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
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
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
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
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
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
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
be eluded and he only made a Tool of That tho' it was likely the Parliament of England would upon any great Success of the French be for breaking of the War and deny the King Money to continue it longer yet after they had made a sufficient Impression on the Netherlands they might prevail by their Golden Arguments upon the King at least to continue Neuter and leave his Land Forces still in the French King's Service for some considerable time That this Juggling would in a little time raise Animosities and Jealousies between the King and Court-party and that of the Patriots make the latter to deny him Money press hard upon his Prerogative raise new Pretensions about Liberty and Property which if carefully fomented by dexterous Agents would give the King and People there work enough in mutual Contests at Home which would hinder them from acting any thing considerable Abroad keep the King always under a necessity of continuing their Pensioner for fear of becoming his Parliaments Underling yet prop him up so as to preserve him in a Capacity still to be able to keep them in some sort under and hinder the daring English Senate from attaining any more so much the Soveraignty as to Erect themselves into a Republick He telling them from the Famous Cardinal Richlieu's Authentick Observation that an Absolute Monarch or a Republick in the Brittish Dominions would prove almost alike Fatal to France that therefore it was the best way to endeavour a Mean between this Scylla and Charibdis by keeping a Ballance between King and Parliament and fomenting perpetual Contests between them which was to be done by having unknown Instruments to sow Jealousies among the Patriots and People against the Court and make them cross the latter and at the same time make use of that crosness as an Argument to perswade the King that his Authority could be no way safe without sticking to their Alliance and feed him with Money both to enable him to carry on his Business and Pleasure without a Parliament and to Animate him from time to time to Prorogue and Dissolve them upon occasion And when upon some Success of the King and Court party they should begin to make such steps towards Absolute Power as might if attained to prove dangerous to the French Interest and Embolden our Monarch to slip his Neck out of their Collar then anew to stir up the Patriots and Popular Party against him and abandon him wholly to them till he were forced to break them by returning to their Alliance again That above all things they were not to forget to make their best use of that mighty Engine called Religion which tho' powerful all the World over yet was of more prodigious force among the English People than among any other in the habitable Earth Now this Advice my Lord as coming from so Old and Experienced a Statesman and the Ablest Disciple who had Viva Voce heard the Documents and Precepts of the great Richlieu that Famous Architect of the French Grandure was assented to both as the Wisest and Securest and was afterward in every Punctilio put in Execution as Time and Conjunctures afforded occasion whereof your Lordship may expect an account in due time from him who is My Lord Your Lordships most Humble Servant Paris Sept. 17. 1676. N. St. LETTER XV. Of the Methods the French use in keeping Intelligence among their Neighbour-Nations c. My Lord I Cannot think but that your Lordship will be pleased to understand how the French keep their Correspondence among and make Tools of Men and Parties most averse to them in their Neighbour-Nations and whom no manner of Motives would ever be prevalent enough to make Instrumental to promote an Interest so hateful to them did they but know who they wrought for and it is my Lord in this manner Would they set the Conformists and Nonconformists peckeering at one another Thus they did it presently after the first Dutch War in order to prepare Factions to make way for the Designs which followed They had diligent Spies to inform them where Men of quaint Wits brisk Tempers Self-conceited but Atheistical in Principles or at least of very loose Morals were to be found as likewise to take notice of those that were in reality most Able and more Zealous both of Conformists and others in their several ways than the rest of their Brethren Then the first by some Persons that pretended to admire their Wits and that were French Pensioners tho' some of them did not know it were either by some present modicum of Money Promise of Preferment or sometimes by the meer tickling Praises of the said qualified Persons put upon writing something that might check Religion particularly that Established Then they knew the Crime would be laid at the Door of some Nonconformists and cause the Reforming Clergy to write bitterly and reflectingly against them and them again to justifie themselves and recriminate till at length they engaged not only the Body of the Nation but even their August Representatives likewise in their Quarrels and so from Religious Contests produced State Factions and in this all of them tho' they were of different Parties were told they would please both their King Parliament and Country For the Dissenters were told that tho' for Policy 's sake the King did not publickly abet them yet he was secretly disposed to favour them and such Writings if well penned would not displease and might procure them at last Ease in a Parliament c. And for the Conformists they were easily perswaded that by Ridiculing the Dissenters immoderately extolling the Excellency of their own Ceremonies and the Superlative extent of the Prerogative they could not fail to please neither And thence My Lord came that Legion of Books of that Nature that came out in the Interval between the Two Dutch Wars and which made way for After-Divisions of which I saw a Catalogue with the Books printed and of what Service they were for the Interest of the French Court Some I have forgot and some I remember but shall not name any for fear of reflecting on any worthy Persons who I am perswaded did not know by what Instruments they were abetted on either side Then for keeping several Lords and Commons too in Pension to their Ends without their Knowledge thus they did it They had their Jews and some other Bankers at their Devotion who would under an Obligation of great Secrecy tell them that they were ordered to allow them so much Money saying sometimes it was from their own King to do him some private Service in or out of Parliament or from the Spanish Imperial or Dutch Ambassadors under pretence of serving their Interests and their own Countries too against Prerogative Oppression in Religion c. and oftentimes directly to oppose Popery and the French Interest that by firing them on with too great vehemency to pursue those Points the French Court might more easily compass other Ends aimed
to be Charmed and ever since favoured the French Interest either with or against his Prince as Occasion or Policy directed In fine he was told that the French King indeed tho' he had great Temptations from Opportunity and Interest to Attack England yet such was his Respect and Inclination for our King that he was more disposed to imploy his Forces against Holland And that he might with the surer Success undertake such an Expedition his Majesty earnestly prest the Duke to do his utmost to Influence his Master to join his Naval Forces with him in that War by which means he might Revenge the Disgraces received in the last especially that of Chatham as likewise the fresher Insolencies of that Saucy Republick whose Vicinity and Power was so much the more dangerous to the Brittish Monarchs than to any other Crowned Heads as the Subjects of these Nations were more prone to hanker after the Liberty Enjoy'd by the Hollanders and to imitate their Successful Example That by so doing his Excellency would do his own Prince very great Service and have the Honour of Obliging a great Monarch who was as Generous in his Resentments as Formidable in Power c. The Duke returned Home well satisfied and brought a pleasing Answer to our King and plyed him warmly with the Proposition aforesaid tho' at first he was not much harkned too but how when and by whose means their Designs were afterward Accomplished your Lordship may expect to hear when Conveniency serves from My Lord Your very Humble Servant Paris Nov. 30. 1676. N. St. LETTER XVII Of the Princess Henrietta Maria Dutchess of Orleans's being sent Anno 1670. from the French Court to dispose the King to a second War with the Dutch in Conjunction with the French My Lord THe French Court having as I told your Lordship in my Last gain'd the Duke of Buckingham entirely to their Interests they began now to conceive some hopes to bring our King to joyn with them against the States at least wise with his Naval Power of which they had most need and therefore to strike while the Iron was hot they deliberated of sending over an Embassador of their own into England to negotiate the Matter but to colour the Intrigue as if they had no Design of their own thereby and to give no Matter of Jealousie to their Neighbours especially the United Provinces It was agreed it should be a Female Embassadress the Kings fair Sister Henrietta Maria Dutchess of Orleans and so give out at the same time she went over purely on a visit to her Royal Brothers and that it was with some seeming Reluctancy the French King upon her earnest Application to him to that Purpose gave his Consent But she was furnished with such Proposals which they knew well that sent her none could with equal safety and privacy Advance nor none with equal Power and Influence recommend and to secure the whole Transaction from the very Suspitions as well as the Penetration of any not of their Cabal and to make it appear as a pure visit and the effect of natural Affection and void of all Intreague her return was limited to so short a Time and in so peremptory and notorious a Manner that it might induce the World to believe them too Suspitious of the natural Inclinations that Princes might still retain for her Royal Brothers and for the Weal of her and their Native Country so incompatible with the exorbitant grandeur of France to entrust her with any of the mysterious Arcana's of their Politicks and so might prevent all Jealousie in England at that critical Juncture of that interview by shewing so great an Apprehension of it themselves She was charged with the same Message partly and with some of the same Arguments which they had endeavoured to insinuate by the Duke of Buckingham but having an incomparable Advantage above him or any other Embassador to back whatsoever she advanced with all the Charms that a most accomplished and lovely Princes and an only and most beloved Sister could be armed with she who had Wit and Dexterity enough to manage those Priviledges to the utmost Advantage not only prest the said Matter and more home and with infinitely more Freedom and Efficacy but adventured to propose yet higher things and of a much more extended Consequence For addressing her Speech to the King though not without intermixing some Expressions equally affecting also to her Brother the Duke of York she told his Majesty that as she hoped neither of her Royal Brothers had any Reason to call in Question her natural Affection to their Persons and inseparable Inclination for whatsoever did or should at any Time appear to her to be conducing to their true Interest so she believed they had as little cause to doubt but she could see as far as another into the French Monarchs Heart who loved her and admired her to that Degree though innocently as gave no small Umbrage to Monsieur his Brother and her Husband And that she did sincerely represent both as his most Christian Majesty's Sence and her own that the only way to secure to his Majesty and the present Royal Family of England a stability in the Throne they were lately Restored to afâ—er so dismal an overthrow of the Monarchy in the Reign and Person of their unhappy Father and to reinstate the Majesty of the Brittish Kings in its former Splendor and Security enjoyed so long and gloriously in Catholick Times was by all Wise and Politick Mâ—ans to labour to introduce into these Kingdoms the Catholick Religion and to re-assume by Degrees absolute Power â—or that the Church of England by woful Experience had been found too weak alone to defend the Crown and that the Dissenters were so stifly Principled for a Common-Wealth that they would never leave till they had once more overturned the Monarchy unless his Majesty would timely provide for his Security by Methods â—o be proposâ—d to him by her and the most Christian King who she knew had the atmost tenâ—erness for his Interest as was clear enoâ—â—h by all Expressions of his real Inclinations â—â—nce they were emancipated from the â—estraints laid upon them under the Tutelagâ— oâ— a Cardinal who was a Master in pure Politicks and altogether unacquainted with those nobler and more heroick Sentiments of Honour and Generosity which are no less natural and unextinguishable in a born Prince then common Reason is in the â—est of Mankind The chief of which expedients were flattering of the Church of England and first persecuting by Act of Parliament the Protestant Dissenters and wheedling with them again by a Prerogative Lenitive and so by the not to be Questioned acceptance of the Suffering Protestants on the one hand and the no less assured Non-opposition of those of the established Church on the other as by an irresistible Charm to lay asleep that watchful Dragon that had so long kept the golden Apples of Contention between the King and People
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
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
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
they failed to stem the Tide that broke in as a consequent upon that Vote of the Commons Octob. 31. 1673. That considering the Condition the Nation was then in they would not take into further consideration any Aids or Charges upon the Subject except it did appear the obstinacy of the Dutch should render it necessary c. For the French Emissaries had taught the King and his Juncto their Lesson to wit to give out that the Dutch were full of Sullenness and Obstinacy and would come to no honourable Terms and therefore there was a necessity of further humbling of them but now the Court of England were as hasty to make up the Peace with Holland as e're they were to declare War against them which was concluded by the 9th of February 1673 4 but though the Dutch came hereby to enjoy Peace with us at Sea yet they found the pernicious Effects of the Valour of the English Troops which continued in the French Armies and gained them several Victories after that Peace till upon the earnest and repeated Instances both of the Foreign Powers concerned and of our own Parliament some redress was given to that Grievance but never a total one a Proclamation being obtained for recalling our Forces from the French Service which yet was construed not to extend to the Irish Nation who after that by that foul connivence of our King not only continued there in Bodies as formerly but drew over Recruits from time to time and were most highly cherished and caressed as indeed were the Irish Nation all along with a sensible difference above the English and Scotch especially when a War was expected with us they having a secret design upon that Kingdom by one Method or other ever since their first drawing our King into League with them which they did not obscurely intimate when by way of encouragement they would now and then say to the Irish Roman Officers among them as likewise to other qualified Gentlemen Travellers of that same Nation That the King their Master had an esteem of them above all other Nations for their Antâ—quity Generosity and Invincible Conâ—â—â—ncy to their old Religion for above a Century of Years after their Masters the English had abâ—ndoned it and that the Scots and the Wâ—eish Britains by the contagion of their Example with sufficient Derogation from their former unviolated Claims to Antiquity and unconquered Liberty had done the like and would assure them from him That the time would come when he would shew them marks of his Esteem by conferring the Hereditary Guard of his own and his Successor's Persons on their Nation instead of the Scots who were now departed from their Interests and that as a Catholick Prince and the Guarantee of their Treaty with King Charles when in Banishment for restoring to them their Estates whenever he should be restored he would see them righted and would one day free them from the Tyranny of the English Nation But notwithstanding all underhand Compliance of our Court with that of France as our Peace with Holland had already displeased them This recalling of our Troops as partially executed as it was quite put them out of humour so that though they durst not shew their Resentments too far for fear of increasing the Evil they fretted at yet they did what they could by allurements to debauch and by hard Usage and all imaginable Discouragements both to deter as many as they could of our Soldiers from paying Obedience to the said Proclamation and to disable those who were fixedly bent to return from being serviceable to their King and Country Among the rest mighty Advantages were offered to my Lord Dowglas afterwards Earl of Dunbarton to intice him to stay and some time after he was gone upon hearing he had no Preferment under his own King by reason of the severity of our Laws against Men of his Perswasion there were very great Rewards proposed to those they thought had any influence over him to perswade him to return and particularly to my self in case I could find any who could so far prevail over him but all in vain yet most of the Irish remained to the last and were very serviceable at the brisk Action of Gyrone and on some other Occasions and after the fear of the War with us was blown over by the Tempest raised among our selves whilst we blinded our Parliament and People by seeming to observe exactly the Articles of Neutrality agreed upon between our King and them they for a long time and even till now have refused to receive any English and Scotch Officers and Soldiers to their Service tho' contrary to their Allegiance to their King and Country several of them and some of them Romans of tried Affection proffered themselves yet still as many Irish as presented themselves were readily entertained And thus My Lord Tho' these subtile Politicians missed of their first point in hindring our Peace with Holland they succeeded but too well in the second through our Court's weakness and base Prevarication which was eluding it by corrupting our Neutrality with such a partiality on their side that it was an Honey-Comb to them whilst it was but a Spunge of Gall and Vinegar to the Confederates but foreseeing that in time this jugling conduct of our King would make all Europe murmur and render his Friendship or Mediation suspicious every where That it would make him odious to his People and blow into a Flame those old jealousies that already began to rekindle and afford ample matter for the Emissaries of the Confederates to work upon in our Nations and consequently to actuate our People so violently to a League with the said Allies against them that it would be impossible for the King with Safety to resist them for of his good Will to them by this time they were pretty confident they therefore were careful to make a timely Provision against an inconvenience so much dreaded by them and to endeavour to make use of those very Jealousies Fears and Animosities whose Effects they apprehended against their Adversaries by dexterously catching them up like Fireworks before they brake and returning them back upon our selves and this difficult sort of Game they managed by several Stratagems of which I have neither room nor opportunity to advertise your Lordship at present but must defer it to a proper season and remain as I truly am My Lord Your very humble Servant Paris July 12. 1678. N. S. LETTER XXXV Of the Marquess de Ruvigni a French Protestant his being sent Embassador into England and what the Politicks of France were therein My Lord I Do not question but your Lordship does remember the first time of the Marquess de Ruvigny's being sent Envoy from this Court into England which was in the Year 1669. and which I think I have in one of my Letters hinted already That he was a Person very capable for such an Imployment none can doubt that knew him but that ever he was
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
of Spain with the Emperor's Daughter was put by and that with the Duke of Orleans's Daughter effected and that he was going to act mighty things for the French Interest for which he had large Promises made him of their powerful and effectual Assistance to obtain the Crown of Spain for himself after the Decease of the present King upon condition he should quit the Spanish Dominions in the Indies Low-Countries and Italy to the Crown of France for the performance of which they had sufficient Assurances from him I am further to observe to your Lordship from the said Minutes That they have attributed his Death to a Dose of Poison administred by the order and particular prescription of the Queen-Mother and that out of a fear she had he would one day Poison the King her Son and because he had against her Will been the instrument to make the French Match They further add how true the one or the other I will not take upon me to determine That the Queen Mother's hatred to Don John was inveterate that she had attempted once before to have Stab'd him and at another time to Pistol him As for the fore-mentioned Letter from the King of Spain to stop the Don's passage for Messina they say it was sent by the Instigation of the Duke de Medina Celi then in the French Faction with an intent to make him miss that stroke and secure him in their Interests by letting him know that it was by their Intreague he was admitted to Court I could further enlarge upon this subject did I judge it pertinent or agreeable to your Lordship's humour as I am affraid it is not and therefore I remain My Lord Your Lordship 's most humble and devoted Servant Paris July 2 1679. N. S. LETTER XL. Of General Instructions given to the French Agents in England to carry on the French Designs upon the Duke of York's Second Marriage My Lord THo' the French Agents in England have had address enough to get the Match with the Duke effected according to their Desires yet foreseeing that even this point could not elude the Peace between England and Holland they endeavoured to make the best advantage they could by making a Counterpoise of it to the said Peace and to a War we might afterward intend against them as having thereby linked the Duke faster to them than ever and laid a sure foundation for such Distractions both in Church and State as would give them large opportunity if not to compass all the Designs they had upon us yet at least to secure themselves from any great inconveniency from us They were not ignorant what good effects several previous Intreagues of theirs had to our disadvantage they saw plainly the second Dutch War had much more impoverished us than the First and the ill conduct of it much more sunk the King's Reputation besides the Divisions in the Fleet and the Jealousies and Factions in the Parliament and among the People about the Duke's Religion produced him great disgusts every day That the shutting up of the Exchequer had ruined his Credit and his Majesty in proclaiming Liberty of Conscience by Virtue of his own Prerogative and his levity afterward in flinching from it so unexpectedly had so disobliged and wounded with Jealousie the Church of England and all Patriots in Parliament tender of their Priviledges who held the Peoples Purse-strings on the one side and so incensed with a fresh Animosity the baffled Dissenters on the other that being over-whelmed with Debts opposed by dangerous and powerful Factions and yet Bankrupt both of Money and Credit too they fairly concluded he could have no other recourse but to them which odious remedy they supposed would but more and more heighten the mutual Jealousies and widen the Breaches till they grew large enough for them to enter by at long-run upon some part of the English Monarchy so famous hitherto for checking theirs above any other in Europe since the Decadency of the Western Empire from rising to the like exorbitant greatness And now this more than Magical Dose these Quacks in Policy had given us began to work every day more and more violently and with Symptoms more visible till almost mortal Convulsions followed The ablest Statesman we had at the Helm the Earl of Shaftsbury was discarded for his vehemency in opposing the said so pernicious Match of which I may give your Lordship an account another time and others of the same Sentiments discountenanced which by the French Agency begat the Prorogation of the Parliament dangerous Factions and pernicious Fractions even among the most zealous Assertors of Monarchy and best affected Friends to the Royal Family so that now imagining this Master-experiment of theirs had made way for them to execute what Projects they pleased on our Court and People for the future to lose no advantage for want of Managers they began to put their Designs in form which before lay somewhat perplext and out of order to which end they sent over their Instructions to some Domestick Agents whom they had chosen and placed on purpose about the New Dutchess and to their other assisting Ministers and Emissaries as they thought in that disposition of both Head 〈◊〉 Body of both Princes and People 〈…〉 could not but succeed and produce in due time the full effects by their Mischief-Brooding and Ambitious Consultations And their Instructions in substance were as follows They were now to make actual use of the several Parties they had as I have hinted already but as yet prepared to make Tools of and to this purpose they were to influence them partly by French Jesuited Instruments partly by French Hugonot Agents and of our own Nation their Instruments were to be I. Atheists and loose principled Men who yet could act rarely well the Zealots for that Religion or Cause which they were to Espouse II. Such Persons as they found to be conceited of their Parts and of Mercenary Spirits III. Hotspurs for Prerogative and the Church of England IV. The fiercest Spirits of the other Factions V. Some Bigots of the Roman Communion that were English and particularly those that had been bred up or had travelled in their Dominions and were well Jesuited VI. The leading Irish Papists in particular VII Men Ambitious of Greatness or Idolizers of Money and that chiefly in Scotland VIII Men disgustful or disabliged IX Men of desperate Fortunes and lost Reputations Of all these they were with great confidence to imploy and highly to oblige and flatter some while they were for their turn and disoblige others and then when they had done with them vice versa to disoblige and cast off those whom they had obliged and seemed to have trusted and court oblige and receive others who were before disoblig'd knowing how to work their Ends by those they disobliged as well as by those obliged But yet none of these except some of the first sort were to know the whole of their Designs nor be informed
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
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
and others under his influence of six hundred thousand Crowns more But notwithstanding all these mighty promises and other more magnificent ones That he should not want five or six Millions of Livres at any time to bring a design to perfection when once he had made a progress their Notes say That private directions were given to feed him only with such mean pittances as would but just enable him to keep himself up and persuade him still to go on to perplex matters or Broviller les Cartes as they term it raise and exasperate Factions and Parties but never to proceed so far as totally to suppress any lest he should make himself too much Master and by that means be able to set up for himself without their further Aid and Concurrence or have any Money to spare and lay up for his own use or to imploy in private Cabals against them The same Method they used My Lord with most of their other Pensioners among the English Popish Party but to all their other Instruments they were most liberal and punctual till such time as they had no further use of them and had a mind to turn them off and provoke them as we have said to use their Talents on a contrary side Pardon I beseech your Lordship my prolixity and interpret it for a willingness to serve you as it really is in him who is My Lord Your most humble and most devoted Servant Paris Jan. 28. 1680. N. S. LETTER XLVI Of the Dutchess of York's being gained entirely to the French Interests With an Account of the Proposals she assented to My Lord. HAving gained the Duke over into their Interests so far as to assent to the performance almost of every Proposal to him on their part as I have in my last set forth at large to your Lordship The next step was to bring in the Dutchess his Consort now into the same or worse Noose who being an adopted Daughter of France and of the Feminine Gender they found no hard Task to effect and after some Tampering they at last prevailed so far as to persuade her to discover to them from time to time her Husband 's greatest Secrets and would never let him rest but be incessantly teazing him till she had extorted all that was worth knowing or communication from him not to fail to transmit unto them an account from time to time of the Money the Duke received from them how he spent it to use all the influence she had over him to perform with utmost exactness all the points of his Agreement with them but more particularly that part which related to the Duke's Daughters and finally to second effectually the means which they should prescribe her at any time about giving an Italian Fig to the King either of the two Princesses or all of them if it were though requisite as the cause of Religion her own main Interest of securing the English Throne in the Succession of it to her Husband and her own Issue should necessarily require without concerning the Duke her Husband at all in the said Intrigue In consideration of her compliance wherein she was likewise to have an Annuity assigned her but the definite Sum is not mentioned and whether she had Sons or Daughters to live she as far as lay in her power to promote it was to assent to have them Match'd to the most apparent of the Royal Family of France if there were any such for them or into such other Princely Families as were most suitable for them in the Judgment of his Most Christian Majesty who did oblige himself to take a Paternal care of them and would ever keep his Royal Word by the exactest Performance I do not question but these things are a Trouble to your Lordship tho' I am apt to persuade my self you would not willingly be without the perfectest Intelligence of them that you can get wherein I have had the Honour and shall always think my self happy to serve you in any the least degree and am proud of the opportunity to subscribe my self once more My Lord Your Lordship 's Most Humble and Most Obedient Servant Paris Jan. 12. 1680. LETTER XLVII Containing a general Account of Parties engaged in French Interests and of their Designs but more particularly of one Kelly a Priest c. My Lord YOur Lordship will not now wonder when such as I have mentioned in some of my late Letters have plung'd themselves so deeply in French Sudds that others should be so easily drawn into their Interests I am to acquaint you therefore That this Court had according to their Projection gain'd the most considerable Roman Catholicks in the Three Kingdoms by fair and specious Pretences to comply even to every thing they desired of them as thinking King Lewis to be a most Generous Prince that had no By-ends in it but as he was most able was most willing to promote the propagation of that Religion and the re-instating their King in a condition to Protect them out of a pure piece of Honour and Zeal for the Catholick Faith as they were wont to Word it who therefore most willingly entred into a Correspondence with his Agents and Emissaries and some of them took Pensions but I cannot give your Lordship a List of their Names at this juncture but most of that Kidney acted freely in using all the endeavours they possibly could to induce both King Duke c. to a compliance with them in all things they had instructions to move to them and sollicit for as they had long done themselves in the points I have already mentioned to your Lordship and which I need not repeat But tho' they designed if either one or both of the Royal Brothers should disoblige them too much especially the King or that any juncture of things or grand conveniency of theirs should persuade to proceed to some barbarous Extremity against the Persons of one or both of them yet they thought not good to trust any British Papists with any thing so black no not so much as their Jesuits but took particular heed to reserve thâ—se Mysteries to another Cabal having provided for that a Juncto of Foreigners and Irish for the taking off the King if things came to that extremity And as for the Duke they seemed not much afraid of him and therefore made no such exact provision but they knew of some two or three desperate Fanaticks whom they had in reserve for that purpose and they were of the Scotch Nation but if the King alone was to be taken off then the Dutchess's Cabal in conjunction with that of Portsmouth were to engage in it but if things came to that extremity as that both Brothers were to be removed then Portsmouth's Gang was only to be imployed without the concern or privity of the other And this last Cabal of Portsmouth's was composed of French and Irish Jesuits and Jesuited Popish Bigots But among them there was a certain Priest named Kelly who
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
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
have little effect to urge the Example of the King and Duke two such wise Princes as they represented them who knew and understood perfectly well the Principles of the Reformed Religion and all the Arguments it was defensible by and yet had in a manner yeilded to the invincible force of the Truth which appeared on their side and had said they against their Temporal Interests to the evident hazards of their Persons and Dignities to which they preferred the Welfare of their more precious Souls embraced the Roman Catholick Opinions Yea St. Germain proceeded so far in this kind of vanity that he was in a fair way to be ruined for ever but I have not leisure at this Juncture to observe to your Lordship the Passages and Effects of that Conduct but must refer it to my next wherein I hope I shall not fail you who am My LORD Your ever obliged and most obedient Servant Paris Iuly 17. 1680. N. S. LETTER LVI St. Germain endeavouring to reclaim one Lusancy to the Church of Rome whose Communion he had forsaken used King Charles II's Turning Papist as an Argument which the other discovering forced St. Germain to flee into France where he was punished for his Indiscretion for a Time My LORD IT was not without some Difficulty that I have been able to perform the Promisory Clause of my last Letter in reference to Father St. Germain's unseasonable Words concerning the King's Perversion to the Romish Church who among others more particularly repeated the said Brags to a young Friar then lately turned Protestant in the Savoy as I learnt afterward and whom for what peculiar Reasons I could never come to know he laboured with more than ordinary Application to reclaim back again from his pretended Heresie and at any rate to dispatch him back into France That same young Friar went by the Name of Lusancy but St. Germain said his true Name was Beau-Chateau and it seems had been St. Germain's Scholar formerly when Regent in the College of Clermont in this City and consequently knowing more of St. Germain than any other Man perhaps in England It may be the Fear of some Inconveniency to their Designs by that Knowledge and such Discourses as he might happen to have thereupon was one Reason of the said Father's so great eagerness to remove him out of the way In fine How de facto and in truth he managed the Business with him I cannot affirm but certain it is that Lusancy pretended that upon his deferring as the other thought a little too much his full Compliance with his Desires he offered him Violence and with several Accomplices threatned to stab or pistol him if he would not sign such a Recantation as he presented and go along with those he brought with him in order to his immediate Transportation And that upon Complaint thereof to the Parliament then Sitting by a noble Lord to whom Lusancy applied himself and whom I need not name I believe to your Lordship though perhaps you have never heard this Story before in its full length and by the Discovery of some other of their Practices the said Lusancy forced St. Germain to flee and was the Cause of some Stir against Popish Priests and Emissaries at that time which were the Praeludium to what followed afterwards in the time of the late Conspiracy imputed to the said Party And no less certain it is on the other side that St. Germain's Imprudence and ill Conduct both in that and other things was so defenceless and inexcusable that he was a long time in some Disgrace with the Duke and Dutchess with Father la Chaise and the whole Society of his Order to whom he was forced by a long and laborious Apology to vindicate himself as well as he could particularly about the unhappy Affair of Lusancy and his rash and inconsiderate Speeches of the King and Duke of York which he compiled with much Artifice and Eloquence and made me cloath it in the English Tongue to the end he might satisfie his Friends of both Nations of his Innocence of those foul Aspersions cast upon him as he would have it Yet he could never so solidly refute what was so plainly objected against him but that still there remained Causes sufficient to suspect that the Assertions of such as accused him were not without some real Grounds And indeed though they were glad to have the same pass for a plausible Defence among Secular Persons for their common Reputation upon which that subtile Society so much value and esteem themselves yet within their own Cloisters they were so little satisfied with his specious Pleas that they mulcted him as they usually do their own Members upon failure of Conduct by sending him to and fro and employing him in low and contemptible things which only Juniors used to perform and were a long time before they admitted him to any considerable Post again though at last after sufficient Mortification upon his uninterrupted and vehement Importunities to be restored again once more to their good Opinion and repeated Promises to be more assiduous in their Service and careful of his Conduct for the future and because he had been at first with Coleman the chief Author of the Duke's being drawn into a close and separate Intrigue with the Court of France by the Intervention of Father la Chaise and knew best of any the Secrets and Mystery of it he was again intrusted to manage the Continuation of that Correspondence by the means of Coleman his old Friend's receiving all Letters from him and transmitting all those of Father la Chaise and his Creatures in France to Coleman and his Master and others with whom they had any Intrigue in England among whom was one Lady Glascow who received and dispersed most of the Letters which were not inclosed in Coleman's Pacquet and which were commonly numerous enough directed to her under six or seven several Names changing every time or every other time at least the Name and the Direction Of which Correspondence I may perhaps be able to give your Lordship a fuller Account another time presuming this cannot but find Acceptance though from so mean a Person as is My LORD Your Lordship 's Most Devoted and Humble Servant Paris Sept. 2. 1680. N. S. LETTER LVII Arguments used to the Duke of York against Marrying his Daughter to the Prince of Orange My LORD I Confess I do not well remember when it was that I gave your Lordship an Account of the Duke's being first drawn into a close Correspondence with France and I am as much to seek how and when the following Arguments were urged upon him no further than the Circumstance of the Subject does discover But Time may unravel all However this I find was urged first on him That it would be of equal Danger to His Royal Highness if not more to give his Daughter to the Prince of Orange than to let her be in the French Disposal and that his Brother the
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
least pretend to have it and give Orders for Mourning before our English Envoy had any such Notice given so that when he came according to Custom to give them intimation of it all the Court was seen in Mourning before Night and all persons of Note in this City the next day I 'll leave your Lordship to Reflect upon the Transactions and Circumstances of it which tho comprehended in a few words may afford a larger Field for Thought than any thing my mind can at present suggest unto me or my Intelligence reach unto but it puts me in mind of somewhat I think I have writ in my last to your Lordship and so I suppose it may do your Honour if it has not already but I am My Lord Your humble Servant Paris Feb. 22. 1635. N. S. LETTER I. Of King James when Duke of York his pervertion to the Popish Religion how and when it was done c. My Lord YOUR Lordship cannot imagine how over-joy'd both Court and Country are here upon the News of the King 's going Publickly to the Roman Catholick Chappel upon His Assumption of the Crown and many and various Discourses it has occasion'd concerning His first Imbracing the Roman Faith an Account whereof may not perhaps be unpleasing to your Lordship And therefore I shall endeavour to gratifie your Honour therein to the utmost of my power some have been of opinion that the Zeal Example and Exhortations of the Queen His Mother to whom He seemed always to pay the greatest Deference had wrought this Change early in him and that the long Conversation he had had with those of the Roman Communion in France Flanders and other places had fortify'd him in the same Sentiments he had before imbib'd and which at last appear'd in an open Profession but however this has a very great appearance of truth it s utterly deny'd here and averred with great Elogium's upon him that it happened to him as it did to one of the Ancients as Recorded in Holy Writ that he should find in the Gall of a Monster that was about to devour him that wherewith to cure him of his Blindness For that it was in Reading of the History of the Reformation written by a Protestant Author that he came to see the Error wherein his Birth had engag'd him that when he was oblig'd when in Exile to leave the Kingdom of France and to retire to Bruxels and having leasure enough to Read he lighted there upon the History of the Reformation written by Dr. Heylin which he Read with much Attention and notwithstanding the many strained pretences say they which the Protestants made use of to colour the Schism of their Country he clearly saw that their Separation so plainly contrary to the Maxim of Unity which is the Foundation of the Church was nothing else but a meer effect of Humane Passions that it was the Dissolute Life and Incontinency of King Henry the Eighth the Ambition of the Duke of Sommerset the Pollicy of Queen Elizabeth the Avarice of those that were greedy to seize upon the Revenues of the Church had been the Principal Causes of that Change wherein the Spirit of God had no concern that upon reflecting with himself That God of old made use of Prophets of a most Holy Life to be the Guides of his People and to Intimate his will unto them in respect to Religion that upon the change of the Divine Dispensation the Apostles Inspired with Heavenly Vertue and more like to Disimbodyed Angels than Carnal Men Preached the Gospel and that upon Disorders and Irregularities both under the one and the other Testament They were not carnal persons Vindictive Souls Ambitious Spirits that had Preached Reformation but Men full of Moses's Spirit or of Christ's the only Channels worthy to receive the Waters which run from his Living Sources so as that there might be no room left to render them suspected of Corruption or Falsity he from thenceforward became a Roman Catholick in his heart That he had acquainted the King his Brother with it soon after the Restoration who highly Applauded him but engaged him to put that restraint upon himself as to keep it secret But that some years after having by his Conduct given occasion to others to observe his Steps more warily and finding he was not Cordial to the Protestant Religion and Interest they say here the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and two of his Brethren Remonstrated the same to him that he heard them with much Patience and did not decline to Confer with them but that their Conferences and Arguments were so far from Staggering and Seducing of him that they Confirmed him the more in the Faith And they say farther That tho' it was given out in England That the late Dutchess of York's Complaisance to the Duke her Husband had wrought her Conversion to the Romish Church in the Communion of which she dy'd yet it was notoriously false for that she was brought over by a very remarkable event next to a Miracle by Reading the same Book that had Converted the Duke But I shall trouble your Lordship no more with a Matter which I am sure you cannot think of without trouble of Mind and so I remain My Lord Your Honours to serve and Command Paris March 2. 1685. N. S. LETTER II. Of the Duke of Monmouth's being in Holland and King James's Design to seize him there Miscarryed My Lord THE Misfortunes of the Duke of Monmouth in the King his Father's time are beter known to your Lordship then I can pretend to inform you and that when he was forced to quit England for his own safety and that it came to be known he was retir'd into Holland the Duke and French Emissaries never left Importuning the King to send to the States and Prince of Orange to drive him from thence alleadging continually that there were very great Honours done him by the States and especially by the Prince of Orange who had given his Troops Orders to Salute him at their Reviews when-ever he came to see them designing thereby to make that Republick and especially the Prince of Orange more and more obnoxious to the King so that he gave at last Orders to His Embassador Mr. Chudley at the Hague to forbid the English Troops in that Service to shew the Duke any Respects Having gain'd this Point and that they might embroyl the King and Prince of Orange the more Chudley was Instructed to make the Officers of the said Regiments acquainted with the afore-mention'd Orders without first giving the Prince notice thereof under whose Command they were which they knew well enough the Prince could not but Resent as he did accordingly Threatning Chudley for Interfereing with his Authority without his leave and this upon the Embassador's Complaint to the King his Master and which was sufficiently Improved and Aggravated by the Duke and French Agents about him incensed him so against the Prince that he dispatch'd Letters to Chudley forbidding
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
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
to comply to this unexpected Command were Cudgelled into the Church had the Doors made fast upon them and with the same Violence were forc'd to keep silence fall down upon their Knees and to receive from the good Bishop an Absolution of their Heresy and thereupon were told That if they offered for the future to go and hear their own Minister they should be infallibly Punished for Apostates such and a thousand the like Violences they Practised of late in that Province as I have a faithful Account thereof too tedious to trouble your Lordship withal but because your Lordship may perhaps have heard a mighty Noise of a Design to Besiege Fontarabie by the French I shall in a very few words unfold that Mistery to you The Intendant my Lord having found that those and the like sham-Tricks above mentioned did not answer his his End but that the generality of the People still stuck Tight to their Principles found there was a necessity to bring in Armed Men to constrain them to a Complyance It was given out here That this Court was highly dissatisfied at that of Spain that they durst appear sensible of the Outrages done them on Flanders side and so for satisfaction talked loud of nothing else than Besieging Fontaraby saying at the same time That France would do nothing but what was Just and therefore they were not willing to begin a War on that side where the Barrier might be broken which was made by the late Peace between their Conquests and the United Provinces and in carrying their Arms towards the other side could give them no manner of Umbrage In Conformity to this seeming Design the-Troops Defiled towards Bearn but in stead of Advancing to Invest Fontarabie they have halted there ever since and committed all the Insolences that the most barbarous of Nations could e're be guilty of But since I have entred upon the Relation of the Misery of this Famous Province I shall endeavour a little further to trespass upon your Lordships Patience and shew what pretences the Clergy have raised to Justify the Rigorous Prosecution of the Bernois before others in the Kingdom They have had the Artifice to Abolish the Remembrance of the Conspiracy which their Predecessors had formed in this Principality against their Lawful Sovereigns and have had the Audaciousness to perswade the King that the Reformed Religion was never Established in that Province but by the Authority of Queen Jane who would have her own Religion to be Uppermost And that as she had then Banished the Catholick Religion out of her Dominions by Arms in favour of that Doctrine whereon she her self Doted the King who was the Eldest Son of the Church might very justly do the same thing for the Exterminating of that Change in Religion there which had been introduc'd by Violence and thus you see my Lord the Popish Clergy here leave nothing unessay'd for the Advancement of their Designs I am afraid they are of the same Kidney every where else and they have got the knack when there is occasion of making that a Crime in their Enemies which is but the just Punishment of their own for by disguising the Truth of History as they have done herein they have made that to pass in Queen Jane for an Usurpation over the Liberties of her Subjects and the freedom of their Consciences which was but a Lawful Revenge she had taken on the Perfidious Clergy of her Dominion who had formed against her and the Princes her Children such a Conspiracy as can hardly be paralell'd before the introduction of the Ignatian Order inâ—o the World however right or wrong they have gain'd their Point and under this false relation of so memorable an Event they have made it to pass for a constant Truth That under a Queen of the Reformed Religion that Religion which she Authoriz'd was introduced by force in Bearn and that consequently there would be no room left to complain that a Popish King in his Turn made use of Force to repress it This was the ground pretended for beginning to put Bearn under Military Execution as if from what was formerly done for the just Punishment of a Rebellious People there were a just consequence to be drawn for an unjust Oppression of the most Submissive and Obedient Subjects But having already Trespassed by an over tedious Letter I shall not farther aggravate it but remain My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and Devoted Servant Paris Sep. 27. 1685. N. S. LETTER XIII Of the Rejoycings in Pearn upon the Imaginary Success they had in Conversions My Lord IN my last to your Lordship I remember I was somewhat tedious in my Narration of the Sufferings of the Poor Protestants in the Principality of Bearn It were endless for me to recite the farther Particulars that have come to my knowledg since and therefore I shall wave it and acquaint your Lordship for want of a better Subject how much the Clergy have Triumphed in the Success they have imagined those Violences they have been guilty of towards those People had to bring them over to their Communion They have not fail'd to Testify as much Joy at it as if there had been some Battle got or some City taken from the Enemy But what was very Cruel and Terrible was That the poor Reformed were forc'd to take part in these Rejoycings of which their own Ruin was the Subject It would be too tedious to recount to your Lordship the many Cruelties exercised in this Country and particularly at Pau as a Preludium to this Force But after the Reduction of the foresaid place they made a general Procession whereunto they dragged the New Converts and withal Celebrated High Mass whereat the Parliament assisted in a Body And then when that was over Te Deum was sung the Guns Fired and the Citizens who were commanded to stand to their Arms made several Discharges and Vollies of Shot Then followed Illuminations and Bonfires and Fireworks were prepared at the Charge of the Publick for the same occasion But how much soever this was a mock-shew yet great care has been taken to transmit such Relations to the Court of all the particulars relating to their Proceedings and Success as are drest with all the Art Imaginable with a design to perswade them who are but two ready to believe it that all the People every where have Re-united themselves to the Church with all the freedom and good will Imaginable and because they were resolv'd to make sure work of it they have accompanied the same Relations with Certificates which they caused to be signed by the same means as they have procured their Conversions as they are pleased to call them and wherein those who had suffered a thousand outrages and Violences that cannot be named without detestation and horror were constrain'd to declare that the King's Soldiers who of themselves are well known to be as profligate wretches as any in the World had lived and demeaned themselves
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
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
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
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
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
Officers of his Navy Royal to become Catholicks for me to make a Relation of that Transaction to your Lordship I fear may be but Crambe bis Cocta but your Honour being now remote from the Court at your Country Habitation and that I believe we have here a truer account of that Affair transmitted to us by the Agents of this Court perhaps your Lordship will not think your Time ill spent in perusing of it Its seems the Commissioners which the King has sent to the several Counties of the Kingdom to dispose Men's Minds to a Willingness to take off the Penal Laws and Test having generally found a grand Aversion in the People to that Matter the King was so incensed at the Report they made of it and the invincible Stubbornness of the Nation that he convened his Cabinet Council and with them resolved to cashier all such out of his Service as would not fall in with his Designs But that all things might be opportunely executed it was agreed he should make himself sure first of his Fleet and his Army without whose Assistance they saw it was in vain to effect so sudden a Change at once wherefore he gave Orders that Mass should be said on Board his Ships but there was such Opposition made thereunto both by the Officers and Seamen that the Priests who went thither for that end were forced to hide themselves for fear of being thrown over Board which they had been like to have undergone had it not been that the Principal Officers who maintained still the Respect that was due to the King's Commands had done their utmost to hinder it But when the matter came to be represented to the King his Fury was raised to an high degree tho' he had for the Time the Artifice to dissemble his Resentment wherefore he resolved to try whether his Royal Presence might not operate more than his Orders and therefore he went on Board the Fleet himself and having commanded all the Officers to bring him their Commissions he there asked them Whether they were not resolved to change their Religion and imbrace his who had bestowed their Offices upon them in Expectation that they would do whatever he commanded them They were surprized at the Complement and expected no such thing nevertheless being resolved not to be frightened either with Menaces nor be gained by Flatteries they generally answered That how devoted soever they were to his Majesty's Service and their own Fortune yet they could not be enduced to any thing against their Consciences To which the King replyed That what he required of them could by no means be Prejudicial to them whatever their Ministers might tell them to the contrary that there was more of Opinion than Reason in the Religion which they professed that they should take the Pains to reflect duely thereon for which yet he would grant them but the Space of 48 Hours But tho' most of them did believe from Words so positive by the King they should certainly be casheered yet they resolved to split upon that Rock rather than alter whatever came of it The King in the mean Time who had trusty Spies in all the Ships having learnt their Resolutions for all his eagerness in the matter did not think it advisable to push on Things over far at that time wherefore he ordered they should be told when he sent them back their Commissions That the 48 Hours which he had alloted being not sufficient for the determining of an Affair of so great Importance he was pleased to allow them some further time to think of it but that they would please him to conform themselves to his Will on that occasion but in the mean time tho' the Politicks of this Court have been much used in England yet herein they have been laid aside and there is an essential Difference between the one and the other for in the Choice which our King makes of Officers he had rather they should have Service than Profit whereas in France they will have both the one and the other if they can and for want of which Profit is always preferred before Service I 'll not censure such an Attempt but I am ashamed we should be laughed at both here and in other Countries for our Politicks and your Lordship knows as well as any Man living that when wise and experienced Statesmen have sate at the Helm they never would suffer the Regal Authority to be put upon such an Hazard well knowing the least Resistance made thereunto is a Triumph to the People but speramus meliora I am My Lord Your Lordships to Command Paris Sept. 25. 1688. N. S. LETTER XLIII Of the Count d'Avaux acquainting the French King with the Prince of Orange's Preparations against England My Lord THe Embassador of this Court Monsieur the Count d'Avaux at the Hague hath transmitted a positive account hither of the great Preparations made in Holland for some grand Expedition especially by Sea intimating that the Prince of Orange seems to have other Designs in his View than those of a vigilant Statholder for the maintaining the Dutch Fleets and Armies in a good Posture now other neighbour Nations are in Arms. You know my Lord Mr. Skelton is now Envoy in this Country from England as he was some time ago in Holland who while he was there whether really or maliciously I will not determine was pleased to transmit an account to the King of the Prince's holding Correspondence and carrying on some Intrigues with his Subjects to his Prejudice he had some Relations in the Princesses Family by whose means he had an Opportunity to inspect into some Letters from which he took upon him to pick out as much as gave him to understand that there were some Matters agitated underhand that tended to the King's detriment but as far as I could learn the King gave little hâ—â—d to his Informations But what the Count d'Avaux has given his Master an account of hath been esteemed worthy of Consideration and added here some Reputation to Mr. Skelton's Agency whatever it may do in England and I am assured my Lord from such Authority as I dare rely upon that the French King has prest his Brother of England to give that Heed to it which it deserves and to take seasonable Precautions to defend his Dominions from a powerful Invasion wherewith they are threatened My Lord I desire to know with the next Conveniency whether I may be free to continue my Correspondence with your Lordship especially if I find Matters of this Nature transacted for I would not for any thing in the World bring your Lordship into the least Praemunire but in all things study to serve you with exactest Diligence and humblest observance which I shall always strive to do who am My Lord Your Lordship 's most humble Servant Paris Octob. 6. 1688. N. S. LETTER XLIV Of the means whereby Mr. Skelton came to know of the Designs in Holland against King James and of
Prince of Orange's Arrival at London My Lord THis Place is very barren of News tho' there is something I am satisfied a brewing which will appear in Time and all that is novel and extraordinary seems to have been tranplanted to the Brittish I sles from whence we hear That the Prince of Orange who they say is always intent and ever was to improve favourable Conjunctures hath taken Advantage of these Movements to make his Entry into London where 't is confest but with much Regret he hath been received with great Demonstrations of Joy and publick Applause but they say it is nothing but what is usually done to New-comers having been felicitated upon the Success of his Enterprise and thanked for the Zeal which he had testified for the good of the English Nation 'T is also reported That the Nobility have met together and pray'd him to take the Administration of the Government upon him till the Estates of the Kingdom can be called together which is dreaded here by both Courts I can assure your Lordship there have been Instructions issued out from hence already to their Agents at London where they have a great Number tho' under various Disguises for to countermine what ever Projects may be on foot for the establishing a Settlement in England and of which I shall endeavour to transmit to your Lorship the Particulars I am My Lord Your very humble Servant Paris Jan. 27. 1689. S. N. LETTER LIII Instructions given to the French Emissaries to infuse into some English Peers upon the subject-Matter of King James's Deserting of the Crown in Favour of his Interest My Lord IT s not doubted here but that there will be strong Efforts made for the Advancing of the Prince of Orange to the English Throne and by the Returns made of Members to serve upon the present Occasion in the Lower House it is concluded that their Procedures will be much in favour of his Interest and consequently to the Disadvantage of this Court and therefore they have taken care to give them a Bone to pick tho' I know not well what it is for the present But of the House of Lords they have entertained a more favourable Opinion but foreseeing that whatever is agitated among the Commons is also likely to creep into a Debate among the Lords and that the King's Resigion his Evil Administration his Retreat out of the Kingdom and the Compact between him and his People may be called in question They have by way of Precaution given Instructions to their Emissaries slily to infuse into any such Peers as they judge susceptible of such Insinuations but I cannot think your Lordship of that Number That it was true the King's Religion had been a very main Cause to bring those Misfortunes upon himself and the Nation which they laboured under but hereby it could not be thought that should be as much as once debated for a sufficient Ground to exclude him from his Throne That this would appear strange in the Sight of all Nations that a Popish Prince was incapable to sway a Scepter when even in England it self there had been no less than Forty Roman Catholick Kings who had governed England from King Egbert to Queen Elizabeth That it was but the other Day that all the Kingdom had by Addresses on purpose disavowed that Maxime That the two Universities had condemned the same for an Error and that the Parliament in One thousand six hundred and eighty five did believe it to be a thing so pernicious and destructive to a State that they were minded to brand with Infamy all those who would have excluded the Duke of York from the Succession That all the Nation having acknowledged this Prince at a Time when he made open Profession of the Popish Religion it would be a ridiculous inconsequence to pretend that that same Religion was an Hindrance to his reigning as King of England and that as for any previous Compact that might be alledged by ill disposed Men to have been between King and People iâ— was a pernicious chimerical Notion often condemned as a Gap opened to seditious Practices for the imbroiling of the State That surely that Retreat could not be called a Desertion in the King full of Discontent and finding himself abandoned by his Subjects to the Mercy of a Foreign Nation especially seeing the Royal Character the bore did but expose him to the Insults of the People and his Person into the Hands of a Prince that imposed Laws upon him seized him in his own Dominions and gave him Umbrages that ought to presage greater Dangers unto him That the Offers he had again and again made to the Nation and even to the Prince of Orange who protected it to treat with them amicably to leave nothing undone for the redressing of their Grievances could not but be adjudged Reparations sufficient for those Faults that were imputed to him That the Letter he had writ left behind him at Feversham and ordered to be printed with several other Letters which he had actually writ to diverse Persons asserting his Authority and Claim And that the Protestations which no doubt he would make against any Acts of the Assembly to meet if any such should happen in disfavour of him which could hardly be credited and the Measures which he had taken and whereof they heard enough every Day and would doubtless more and more dayly for the Recovery of his Dominions were evident Demonstrations that he had not renounced them And that if they were deserted by him it was because his Person was in no Security there and not the Throne which he still looked upon as a Property appertaining to him alone That he was not the first and only King even of England that had made this Step That Ethelrede in the Time of the Saxon Kings retired into Normandy and that among the Royal Stem of the Plantagenets Edward IV. past over into Flanders without King Henry VI. his Competiter his believing that he had thereby acquired a new Title to the Crown That as to the present conjuncture the King found himself in the Condition of Kings would be very hard if they of all Mankind were the only Persons who were not allowed the Favour to shun a Danger they were exposed to and which could not be avoided but by fleeing from it and that surely it was a Man's Prudence when he saw his House on Fire beyond a possibility of extinguishing it to save his own Life and attend an Opportunity to rebuild it again since he could not save it from burning What Successes my Lord these Remonstrances have met with or may still it may be your Lordship can tell But I can tell you if this fails there is another Mine to spring whereon they rely very much and on which they intend to work with utmost Diligence but I pray God to keep my poor Country from falling again into their Shares from which it now is in so fair a way of being