King and Duke's being both Papists but particularly to affirm that the Duke was most certainly of that Religion and at the same time to discover assured Evidences of it as also of the Measures concerted to bring in both Popery and Arbitrary Power and really to detect some Measures which themselves had as yet but only projected or at least but proposed and that too but to the Duke only as if they had been fully consented to and begun underhand to be put in practice And having once well imprest this they were to exaggerate the greatness and eminency of the danger the more to alarm them and slily to insinuate that an Accommodation was Transacting between the two Churches of Rome and England and a thousand other Artifices they us'd besides to animate each Party against the other too tedious for your Lordship to read or me to relate neither need I tell you how they traversed one another's designs only I must Note Sir Roger L'Estrange and almost all the Writers for that side under a pretence of serving the Church of England and the Monarchy and some also of the other Party though unknown to themselves were and are still but the unhappy Tools and Instruments of French Jesuits and Machiavillian Emissaries who were the main Conjurers that by undiscovered Spells have raised up those Devils of Discord that under the Names of Whigs Tories and Trimmers have so much disturbed our Native Country and the LORD knoweth where it will terminate I am glad to hear your Lordship hath so well exerted the Caution and Prudence inherent in your Family in these times of difficulty and may it be so still which is the hearty desire of My Lord Your Lordship 's most Humble and most Obedient Servant Paris April 8. 1682. N. S. LETTER XLV Of the Duke of York's being drawn into a close Correspondence with the French Court with an Account of his Pension from thence My Lord I Cannot think your Lordship will so much admire that the Duke should suffer himself to engage into a close Correspondence with the French Court yea and to enter into a separate Treaty with them when other things more unlikely have been made evident enough so as not to be contradicted I cannot tell at present whether there be any other particulars of this same Treaty than what has come within my Cognizance but so much as has as I hope it will be acceptable I as freely communicate and was in substance as followeth First The Duke was engaged to stick close to his Alliance with France declining all Treaties with those of the House of Austria and even with the Pope himself without the French King's Privity and Approbation Secondly To oppose to the utmost of his Power the King his Brother from engaging in any War for the Confederates Thirdly To joyn with him the French King in making a strong Effort to draw in if possible the Prince of Orange to embrace a separate Interest from that of the States of Holland and if not to come over to the Roman Religion at least to enter into a separate Treaty with the Kingdoms of France and England under a pretence of laying a sure foundation for his own future Greatness and establish it on both sides the Sea by the suppression of all Factions which now disturbed his Uncle and might afterward disturb him and in case he proved still obstinate to second him in all Methods that might be used to hinder his Succession to the Crown of England by hindring any Match that might be proposed between the Prince and the Princess Mary and that he should for that purpose keep off Matching either of his Two Daughters upon several pretences to gain time till a fit juncture might come when Matches might be accomplished for them both with French Princes or some other Princes in that Interest viz. the eldest to the Dauphin and the younger to the Duke of Savoy or a Prince of the Houses of Conde or Conti or to the Duke of Modena Fourthly That the Duke should do his utmost to have the Government of his Children himself and to have them Tuâ—ored if possible in his own Religion and if they were obstinate in case he should sail of other Issue then they would have had him to exclude them and Adopt the Duke of Chartres for his Heir but this was only proposed and Intail the Crown thence forward to Heirs Male only and to have the Salique Law Established in England as well as in France but and if he should not be powerful enough to hinder a Match with the Prince of Orange or some other Protestant Prince but of the former they were most jealous then to concur with them to cut him off but this point would not be formally assented to neither But all Points proposed were on his part easily assented to As doing his utmost for the propagation of the Catholick Religion pursuing Measures concerted for dividing of Protestants undermining of Parliaments and putting forward Arbitrary Counsels without reserve and particularly to raise Arms in Scotland and Ireland and call in French Forces in case the King should at any time by any Motives whatsoever be influenced to act to the French King's prejudice Lastly The Duke was to take care That no Popish Clergy or Layety should be imploy'd by him but such as were in the French Interests and trust his main Secrets with none but such as were French-born Jesuits on which Conditions he was to have a considerable Annuity of Six hundred thousand Crowns and extraordinary Sums when necessary and the circumstances of things did require to carry on any of the forementioned Points even to what he pleased himself to demand So all things being thus concluded he received in hand Three hundred thousand Crowns of his Annuity and Six hundred thousand Crowns extraordinary and Jewish Bankers were accordingly imployed to transmit the Money to him from time to time Besides all which the French King's Confessor promised him a private Contribution from the Clergy
reconciled to those ends which he proposed to himself thereby and especially about Replanting both the Popish Religion and Absolute Power in the three Kingdoms and incline rather to the Match suggested with the Dauphine with an intent the more friendly to oblige his Most Christian Majesty to assist him through all the difficulties he fore-saw he had to pass yet he was not a little affraid of the great Resistance he knew would necessarily be made against such an Alliance which many in England looked upon as the most pernicious that ever could befall their Nation being also of himself not a little jealous that if once such a Match between his Eldest Daughter and the Dauphine were concluded some sly practises might be carried on by the French Court against the Issue he should have by his now Dutchess in favour of that his Daughter might probably have by the Dauphine and therefore that he was much more willing and desirous if it might be compassed that a Match might in time convenient be concluded between his said Daughter rather and his Dutchesses Brother the Duke of Modena or some Italian Prince of no power enough to be apprehended to entertain any such Designs and that as much French as she was before his Dutchess was now of the same Sentiments too being married and in hopes of a numerous Issue by the Duke These are all the Particulars I have hitherto met with in relation to the Duke and his Dutchess's Sentiments and with which I conclude who am My LORD Your Lordship 's Most Humble and Devoted Servant Paris Feb. 14. 1680. N. S. LETTER LI. Of Coleman's Intelligence and private Correspondence with France to the King and Duke's Disadvantage and his Motions and Pretences for Money My LORD WHen I acquainted your Lordship with the Censure past by this Court upon the King and Duke's Sentiments in reference to their League and Correspondencies with them and especially the business of the Match I could neither determine whether it were purely their own Suggestions collected from the Circumstances and natural Positions of things as they then stood which I was inclined to or to some secret Information from another hand but now I find the latter to be true for whatever the King Duke and Dutchesse's true Sentiments were so they were represented under-hand by Coleman to the Juncto here and by some other self-ended Confidents of theirs of whom but more particularly of Mr. Coleman I find it thus inserted in our Minutes That being entered into a close and separate Correspondence of his own with this Court besides that known to their Highnesses whose Agent he was he was therein to give them intelligence of all that was transacted at White-hall and St. James's that possibly he could but more especially of the Comportment of the King and the Duke as to the Points agreed on between France and them as also of the Disposition of all the Factions in England and of the foreign Ministers c. to obliege himself to make Parties to cross his Master the Duke or the King or both in case either or both of them should go about to deviate from the Measures prescribed them by the French Court. I find my Lord he was besides this a great Undertaker for Conversions and Proselyting Men to Rome or rather France and his Agreement with them was to have allowed him as an Annuity the Summe of Twenty Thousand Crowns punctually to be paid and for Extraordinaries as should be calculated according to the emergency of the Occasions His Pretenses for Conversions were manifold and extravagant enough in the relation of them and did slily at first insinuate and when he had once broken the Ice warmly urged that whereas the Duke had very large Remittances made him upon the account of Conversions wherein he was an Undertaker that it were more advisable for the future to entrust him with a moderate Summe for that purpose and thereby save themselves that deal which they must have sent to the Duke upon that Account if they should send any and so moved them entirely to wave that point with him for that he could do much more in that nature than the Duke could ever pretend to because more imperceptibly He promised them likewise for the gaining of Members of Parliament over to their Interest great and mighty things and then discreetly insinuated those things already spoken of about the Designs of the King and Duke towards them and thereupon advised them to transmit unto them both only but moderate Summes and let him have but moderate ones according to a private Man's fortune and he would take effectual care both to manage them and do their business in England more to purpose than they would do without him He also added That to give the King and Duke great Summes would be no other than to enable them to buy the Parliament's Votes for themselves and not for the Interest of France and to get such store of Money of them that they would afterward take such measures as they themselves pleased without any regard to France being sure to please the People at any time whenever they were minded to go contrary to them and much matter to the same purpose with which I shall no farther trouble your Lordship but subscribe my self as I unfeignedly am and ever shall be My LORD Your most Obedient and Most Humble Servant Paris Feb. 28. 1680. N. S. LETTER LII The Duke of York moves the French Court for Money according to the private Agreement My LORD YOu have heard what a Spoke Mr. Coleman was pleased to put in the King and even the Duke his dear Master's wheel which they poor Princes knowing nothing of moved hard for the Summes promised by France the Duke as supposing his Credit the better being the forwarder of the Two and whose Pretences were that he had been forced to lay out by advance the greatest part of the Money already pay'd to make Creatures for their mutual Interest and future advantage all such Enterprizes being much more chargable to begin then to carry on and perfect that when Correspondencies were begun they must be carried on and that still by advance if any thing of service were expected or hoped for That he had a most difficult and uneasy Task to deal with the King his Brother 's timerous and changeable Disposition and was and had been at a very great Expence to greaze Favourites of more Kinds then one that might influence and perswade him to and hinder others that might disswade him from what they in France did expect from him or urged him to as also to appease and quell Enemies on all sides which his late Match with their adopted Daughter and change in Religion had stirred up violently against him and that to keep the King his Brother steddy in a favourable Neutrality in regard to France and yet at the same time either break off the Match quite with the Prince of Orange defer it so long as
they desired or negotiate a private Treaty with that Prince in their favour and to their advantage with that power and good effect desirable required as they might well imagine more than ordinary Summes of Money and all ready and in Specie too But that if besides his ordinary Allowance according to the Agreement which he expected should be punctually pay'd him every six months he could but have a Summ of a Million of Crowns again seasonably advanced him for Extraordinaries before the time of the next prorogation of the Parliament were expired then he did believe he might bring matters so to bear by such a Reinforcement so as to be able to gain Votes enough even in the Parliament it self to carry it against all others both in respect to the Neutrality and to the gaining their Consent for deferring any Foreign Allyance by way of Marriage of either of his Daughters till a General Peace was concluded and work very much with the Prince of Orange too to comply with their desires when he should see the Parliament gave him no hopes otherwise of compassing his Aims or if not yet at least he should be able hereby to keep himself still strongest in the Privy Council and in the Court where nothing should be transacted to their disadvantage That both his own Friends and theirs had been so very successful and made such wonderful progresses in Conversions of all sorts and Ranks of People as that of such and such Peers of the Realm I will not say your Lordship was one named among the rest such and such Courtiers and Members of Parliament c. that such and such Bishops Eminent Doctors in Divinity and other dignified Clergy and such and such Gentlemen who were remarkable for Interest and Estates or Eminent for exquisite Parts though they have learnt here since there was nothing more false were either already converted and quite brought over or extraordinarily well inclined and that there was no doubt to be made of it but by an augmentation of about four or five hundred thousand Crowns more for the Cause and Interest of Religion they might be able so to dispose of the greater and more noted part of the Conforming Church of England which was the main of their Work as to bring them over to their Religion yea and even to declare for it publickly too as soon as they should be freed from the Fears of the English Mobile and of the Fanatical Sectaries and see a General Peace concluded and the King himself declare for it being back'd with so powerful a Prince as his Most Christian Majesty was that however many of them were already brought over to the French Interest against the Dutch and many more might be so if timely Liberality were offered with many other Allegations set off with Coleman's usual flourishes on the behalf of his Master though he had countermined all before as I have already hinted And lastly that he had once more attacked the King his Brother as to Religion and that with great hopes and that if he could have but Money enough to carry on the Point with the Church of England he questioned not but by that time a General Peace were negotiated his Majesty would be induced to declare too when besides his support abroad from the Most Christian King he should see himself backt by almost all his Royalists then numerous enough in the Nation and so great yea more than a probability of an Accommodation between the two Churches of Rome and England and his potent Brother of France then by the Peace at full Liberty to lend him all needful Help My Lord you see here what little Sincerity there was in all their mutual Proceedings May the Reward be suitable is my unfeigned Wish as it has been already to some But I am My LORD Your Lordship 's Most Humble and Devoted Servant Paris Mar. 9. 1680. N. S. LETTER LIII Of King Charles II's urging the French Court for his Remittances according to the private League between them My LORD YOU have heard what pressing Instances His Highness has made for his Remittances according to Agreement and what mighty Encouragements he has given this Court of gaining their Ends both in Court and Parliament And now 't is fit the King should put in his Plea at last which he did in this manner as their Minutes represent it That for his part he had advanced rather more than less Money than he had already received from them for carrying on their Work and that not to enumerate many Particulars he would observe to them that when he saw there was no other Probability of obliging his dear Brother of France in preserving the Neutrality so much desired by him but by Proroguing of his Parliament which they knew well enough was a tender Point That yet not to be wanting to his Brother's Interests and his own Engagements he had adventured so far as even twice to Prorogue them and had withal expended most of his own Moneys in endeavouring if possible against the next Meeting or Session of Parliament to make a Party so as to be able in a Parliamentary Way to over-match his Adversaries and those of the Most Christian King his Brother and not only that but to be in a Condition to support himself during their Recess in the Figure he ought as King of England to make both at home and abroad for his own Advantage as well as that of the Most Christian King 's and so carry on the Work of Mediation between him and the Confederates as his Brother of France would have as likewise the desired Negotiations in Holland to induce the Prince of Orange to a Compliance c. That they could not but know he was much involved in Debts by the last War in Conjunction with them against Holland and other extraordinary Occasions by Troubles arising and fomented chiefly by his adhering to his Brother of France's Interest and that he having Prorogued his Parliament upon his Account and thereby put himself under an absolute Necessity of being deprived of the Legal Assistance of his People it was but very reasonable and just they should advance such a Sum as might enable him not only further to gratifie His Most Christian Majesty's Desires but also to satisfie in part his own extraordinary Necessities and recompence him for the Subsidies he miss'd of thereby again and again from his own Subjects And Lastly He demanded at least such a Re-inforcement as he had before received at the Conclusion of the Treaty with France and that by way of Extraordinary besides his Annuity punctually paid And of this he expected an exact Performance before the besides another Advance at the Beginning of that Session that so he might be able to make his Party good against all Opposers at their next Meeting or else Prorogue them without fear of wanting Money during their Recess And did further insist beside some other Proposals not worth mentioning upon his having Five
or Six Millions of Livres allowed him with all convenient Speed towards the Payment of his Debts and the Retrieving of his lost Credit The Success of which Remonstrances and Proposals both from the King and Duke your Lordship may perhaps be informed of another time by My LORD Your Honour 's Most humbly devoted Servant Paris Mar. 16. 1680. N. S. LETTER LIV. Giving an Account how far the French complied with the King and Duke's Remonstrances for Money and how the same was resented by them My LORD YOur Lordship may refresh your Memory by calling to mind what I have some time since writ to you concerning the King and his Brother the Duke's pressing of this Court for the Remittances agreed on and what further Additions they wanted for Negotiating of Businesses then in Agitation with Coleman's Countermine to part of their Designs I am now further to acquaint your Honour that the fore-mentioned Importunities together with those Cautions of Coleman produced this Effect that they sent about half as much Money as they had advanced at first to each of them telling them at the same time that the Most Christian King's Conveniency would not admit of a larger Remise at present neither could he do it with that Privacy he would but by his Jews at Genoâ—a and therefore desired them to make what shift they could with that Proportion till the Event of the Parliament was seen whether it were Prorogued or no. But to the Duke they more particularly told that if what was then remitted would not serve turn and that he wanted more rather than baulk his Designs he might venture hardily on the Most Christian King's Word to lay out of his own Store that he should certainly be re-paid again at the time mentioned with an Overplus And that as for the Conversions he spake of they waved them and said Father la Chaise and that Society had provided now a Fund for that Work without troubling them But to Coleman not mentioning the Motion about Conversions they only sent a good Gratuity for the Prorogation before and about the Sum of Twenty Thousand Crowns Advance Extraordinary in order to hire an House and to do other things in order to the Corrupting of Parliament-men c. If he saw likelihood of it he was to have 000 Crowns more for to try Events if he succeeded he was promised 0000 besides and for a Prorogation when judged necessary for so long as desired another very considerable Sum not particularly mentioned How far any of the fore-mentioned Persons did proceed by way of Compliance with this Court I know no otherwise for the present than thus in general that they have noted the two Royal Brothers were a little disheartned to see their Friends on this side so backward to supply them but that however considering the Plausibility of the French Excuses and their own pressing Necessities but more especially the King 's they not only took what was sent them but resolved also to proceed to oblige the Messiurs as much as they could to the end they might induce them by Performances to send them more The Effects of which dangerous Complaisance to say no worse of it the Nation has but too much felt already and God knows where it will terminate I am sure your Lordship cannot but think it bodes ill as does My LORD Your very Humble and most Obedient Servant Paris Iune 4. 1680. N. S. LETTER LV. Of the Methods the Iesuites used to promote Conversions in England and how St. Germain attempted King Charles II. With his Answer c. My LORD I Need not tell your Lordship that Father St. Germain a Jesuite and one called out on purpose by the French King's Confessor was the head Manager of Conversions as they called them and of their other wicked Designs upon our Country under the covert of that and who having gained Coleman now a fellow Domestick into a close Confidence and Compliance with him soon found means to procure several other fit Complices among the most considerable Orders and Parties of Men in the Kingdom whether seated in or resorting to the famous Metropolis thereof and the better to draw in the Men they were very industrious in plying the Women of Quality most fit for intreague to declare themselves for their Church and under that pretence to make so many Partizans for France as they could whose Grandeur chiefly they had in view as to the best of my remembrance I have noted once and again to your Lordship And not that of the Pope of Rome or his Religion which was only to serve for a Covert to the other to the end their Practices might not be discovered or countermined by the other foreign Ministers of that Communion And so good success they had in those Jugling-proceedings that it bred in them indeed too much confidence of their going through with the rest of their Work with the same ease and so made them guilty of the weaknesses of an over-hasty bragging and betraying of the Secrets of their Measures which in so jealous a Nation as England is for a Jesuite and a French one too to do it was a very great Error in Policy for St. Germain and his Gang having met with such success in their work as they dreamed not of they hence after having made sure of the Duke took the confidence to attempt the King himself and were as they imagined heard very favourably by him having been often told by him in Complement that he looked upon their Religion as the most politick and that they had really made him so much a Convert as to think that the Protestant Religion produced but ill Subjects c. But finding for all this that the effect was not answerable to the hopeful and favourable incouragement that he could not be brought actually to declare for them they oftentimes railed at him in private in England and when any of them came over hither occasionally the mildest Character they could give of him was That he was a Prince that looked upon all Religion as a politick Cheat to keep the World in awe c. but this was afterwards for before upon such Complements from the King as aforesaid they were so over joy'd that it did indeed make them indiscreet upon it so far as to make it almost their common and ordinary Discourse not only to those already fixed in their Opinion and that were of a stay'd and reserved Temper but even to new Converts and baulling talkative Women nay and inserted it in their Letters too both In-land and Foreign that they had gained both Duke and King to their Religion that they had fished in the British Ocean with such wonderful success that they fished now only for the greater Fish of all leaving the small Fry to come of themselves having already catcht two Royal Fishes the Dolphin and Tung with many such like Expressions and it was very ordinary with them in Conferences of Controversies when they saw other Arguments
LORD Your Honours to serve You. Paris Aug. 23. 1679. N. S. LETTER LX. Instructions given to the French Emissaries whereby to manage the Dissenters and Republican Party in England in reference to the Prince of Orange's matching with the Lady Mary My LORD I Have in my last given your Lordship an Account of the French Intrigues in managing the Royal and Church of England Party in respect to the March with the Prince of Orange here follows their Instructions to their Agents with the Dissenters and Republican Party upon the same Head To them they were to use many of the Arguments used to those of Holland of which hereafter and make them believe if they could that if the P. of Orange should come to the Crown of England notwithstanding his Humility now he would fly higher at Absolute Power than any before him or that the present King or his Brother could that under an humble appearance he subtilly hid an aspiring Mind and that having in many things encroached already upon the Power of the States General he would totally oppress them and by that accession of Strength raise his Authority in England to what pitch he pleased and Adieu to all hopes of a Common-wealth there when that of Holland should be subject to his Scepter and Adieu to all expectation of making Presbytery the predominant Religion there for that it was almost incompatible with a moderate Monarchy much less with Absolute Power and that whatever Principles the Prince had been bred in as to Religion though he might like them well enough as a Member of a State with whose Constitutions they perfectly agreed it was not to be doubted that when he came to be a Monarch and so powerful an one too as the United Provinces thrown into the weight of three Crowns would make him but he would like most Princes make his Religion conform to the Model of his Politicks and when he became a Monarch and so great an one too take up Monarchs principles which could be no other than Popish or such as exceed them if possible in malignity viz. Those of the Tantivy Sons of the Church of England none else agreeing with despotick Rule so that whatever hopes they might flatter themselves with from such a Match and the Prince's accession to the Throne they should find themselves so far disappointed as not to have any reason left them to expect as much as a Tolleration in Religion and the Freedom of their Consciences Which with my humble Respects to your Lordship is all I have to Communicate at this time who am in all lowly Observance My LORD Your Honour 's to Command Paris Sept. 5. 1679. N. S. POST-SCRIPT My LORD SInce I had finished my Letter I happening occasionally to run over some of our Minutes I thought fit to sub-join what I meet with there briefly inserted in order to the management of meer Politicians and Adiaphorites in Religion upon the account of the Prince's Match and to them the forementioned Emissaries were to suggest on the contrary that the Prince though he should in time by virtue of the said Match come to be King of England yet that it could not be thought but that still he would continue a Dutch-Man in all his Inclinations sacrifice our Commerce and Interest to those of that Nation yea and perhaps part with the chief Prerogatives of the Crown to make the King of England like a Doge of Venice or Dutch Stadt-holder c. which though sufficiently ridiculous I could not forbear noting to your Lordship who am My LORD Yours c. LETTER LXI The Arguments used in Holland by the French Emissaries to the Lovestein Faction against the Prince of Orange's matching with the Lady Mary c. My LORD IF it was any pleasure to your Lordship to peruse the Accounts I have already given you of the Stratagems of this Court to incite the Church of England and Dissenting Parties against the Match with the Prince of Orange as I am desirous and I hope not unwilling to interpret your silence in that regard to imply it I cannot think it will be less to your Honour's satisfaction to understand how they managed the same Affair in Holland where no less Subtilty and Address was wanting than in England to divert a Match that predicted no good Omen to France as they imagined the Party in that Republick which their Emissaries had Instructions to work upon were the Lovestein Faction to whom nevertheless they were to address themselves very cautiously and covertly and first to insinuate to them and by them to the State-Party That indeed it was true the Illustrious Princes of the House of Nassau had not only been the first Founders but also the great preservers of their Common-wealth and that it could not be denied but that the present Prince of Orange had very much contributed to its late Recovery after it had been brought to the very brink of Destruction and that they were fully convinced that same Family must remain a necessary Bulwark to their Common-wealth so long as their Interests should continue inseperably intwisted with those of the State but if they should be so blinded as to consent or but tacitely give way to any Steps that might alter those of the Prince into any other Channel that same House might in process of time prove the fatal Cadency and Dissolution as it had been the happy Rise and Glory of that flourishing State That the implacability of the Spanish Royal Family against those that have once offended them and their bloody and unjust Proscription of the noble House of Orange had so firmly cemented the Interests of the Princes of that Family with those of the States during the Wars with Spain that there could not possibly any Danger arise to them from that House how much soever they were intrusted with the Authority of the States they being then best secured by the Greatness and Power of that Nay and that after the Peace made between that Republick and the Crown of Spain there could be no Danger from those Princes neither so long as they matched into inferior Princes Families as those of Germany c. which might add Strength but never could Power enough to the Princes of Orange to crush the State or in the least divide from its true Interests But that it might be of the dangerousest Consequence if any of them were suffered to match into the Family of any Crowned Head and especially of any near Neighbour to the Republick for that would be an effectual Means to fill their Heads with aspiring Thoughts and great Designs to Aggrandize themselves and might afford them Power enough to put them in Execution a Temptation too strong for almost any active spirited Prince to resist And therefore such an one as this present Prince ought by no means to be exposed to by any wise States-men whose Interest it was to keep him from it and who had Cunning enough to put him by it That
pretended Calumnies of somewhat that was yet blacker then what had appear'd in the passages which they had recited They protested that they would never have made any complaint of the Reformed had the matters in question referred only to the Persons of the Bishops and that on the contrary they would have been content to be deprived of their Power in order to testifie by their Patience and voluntary Forgetfulness of those Outrages that were done them that singular Charity which they retained for them but that they could not neglect the Honour of the Church attack'd by the Calumny of the Ministers nor the Conversion and Salvation of a great number of her Children which they retained in the Error of their false suppositions wherefore they concluded after all that the King would be pleased to repress a Malignity that was so contrary to the Principles of Christianity as also to the Rules of Natural Justice and that consequently 1. That he would renew the Prohibitions already made to the Reformed of using Injurious and Opprobrious Terms in speaking of the Articles and Mysteries of the Roman Faith 2. That he should forbid them to attribute to the Catholick Faith any other Doctrine then that of its profession of Faith nor any of those Errors which they had had till then the rashness to impute unto her You need not doubt my Lord of the Success of this Remonstrance and of a Declaration in time Answering all the Points hereof to the full There is room enough for Reflecting upon the Courts Conduct herein but I shall forbear that part leaving it entirely to your Lordship 's known Wisdom and Judgment and crave leave both now and always to profess how much I am and desire to approve my self to be My Lord Your Honours to Serve and Obey Paris Nov. 27. 1685. N. S. LETTER VII Of the Declaration put out by the French King upon the Remonstrance of the Popish Clergy against the Reformed the Month of August 1685. My Lord I Have in my last to your Lordship of â—uly the 27th N. S. taken notice of the Popish Clergy's Unjust complaint to the French King against the Reformed here and now I shall with presuming on your good Leave give you some hints upon the Declaration that was Publish'd here some days ago in Conformity to the said Remonstrance to which the King condescended so far that the Motives thereof are almost drawn word for word from the Request it self All sorts of Persons are thereby strictly forbid to Preach and Write against the Faith or the Doctrine of the Romish Church and to lay to the Catholicks Charge those Opinions which they allow not of and not so much as to speak directly nor indirectly any manner of way whatsoever concerning the Catholick Religion enjoyning the Reformed Ministers to Teach only in their Sermons the Tenets of their own Religion and Rules of Morality without the intermixture of any other matter whatever But alas the Mischief did not stop here for all persons are Prohibited to Print Sell or Lend any other Books concerning Religion besides such as contain the Profession of their Faith their Prayers and ordinary Rules of their Discipline It doth moreover Order the Suppression of all such Books as have been Written against the Catholick Religion by those of the pretended Reformed Religion and strictly forbids either to Print or Lend any such Books for the future those Ministers and others of the Reformed that make default herein are liable to great Fines perpetual Banishment and the Confiscation of all their Goods the Places where the Ministers should Preach against the Articles of the Edict to lose the Right they had to exercise the same function for ever and the Printers and Booksellers in case of their Offending in any kind to forfeit Five Hundred Livres and for ever to lose the Freedom of keeping open Shops And thus My Lord you see this Court has shut up the Ministers Mouths in all matters of Controversy and leave that Liberty only to the Roman Catholick Divines thereby preparing of them for an assur'd Victory and hereby besides That the Ministers are reduced to be silent and not to concern themselves as to the greatest part of the Articles of the Confession of their Faith which consists in the Rejection of the Tenets of the Church of Rome as false and contrary to the Doctrine of the Gospel that they might effectually preclude them from the Right they had to complain of this unjust dealing the King by way of addition in the Preface to his Edict to the Reasons which the Clergy's Petition had suggested to Him has incerted That it was enough for the Ministers of a Religion tolerated in the Kingdom to teach their own Tenets without being carried into Disputes against the Publick and Prevailing Religion which also is therein call'd the True One But one should think this Edict were as needless as many others seeing there are not now past twenty Reformed Churches in the Kingdom where they have Liberty to Preach but there seems to be an hidden Design couch'd under it and it is justly to be fear'd That after they have suppress'd the Reformation in all the Countries under the French Dominions they have hereby made Provision That the Doctrine of Truth shall not be maintained in private Families and never have that means to rise up again out of its Ruins by the Reading of such Books as Teach it wherefore they have taken care to prepare Reasons for the Depriving the Reformed of Books of this Nature and to Establish a kind of an Inquisition over their works which shall not concede to any one the Liberty either to read them or keep them by him But of this I shall be able to give a fuller Account in my Next and shall therefore defer it and so I remain My Lord Your Lordships most Humble Servant Paris Sep. 2. 1685. N. S. LETTER VIII Of the Suppression of Protestant Books in France My Lord I Have in the close of my last Letter to your Lordship hinted somewhat concerning the Suppression of Protestant Books in this Kingdom I have since seen a Catalogue which contained almost Five Hundred Authors whose Works are all Condemn'd Some men in the World love to put the Cheat upon themselves so they here to heighten the Number of such Books have repeated some of them more than once but they have been also as careful to forget several others as the Works of the Learned Grotius Vossius and many more whose Writings are opposite to the Roman Church but your Lordship I believe is no stranger to the â—ly Practise of that Church on this head and how the Members of it have of a long time endeavour'd to perswade the World That these Illustrious Persons had re-entred into their Party That they were willing to retain an Honourable Remembrance of their Names tho it be certain in the main that the greatest part of what they had Writ was as remote from Truth as
was taken afterward in his Flight out of the Kingdom and Condemn'd according to the Rigorous Proceedings of this Court to the Galleys and though his Age and Quality besides the Great Sollicitations made at Court in Favour of him might render the matter very easie to be obtain'd yet it was with much difficulty that he was got to be exempted from that odious Condemnation and this was given out as an Extraordinary Mark of the King's Clemency The Baron de la Mothe avoided the Smart by not appearing at the place for that time but he was punish'd soon after by having his Two Fine Houses Destroy'd And lately through a tedious Misery of a Prison they Extorted a Compliance from him I hope this will find your Lordship in Health and free from such in this Ticklish Time which shall be the daily wishes of My Lord Your Lordships most humble and most devoted Servant whilst Paris Nov. 13. 1686. N. S. LETTER XV. Of the Revocation of the Edict of Nâ—ntes how Monsieur le Tellier the Chancellor hastned it and his own Death My Lord THE Parliament is not yet open'd here when there was no doubt made of it but that it was fully design'd the Edict of Nantes would have been revoked but most People were astonish'd to see the Revocation come out before the said time and great inquiry made into the secret of this unexpected procedure for though the violences I have in some of my former Letters to your Lordship given an account of were really such if not worse than represented yet they were Christened with the Name of making Converts by fair means and the Court would make the World believe it to be so at all points And to elude the poor Reformed with the vain hopes that they should yet enjoy the benefit of the Edict a long time they had an Order put forth the 15th of September in favour of them in respect of Marriages which they had for a long time before sollicited for in vain But it seems the Chancellor has been the means to hasten it as I am credibly inform'd For finding himself burdened with years and Infirmities and fearing least he might be overtaken with Death before the Fatal Blow were given he did at last by fresh and repeated Instances alleadging he could not live to the time the Edict was design'd to be Nullified and that he was not willing to die before he had put the Seal to the Revocation of it obtain his ends But my Lord it 's very observable that he had no sooner done it by putting to the Seal but that he neither would nor could Seal any other Order whatsoever but Died here three days ago very uneasie tho' he Blasphemously said when he had done it the words of Old Simeon That after he had seen the Salvation of the Lord he would go to his Grave in peace I do not question but your Lordship had heard before of the Revocation of the Edict but the Death of the Chancellor and Circumstance of it I suppose you have not and that is the occasion of my troubling you with this Letter which I shall conclude with Suscribing my self My Lord Your very humble Servant Paris Nov. 2. 1685. N. S. LETTER XIV Containing some Observations upon the French King's Edict in Octob. 1685. for the revocation of the Edict of Nants made in favour of the Reformed in the Reign of Henry the Fourth My Lord I Have very lately given your Lordship an account of the Death of Monsieur le Tellier soon after the revocation of the Edict of Nants I am apt to believe your Lordship has not seen the said Revocation and therefore to keep my Hand in ure and for want of better matter to gratifie your Honour's Expectations I shall descant a little upon the Particulars of it After the Prefatory part of it it 's asserted as a constant Truth That the Edict of Nants was not given but with a Prospect to revoke it That not only the King himself since his accession to the Throne but even his Father and Grandfather Henry IV. had a Design to bring the Reformed back to the Communion of the Roman-Catholick Church and that civil and foreign Wars have been the only Cause that had retarded the execution of that Design That before the conclusion of the Truce in 1684 Affairs were not brought to a fit disposition to bring it about and that till now they had been content to suppress the places of their Worship and to abolish some of their Privileges and that in order to make way for the accomplishing of this great Work the King was the more easily brought to conclude the said Truce this being prefaced the rest contains twelve Articles importing in general That all Edicts made in favour of the Reformed are null That the Reformed Religion shall be no more exercised in the Kingdom That all the Ministers shall be hanish'd yet with Promises that if they became Converts in a limited time viz. in fifteen days they and their Widows after them should be provided for c. That no Reformed Schools shall be kept in the Kingdom That all Children for the future shall be brought up in the Roman-Catholick Religion That those might return into the Kingdom in four months who were out of it else to have their Goods confiscate That none for the future shall dare to go out of the Kingdom under Penalty of the Galleys c. That such Declarations as have been made against those that relapsed shall be in force but last of all it gâ—ants the Reformed liberty to remain where they please in the Kingdom to continue their Trade enjoy their Goods without any molestation or trouble under pretence of their Religion upon condition notwithstanding that they shall not exercise the same nor keep any Assemblies under pretence of Prayers or any other Worship whatsoever But how specious soever this Article may seem it 's already apparent that 't is but a meer Illusion and that there is much Cruelty couched under it It would insinuate to us that the King had no design to forbid domestick Worship and to enforce Mens Consciences since this expression Till such time as God shall be pleased to enlighten them has been added as one fine spun Thread to the rest of the Net but the Court and Clergy have made it already appear that this was the least of their Thoughts since they have actually caused the Troops to march towards the Provinces that have not yet been ravaged tho'at the same time the chief Magistrate of this City has assembled the principal Merchants here together to confirm to them by word of Mouth what was contain'd in the Edict and to assure them they had nothing to fear upon that account And this has had a very pernicious effect already for it has sent many home into their Houses again who had taken measures to be gone with their Families out of the Kingdom for the most distrustful persons could
melancholy Subject I do confess but were it of less importance one could not forbear laughing to consider that what was pitched upon as highly useful and necessary in the Month of July for to obstruct the pervertion of Catholicks could some five months after retard the Conversion of such as might have been of the Reformed Way in the Service of persons of the same Religion as if in the Month of July when almost half the Kingdom was over-run with Dragoons and who did every where commit the terriblest Ravages imaginable any one in his Wits could imagine that those of the Reformed Religion should think upon the perverting of any of the Roman-Catholicks to their Way or that in the Month of December the handful of the Reformed who are accused by the King's Declaration to persevere still in their erroneous Opinions are in a condition to take into their Service all the rest of the Reformed who are brought to a state of serving other People to gain them an honest Livelihood and by this way to hinder the efficacious means which the King declares he doth make use of for the reducing of this poor People to Obedience It 's impossible for me my Lord to decipher to you the daily Hardships put upon these forlorn People whose Miseries daily have an appearance of further aggravation and encrease which I know must aggravate your Sorrow and therefore I shall forbear any further enlargements hereupon and content my self to profess how ready I am to give your Lordship all the Satisfaction that lies in my power and to continue My Lord Your Honour 's most humble Servant Paris Jan. 16. 1686. N. S. LETTER XVIII Of Alien Protestants their Usage in France and the Severities shew'd to the Dutch Consul at Nants and others My Lord YOUR Lordship may have been desirous to know all this while that since the French have been so cruel to their own Fellow-subjects and Natives how Strangers fare amongst them and therefore I shall give your Honour my Thoughts upon this matter as far as any Particulars have come to my Knowledge It 's not long since that we have seen an Order here giving Leave to all Protestant Strangers to have free egress and regress into the Kingdom with their Wives Children Servants and others of their Nation at Will and with the same Freedom and Liberty which they enjoy'd in times past but they are strictly charg'd to carry none of the King's Subjects out with them without express Leave under the Secretary of State 's Hands nor to exercise their own Religion whatever Religion they be of which last words were â—â—â—dden in craftily by the Jesuites after that of Protestants to the end they might enhance the Divisions amongst them from which the Missionaries drew their greatest Arguments to entrap the simple and ignorant and whereby they would tacitely insinuate That all the Sects which at this day dishonour the Christian Religion and which agree in any one thing with Protestanism are so many Protestant Sects Tho' it 's well known to the World that all True Protestants both shun and abhor their Communion Such an Order was certainly at this time highly necessary for tho' no Orders have been issued out for to hinder those who would not become Romanists to enter the Kingdom yet the Court was afraid their rigorous Proceedings against their own Natives would deter others as thinking they could expect no better Treatment nor more Safety in their Persons and Estates in France than natural Frenchmen but how little Benefit many Alien Protestants have received hereby is notoriously known in every part of this Kingdom and the Dutch Consul at Nants has sadly experienc'd the same tho' one should have thought his Quality was able to secure him against any Violences to be offer'd him in that kind It has been usual my Lord for Foreigners who have resided in this Kingdom relying upon the Publick Faith and flourishing by Commerce to love to take care to preserve the Fruit of their Toil and Pains in a Country where the Right of Inheritance took place upon their taking Letters of Naturalization wherefore many such are to be found here this day who never dreamt that they should be molested in their Religion and thereby run the hazard of losing their Estates also as thinking it to be a matter very conformable to the Rules of Justice and the Law of Nature and of Nations that they should be reducâ—d to their primitive states as others when the Kingdom thought fit to revoke the Edicts under the protection and duration whereof they had made these Advances and alledging That they did not become Frenchmen but conditionally that they might enjoy the Freedom of their Consciences seeing without that they would never have taken those Engagements or if the Government thought not fit to observe them the least it could do was to remit them to their former Liberty and to give them their Choice either to enjoy the Priviledge of their Letters whereby they were naturaliz'd by turning Roman-Catholicks or to lose that Advantage and to be look'd upon for the future as no other than Strangers if they persevered in their own Religion But these Pleas tho' full of Reason and Equity hath little availed any of them for they have been generally treated with the same Rigor and Severity as the rest have been And to this end there are and have been forty sâ—ivelling Pretences rais'd to involve them in the same Misery if any of them have French Wives if they have Children by them of such an age born in this Kingdom or if they have a Father or Mother-in-law living with them this is enough to quarter the Dragoons upon them In short my Lord I cannot see how it can be safe for any Protestant to come and reside in this Country notwithstanding what is contained in the forementioned Order for tho' this Court might be punctual in the observance of it according to the Letter yet seeing it doth positively forbid that such Strangers should exercise their Religion here it brings but a small Remedy to the Evil they have apprehended might arise by the Fear which might possess the Minds of Foreigners from residing and trafficking amongst them unless such Protestant Alliens will be content which cannot be generally thought of them to live without any Worship at all for they must expect if they do otherwise tho' it be their private Devotions only in their Families to be liable to the Rigors of the same Inquisition with the French Protestants themselves I find they are resolved here to carry all things with an high hand I heartily wish it may be no Pattern to our I remain My Lord Your most humble and most devoted Servant Paris June 2. 1686. N. S. LETTER XIX Concerning the Ignorance of Popish Convents My Lord IT 's scarce credible how ignorant the Popish Convents in this Country are of all good Literature especially the Women-kind who have entertained such monstrous Notions concerning the
Principles of the Reformed Churches that without I had had it from incontestable Testimonies I should not abuse your Lordship and hazard my Reputation with you so far as to mention it to you I know not whether I have formerly given your Honour to understand that it has been a frequent Practise here to put young Maidens of the Protestant Faith into Religious Houses to be tutor'd there in the Catholick Faith and where they have found the grossest Ignorance both of their Principles and Practises as ever would have entred into the Thoughts of rational Animals They have looked upon and entertained them as if they were such as had no Belief in JesusChrist and not only so but as such as did not pray to God but invoked Calvin or Luther only by others they were looked upon as Jews that had not been circumcis'd or did not eat any Swines-flesh With a thousand such Chimera's and Absurdities have the crafty Priests fillâ—d the Noddles of those simple Women who think all they say an Oracle But tho' many distressed persons have been extream Sufferers and felt the Effects of these Prejudices in a most rigorous manner yet we are not without Examples of others who when by their Piety Innocence and Knowledge they had disabused those who have the charge of them have been treated by them with much Tenderness and Humanity I would not my Lord have continued a Correspondence so little to your Honour's Information had I not lain under your Commands for my so doing and that you have always express'd your Satisfaction with my Endeavours to serve you who am My Lord Yours in all humble Observance Paris July 7. 16â—6 N. S. LETTER XX. Of Mareschal Schomberg and the M. de Ruvigni's Retreat out of France and of the Favour shew'd to the Marquess du Quesne with the Reasons thereof My Lord I Do not question but your Lordship had acquaintance with Mareschal Schomberg when some Years ago in England you may perhaps see him there again in a short time for he hath with very great difficulty notwithstanding his many and signal Services for this Crown obtained Leave to depart the Kingdom but under very hard Restrictions the number of his Domesticks being limited and the Vessel wherein he embark'd view'd very narrowly The Court before his departure appointed him Portugal for his Retreat that so that same Country where he has been known for so many Victories might become unto him rather a place of Exile than Retreat The Marquess de Ruvigni had always some measure of the King's Favour but that together with all the Interest he has had with his Ministers of State were little enough to procure him Leave to retire with his Family into England but whether arrived there your Lordship can tell much better than I. As for the Marquess de Quesne tho' fourscore Year old and a person that hath deserved so much for his long and glorious Services and under whose Conduct the Naval Power of this Kingdom heretofore so inconsiderable was become formidable to all the World yet he hath not been able to obtain Leave to go finish his Days in a Protestant Country But the Court have complemented him seemingly with a great Favour viz. to continue in this City with Assurance he shall not be molested upon the score of his Religion but no doubt but this Favour hath proceeded more from Court-policy than any Good-will for they are it 's very likely afraid that had they granted him Leave to depart the Kingdom he might go and inform Strangers of the state of their marine affairs the Weakness and Defects whereof he knows as well as he can discover the Strength and Power of the same and as for the Liberty of his Conscience granted him they found that also expedient to hinder him to practise his escape by one Artifice or other if he were menaced with any Constraint I did not think once matters would have been brought to this pass here but when they are at the worst there will be Hopes they will mend as I hope I shall in my Intelligence to your Lordship who am My Lord Devoted to serve you Paris Sâ—pt 4. 1686. N. S. LETTER XXI Of Monsieur Claude's Book entituled A Protestation in the Name of the Reformed winked at in France and King James made their Drudge to burn it in England My Lord TO think that your Lordship hath not seen and read Monsieur Claud's Protestation in the Name of the Resormed were to judge very disrespectfully and diminitively of your Curiosity and therefore for me to descant upon it cannot but be nauseous but give me leave to observe to your Lordship the different Procedure of the two Courts at this time tho' it s not doubted here and I hope in a short time to give you a further account of it but that they are entred into very close Measures and Designs together which will appear in due Place Nothing can be heard on this Side but the loud and dreadful Cry of Constrain them all to come in while our Emissaries in conjunction with their Popish Leyitical Brethren on your Side are a preaching up a general Indulgence to tender Consciences and a Sovereign Duty to grant equal Toleration to all Opinions and one would almost believe both are sincere But my Lord the Burning of the foresaid Book which is an Abridgment of the History of the Persecution by our King's Order under Pretence of its containing a Doctrine contrary to the Authority of Kings is an ill Proof of the latter and an half-sighted Man cannot but see that maugre all the Inclination that seems to be in the Court towards granting Indulgence to others their Designs must have quite another Tendency but I find this Court has got the Ascendency for they have cunningly enough judged it more profitable to dissemble the Injury they conceive they have received by the foresaid Book than to take a Publick Revenge for fear lest all the World should come to read a Piece that was so dangerous to them and obnoxious to their Interest and when they well knew they had formed a Tool to do that to their Hands with less Envy to themselves and more to When ever they required it I heartily beg your Lordships Pardon for my Freedom with you who am My Lord Your very humble Servant Paris Nov. 6. 1686. LETTER XXII Of the League made between King James II. and the French King Lewis XIV My Lord I Have once hinted to your Lordship That both Courts were entred into very close Measures and Designs for to establish themselves to the Prejudice of their Neighbours as I should have been and am very sorry to have disappointed your Expectations after such Intimations given you I do now as much rejoyce that I have tho' I may say surreptitiously got the Heads of the League lately made between them for it is here with our Minutes as with other things when they are fresh they are more choice and fond of
side of the Water for besides that this Court were then and are still at variance with the Papal See There is not the least Instruction transmitted from hence as far as I can find either to England or Rome concerning that matter but perhaps he might receive them in transitâ— and by word of mouth only from M. L. who failed not to see him But as for Count Dada the Apostolâ—ck Nuncio as they call him they have shewed some Concern here that he should have an honourable Reception in England and have order'd it so as to get our King to dispense with that Ceremony which Henry VIII and even his Daughter Queen Mary insisted upon that he should wait like a Mumper at a French Port till he had Leave granted him to enter into England And that the English Nation who had not seen such a Vision for near an Age and a half might not be overterrified with it the French Agents were instructed to suggest unto those Lords and others whom they should think most susceptible of their Sophistry That since the King as a Roman-Catholick Prince could do no less than send an Ambassador to Rome to salute the Pope tho' it were but for form-sake and that his said Ambassador had had such an extraordinary Reception and great Civilities shewed him there it were but very equitable the King in his turn should shew the like to his Nuncio who was a Layman and in that quality came to congratulate his accession to the Throne from his Master not so much as he sate in St. Peter's Chair as he was a Temporal Prince to whose Ministers as such the Law of Nations required a just Deference should be paid That to send a solemn Embassy to the Great Turk who was a Mahumetan and a sworn Enemy to all Christians however denominated was never so much as boggled at by any English-man or other Christian Nation whatsoever either in this or any preceding Age That the Ambassadors of the Emperor of Morocco had been lately received in England most honourably and yet their Master both a Mahametan and a Barbarian Prince in whose Countries Christians were treated more like Brute-Beasts than Men and should they disdain to concur with their Prince to receive with some Ceremony and if not by way of a publick and pompous Entry yet privately in his Palace a Minister from him to whose Civilities many of our English Nobility and Gentry were highly obliged in their Travels to Rome and Italy But what Success they have had in this petty Agency your Lordship can tell much better than I at this distance but the Duke of Somerset is as highly exclaimed against here for refusing to perform the Ceremony of introducing the Nuncio as the Duke of Grafton is applauded for doing of it who I hope for all that will never have the Thanks of a House of Commons for it I am My Lord Your very obedient and humble Servant Paris Nov. 2â— 1â—87 N. S. LETTER XXXIV The French Politicks to embroyl England My Lord THE French Emissaries having gain'd severat Points and particularly that mentioned in my last they have lately turn'd their Batteries another way They have been most of this while endeavouring to compass their Ends by putting the King and those who have most influence over him upon desperate courses whereof the most material I have as Occasion has served noted to your Lordship It will hardly be believed that they would offer to propose any Maxims to the Legal Party in England that are really for their advantage Did not their Instructions make it appear to be so tho they have proposed far different Ends therein I do not question but your Lordship has observed the Uneasiness of the Nation under the present Proceedings of the King and Court-party but tho they have just cause of suspicion I must assure your Lordship the same has been and may still be aggravated by the Agents of this Court who teach them to infuse into the People That the Protestant Religion is in great danger That the reduction of the Roman-Catholicks to the Bounds establish'd by the Law of the Land is highly necessary and without the latter be effected it will be impossible for the former long to subsist That it was visible the Privileges of Parliament were infâ—inged more than in any time of their Ancestors That Arbitrary Power was already acted and without timely prevention would get such rooting that all the power of England could not dethrone it That there was not scarce one made a Nobleman since the Kings accession to the Throne in the Three Kingdoms but such as were Pâ—pâ—sts and That all Honours and Offices of Profit either in Court or Camp were shared amongst such whilst the Protestants lay neglected as useless persons and such as were deem'd to have no Share nor Lot in the Government That the person of the King it 's true was sacred but at the same time it was not only justifiable but an incumbent Duty upon them as Englishmen as they would answer it to God and their Country timously to think of the Danger and to apply the Remedy for without the removal of such Ministers as then managed the State it would be in vain to expect their Grievances could be redressed and their Religion and Liberties secured and if they find themselves harken'd to and their Propositions approved they have further Instructions to hint an Association for one Expedient c. God Almighty knows what will become of poor England amidst so many Designs upon her Religion and Liberty both by foreign and domestick Enemies who continually prey upon her Vitals I can but pray for her as I do and always shall for your Lordship who am My Lord Your most devoted Servant Paris Dec. 13. 1687. LETTER XXXV King James tho' already much disposed put more out of Conceit with the Prince of Orange who is represented by the French Agents very illy to him My Lord I Have in my last suggested to you some of those Arguments the Emissaries of this Court have and are to use to the Church of England-men as they find occasion and a disposition to receive them for to put them upon violent courses to their own and Nation 's destruction But at the same time they have entertained an incurable Jealousie of the Prince of Orange and construe the most just and generous Actions of a Prince who was always so in the worst sense imaginable and as such represent them to the King whom they cunningly whistle in the Ear saying That he could not but know there were some persons in the Nation who were not pleased with his way of proceeding and therefore would be sure to take all Opportunities to oppose him That indeed now Monmouth was cut off they had no plausible Head to retire unto That for the Prince of Orange tho' he had apparently omitted nothing since His Majesty's advancement to the Throne for the maintaining of a fair correspondence with him and
Interest as I mentioned to your Lordship in my my last have failed tho' he were briskly seconded therein by the Lord Marquess of Powis the Pope's Nuntio and Emperor's Minister whose Reasons or rather Remonstrances to the King upon that Head for want of better Intelligence I shall at present take notice of to your Lordship as entred in our Minutes and which indeed were such that 't is a wonder he should withstand them sed quem Deus 1. They prest it very home upon him That such a War against the States of Holland could not be attempted with any apparent Advantage to his Majesty without a junction with the French Power which yet in all human Probability would never enable him to conquer those Provinces since both the Crown of Spain and the Emperor nay the Empire would be obliged to protect them to war with whom especially with Spain whose Trade as he well knew was most beneficial to England of any in the World would be attended with such manifest Disadvantage as all the Power of France were that King a faithful Ally would never be able to make the Nation amends for and that supposing he should be able to conquer the said Republick by the Assistance of the French Arms yet to conquer it by French Force would necessarily but make himself as well as that Nation a Tributary and Underling of France 2. That in all likelihood a War with Holland and against the House of Austria would disgust his Subjects and set them all against him yea and perhaps move some hot Spirits to form Designs to dispossess him of his Throne or at least so far to make Opposition as to knock on the Head all his fine Projects for the Advancement of his own Religion in England and engaging of his very Catholick Subjects against him 3. That if his Majesty intended the re-establishment of the Catholick Faith in England it was to be considered that the same was a Work of Time and required great Moderation but that they were sure the hot and furious Methods of France and the Jesuits would never effect it 4. That to them for the effectual bringing about of the said Work there seemed a kind of necessity that he should stay till the Discords between the Catholick Princes were so far appeased as to be without Danger of breaking out in a long Time for that all their Concurrence would be found to be little enough to enable him to accomplish his Ends therein 5. That if he should chuse rather to enter into a strict Allyance with the House of Austria against the French he would thereby render himself secure of his People's Hearts and Affections of the Dutch Naval Force to strengthen him at Sea as occasion required and of all the other Allies Forces to divert the French Armies by Land And that if he should lose upon that account as 't was likely any Remittances from France they assured him the Pope would allow him a much better Pension to countervail it and that being engaged against France his People would be so intent against the French and upon that War so agreeable to their Inclination that they would not be so very jealous of and so prying into the Advances he should make in the Change of Religion at Home and that if by that means than which nothing could be thought on more feasible he could not settle that Religion he might at least secure it and make Matters easie to those of his own Perswasion 6. That if his Majesty persisted to make War against Holland which would inevitably draw on one with the House of Austria if his Arms did not prevail so far as to come to an entire Conquest he was certainly ruined and all the Catholicks in the three Kingdoms along with him without resource and would perish unpitied and without any Hopes or possibility of Succour from any Catholick Princes but the French King alone and that if on the contrary as it was the most unlikely thing in the World he should prevail to a Conquest over Holland and his own Country that yet thereby he should under the colour of an imaginary establishment of the Catholick Religion in the Brittish Kingdoms but settle an irreligious Tyrant over all Christendom worse to the Catholick Religion and Christianity in general than any Heretick in the World nay than the very Turk himself and who would insolently trample upon the Pope's as well as his Fellow Princes Power and set up a new Empire and a new Religion of a third sort neither Catholick nor Protestant but such as suited with his own ambitious Designs as the Steps he had already made that way did sufficiently declare And so instead of resettling the Roman Catholick Religion where it had lost Ground and in the Soil of Great Britain which would prove but a Quick-Sand to it he would destroy it all over Europe where it was now established in terra Firma c. I le leave it to the Decision of your Lordship's Judgment whether these or the French Remonstrances carried most of Reason Probability and Truth in them as I ever shall all that comes from My Lord Your Honours most humble and obedient Servant Paris Apr. 30. 1688. LETTER XXXVIII Of the Differences continued between the Pope and the French King and of King James sending am Embassador to Rome to reconcile them My Lord I Have already transmitted to your Lordship the Contents of his Holiness's Letters to the French King about the Regale and Franchises but there seems now to be a Disposition in these two high stomach'd Princes to come to an accommodation and the Conjuncture of Time lies so to the Heart of this Court that I am apt to believe they will precipitate an Agreement however because their forwardness therein might be disguised as much as French Policy could effect they have by their Agents insinuated to our King That an Embassy to Rome from him about accommodating of the foresaid Differences must be very grateful to his Holiness who paid more deference to his Majesty and would further regard his Mediation than any Prince in Christendom and that tho' the French Court stood very stiff upon their Rights yet it was not to be doubted but as they had so high a Valuation for his Friendship at all Times and Occasions so he might be confident that in so critical a Juncture of Time they would not be so purblind as not to see wherein their true Interest consisted It was no sooner my Lord proposed to the King but accepted by him and my Lord Howard is already arrived in this Kingdom in his Way to Italy as the King's Embassador extraordinary on this Errand but notwithstanding this Court has so far prevailed by their Artifices in England to procure the Kings Mediation yet an Accident if it may be called so has lately happened at Rome which may perhaps blast all the blooming Hopes entertained from this mighty Negotiation For Monsieur Lavardin Embassador from
to them That matters of Religion and Commerce should remain in the same state As also the Priviledges of their Companies Collonies c. That they should have the priviledges of Natives in all the other Dominions of France with many other Sugar-Plums To the exact performance of which it was not to be questioned but they would easily give credit since to that time his Honour was entire and had no ways been stained with any gross Infidelities and that the Protestants then enjoyed no small Liberty in his Dominions And when you shall be in the possession of the place all these specious promises need not hinder your Majesty said they from seizing however as much of their Treasure as your Interest shall direct you to take nor from putting such other restraints upon them as you please for which they gave him such expedients as were thought proper and necessary for to elude the advantageous and specious Conditions by which their over-credulous Inhabitants were to be wheedled out of their precious Liberties In the last place they laid before him the many and grand Inconveniences which by letting slip such an advantageous Juncture would unavoidably follows which they represented as much more in number and of vastlier greater Consequence than those that could possibly arrive from his pursuing it For urged they if your Majesty let go this Opportunity It will not only be said of you as of the Great Hannabal that you know how to get but know not how to prosecute a Victory but the same Fate will likewise befall you This despised and almost oppressed Enemy will recover Strength and Courage the Germans and the House of Austria will come into its succour you must quit your present Conquests to oppose them and your present Allies on the Continent will forsake you If you be beaten how disadvantageous and perhaps fatal must the event needs be to you and if you overcome yet how far will you be from a compleat Conquest or from making that advanced and assured progress towards the erection of a new Empire as you would do in the taking that one place whose Gates tho' they belong but to one City would let you into the Possession of the most valuable parts of the Earth and furnish you with the nerves of War which thereby would be cut off from the rest of the World I was not willing to give your Lordship an account of this Consultation by piece-meals and that has made me so tedious who am My Lord Your Honour 's to serve You. Paris July 2. 1678. N. S. LETTER XXXII Of the Confederacy entered into for the defence of Holland of the Prince of Orange's success against France and of the Methods used by the French to hinder the King of England to make Peace and joyn with the Dutch by removing my Lord Shaftsbury from being Chancellor c. My Lord THere was hardly a Prince on the Earth worse served than our King and paid more no less than Three Embassadors to make up the Embassy mentioned in my last save one to your Lordship and yet Two of the Three concurring with the French designes to the ruine of Hollund first and so consequently their own Native Country next so that the poor Hollanders as your Lordship may well remember were forced to save their Country from the French who pursuant to the last advise were ready to devour it by losing it in the Sea in breaking down the Dikes the last extremity and the only remedy they had left them for this gave them time to think of their Affairs and this first brought the Elector of Brandenburg then the Emperor and at last the King or Queen Regent of Spain as apprehensive of the common danger to all of them in general by the French subduing the Dutch Provinces to enter into a mutual League for their defence and by their Conjunction The Prince of Orange who had all this time struggled with the hardest destiny that could be and lay neglected by his Uncles as if they had no share either in his good or bad Fortunes recovered several of the Upland Towns in almost as little time as they had been taken by the French and like another Scipio having joyned Montecucucli the Emperors General in the dead of Winter and so carrying the War out of his own Country Besieged and took Bon the Residence of the Elector of Cologn and thereby did cut off the Comunication between France and Holland whereby the French were necessitated not only to quit their Conquered Towns by heaps but he also opened a passage for the Imperial Forces to joyn the Dutch and Spanish But tho' neither the sence of his own true Interest nor the Tyes of Consanguinity to the Prince of Orange could induce our King to come to the rescue of Holland which notwithstanding the Princes bravery and success was still but in a pitiful plight as having but newly recovered their drowned Country yet the French had an incurable Jealousie of him the remembrance of the forementioned interposition by his Embassy was still fresh in memory And as that fell out when they least expected any such thing so they considered a Peace might be struck up in as sudden and surprizing a manner and therefore they set all their Engines on work to hinder it if possible and in the first place knowing that great Person who had the influence over the King to procure such an Embassy and might also by the same Arguments induce him to make a much hardier step and force him at last in spight of his own inclinations or of French Menaces as well as of French Charmes not only to a Peace with Holland but even to a War against them They therefore left nothing unessay'd or stone untur'd to get him to dispose of the Chancellor's place tho' it was well known the King himself upon a certain occasion had given his Testimony of his being the wisest Subject he had in his Dominions and seemed at that time to value him accordingly I cannot positively inform your Lordship by which of their Instruments it was done for I never could find it was inserted in the Minutes but I have heard it generally discoursed at the French Court that they ploughed in this Affair with the Heifer they had formerly presented the King withal and that the Duke also whom they by their Emissaries iritated against him to whom they alledged that he had taken notice of his keeping off of late from the Protestant Worship and talked too liberally thereof not without some Expressions boding much danger to his Highness and even levelled at putting him by the Succession it self gave an helping hand thereto But for all they had gained so considerable a point as the removal of the Chancellor yet fearing still the worst they never left off their former apprehensions And therefore their Ministers still continued with utmost Application to pursue their Game both by magnificent Promises and Offers of Money and some Menaces a la
abroad should fall to so abject a State as to become a French Pensioner which without the addition of any other Crime is more than enough eternally to blast the Memory of an English Monarch but I know this Subject can be ungrateful to no one alive more than to your Lordship and therefore I shall forbear further insisting upon it and remain My Lord Your Honour 's to Serve and Obey Paris Jan. 27. 1680. N. S. LETTER XLIX Of King Charles II's Politick's upon his Entring into the fore-mentioned private League with France as represented by the French Court. My LORD IN my last your Lordship had the substance of the Private League entred into by our King and this Court it may not be now unworthy your curiosity to know the Censure they have past upon him in relation to that head they have said they understood well enough that what ever their Design might be in obtaining such a point that the King and his Brother 's too upon them was to draw as much Money out of them as they possibly could thereby and yet not to venture too far on any of those important and ticklish Points proposed without very large Summs to secure every Step made forward and that by advance too for that they both concluded that the best and only way to make the French stick close to them was to be always considerably before-hand with them not without reason as they imagined fearing that if they were not still before-hand when they had engaged them in Difficulties and saw them fast they would leave them in the lurch As for the King tho' they knew him to be no more a Papist than he was a Politician yet he was of the Opinion if the Popish Religion could be handsomly made predominant it might suit better with the Monarchy yet having no Children to succeed him that he was but careless in that point and his Brother only being concerned in that matter he moved only as he was spurred on by his importunity the Temptation of Money the Diffidence he had of his People and among others the Fears he had either of having his days shortned or his Crown very much endangered by the Intrigues of his Brother or the French King should he not keep fair and humour them both in some tollerable measure since he found himself so far intangled in their snares For as for his Nephew the Prince of Orange that he had no aversion for him but rather an inclination through Nature and Policy and therefore was of himself willing enough the Match should go on yet that he would have been glad if the Prince could have been drawn over to the French Interest for that then he thought he would have compassed many desirable Ends in one business and made a very great advance to have satisfied all parties in the greatest part of their several Pretensions because that then he supposed he could have satisfied the French King in bringing over a Prince to his Interest so very capable to serve him in that juncture of time that he would have satisfied also those of his own Subjects who were well affected to the English Monarchy as he would have likewise our Trading Companies by marrying our Princess to a Prince of the Protestant Religion whom he by separating from the Interests of the States of Holland and drawing into a League with two great Kings should have put into a condition to depress that Republick which was so ill a Neighbour to the Monarchy so much our rival in Trade and so great a fomenter of the Schisms and Factions in England that thereby he should have laid grounds to hope that if ever he succeeded to those Crowns he might be able to subject the Belgick to the British Lions and transfer the magazine of the Riches of the World from the Netherlands into England and that fie thought to have satisfied the Duke his Brother in a great measure by so satisfying his friend the French King and likewise by depressing a Republick so well scituated and inclined to abet his deadly Enemies that in all appearance would way-lay his Succession to the Throne and thereby cutting off all occasion from that Male-content party that continually sought occasion to stir up against him the old Devils of Fears and Jealousies of Popery and Arbitrary Power And that he thought to oblige the Prince too by putting him into a method to become a Sovereign in time And lastly that he was perswaded if the Prince complied with those Methods the Match could disoblige no body but the States of Holland and the sympathizing Factions of the Sectaries in England and the Republicans whom he thought inconsiderable but that how desirous soever he was of such a Compliance with France as they desired yet it was not in his inclination to break the Match for that he having in reality a much greater mind to the Alliance with the Prince of Orange than to that with the Dauphine in which he did imagine he foresaw unfurmountable Difficulties and such as might endanger if not over-turn his Throne ruine his Brother and the whole Royal Family and at last make Great Britain but a French Province however that knowing the Temper of the Duke his Brother and the vindicative humour of the French King he was willing to seem almost all complaisant and temporize for a while whereby he might appease them and at the same time get what Money could be drawn from France both for his own security and pleasure and when he had done that that he knew wheeling about and concluding the Match when they least thought of it or expected it would please his people again tho' never so unsatisfied by the delay These my Lord are the Sentiments of this Court concerning him which if true in all points I conceive they are more beholding to him than many persons in England are willing to believe of him but I shall leave it to your Lordships profound Judgment to revolve upon the particulars and remain My LORD Your Lordship 's Most Humble and Devoted Servant Paris Feb. 1. 1680. N. S. LETTER L. Of the Duke of York's Politicks upon his entring into a close Correspondence with France as the French Politicians represent them My LORD AS I have transmitted to your Lordship the exactest Particulars I could learn concerning the King's entring into a private Treaty with France and in my last the Censure of this Court thereupon I have also to the best of my remembrance given you likewise an Account of the Duke's being drawn into a close Correspondence with them some time before but whether it were that the Ministers on this side conceived such a Judgment of the King as I have already related and such of the Duke which I am just about to relate I cannot possitively determine but thus it is they censure him saying That though he was so much a Bigot in Religion that he was totally averse to the Aurangian Alliance unless it could be