CHAP.

I.

During the progress of this question, the Lords had A.D. 1663. displayed a spirit of liberality which shocked the more rigid orthodoxy of the lower house. In opposition to the bill, they appealed to the declaration from Breda. That instrument was an offer made by the king as head of the adherents to the church and the throne, and accepted by the several other parties within the kingdom. It was virtually a compact between him and the people, which fixed the price of his restoration. The people had done their part in receiving him; it became his now to secure to them the boon which he had promised. That boon, as far as regarded religion, was liberty to tender consciences, and freedom from molestation on account of difference of religious opinion; two things which, it was apprehended, could not be reconciled with the disqualifying enactments of the bill. The manager for the Commons replied, that the declaration from Breda had been misunderstood. "Tender" was an epithet implying susceptibility of impression from without; a tender conscience was one which suffered itself to be guided by others; the liberty to tender consciences was therefore confined to the "misled," and did not extend to the "misleaders;" it was granted to the flocks, but not to the pastors. In aid of this sophistical exposition, he also observed, that the declaration referred to the peace of the kingdom, and to a future act of parliament, as if the act to be passed had been one to impose restraint, instead of

houses much stress was laid on the opportunity which tutors possess of impressing what notions they please on the minds of their pupils. To this circumstance was attributed the strong opposition made to Cromwell in parliament by the younger members; for, during the commonwealth, the clergy of the church of England supported themselves by teaching, and brought up their pupils in principles of loyalty. Lords' Journals, 447.

PETITION OF THE CATHOLICS.

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"granting indulgence," or the allusion to the peace of CHAP. the kingdom had not been understood as an exception A.D. 1663. of the seditious and anarchical doctrines promulgated

1

by some of the fanatical preachers. The Act of Uniformity may have been necessary for the restoration of the church to its former discipline and doctrine; but if such was the intention of those who formed the declaration from Breda, they were guilty of infidelity to the king, by putting into his mouth language which, with the aid of equivocation, they might explain away, and of fraud to the people, by raising in them expectations which it was never meant to fulfil.

The triumph of the church was now complete. The bishops had already been restored to their seats in parliament, and the spiritual courts had been re-established. To the first of these measures a strong opposition was anticipated from the united efforts of the Catholics and Presbyterians in the House of Lords; but of the Catholic peers, one only, the Viscount Stafford, voted against it; and among the Presbyterians the opposition was confined to the survivors of those who had originally supported the bill incapacitating clergymen from the exercise of temporal authority. The second was accomplished with equal facility; but, at the same time, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was curtailed of two of its most obnoxious appendages, the High Commission court and the power of administering the oath ex officio.2

1 Lords' Journals, xi. 449. 2 Stat. 306, 315. Whoever will compare the account in Clarendon, 138, with the Journals, xi. 279, 281, 283, will be astonished at the inaccuracies of the historian. In five material points, including the principal part of his narrative, he is flatly contradicted by the testimony of the Journals. So far was the bill from being detained in the House of Lords, that it was forwarded through all its stages with unprecedented rapidity. It was sent from the VOL. IX.

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5. Among others, the English Catholics had cheA.D. 1663. rished a hope of profiting by the declaration from Breda; and that hope was supported by the recollection of their sufferings in the royal cause, and their knowledge of the promises made by Charles during his exile. The king was, indeed, well disposed in their favour. He deemed himself bound in honour and gratitude to procure them relief; he knew the execration in which the penal laws against them were held on the continent; and had often declared his resolution to mitigate, whenever he should be restored to his father's throne, the severity of such barbarous June 28. enactments. In June, 1661, the Catholics met at

Arundel House, and presented to the Lords a petition, complaining of the penalties to which they were liable for the refusal of oaths incompatible with their religious opinions. The Presbyterian leaders lent their aid to the Catholic peers; and Clarendon placed himself at the head of their adversaries. Not a voice was raised in favour of the statutes inflicting capital punishments; but, after several debates, the house resolved that "nothing had been offered to move their lordships June 21. "to alter anything in the oaths of allegiance and

supremacy." In the meantime, Colonel Tuke 2 was heard at the bar against the sanguinary laws; and several papers stating the grievances and prayers of the Catholics had been laid on the table. The petitioners claimed the benefit of the declaration from Breda, and observed, that the only objection to their claim rested on the supposition that the acknowledgment of the spiritual supremacy of the pope implied the admission Commons on Thursday, and passed by the Lords on the Tuesday following.

1 Clarendon, 140.

Sir G. Tuke, of Cressing Temple, in Essex.-Pepys, i. 364.

DISCORD AMONG PETITIONERS.

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of his temporal superiority. Against this they pro- CHAP. tested. The doctrine of his temporal authority was a A.D. 1663. problematical opinion, admitted indeed by some individuals, but no part of the Catholic creed; and the petitioners (so far were they from holding it) offered to bind themselves by oath "to oppose with their lives "and fortunes the pontiff himself, if he should ever attempt to execute that pretended power, and to "obey their sovereign in opposition to all foreign and "domestic power whatsoever, without restriction." 1 The house having received the report of a committee July 16. to inquire into "the sanguinary laws," resolved to abolish the writ De Hæretico Inquirendo, and to repeal all the statutes which imposed the penalties of treason on Catholic clergymen found within the realm, or those of felony on the harbourers of such clergymen, or those of premunire on all who maintained the authority of the bishop of Rome. But this measure of relief did not equal the expectations of the laity, who sought to be freed from the fines and forfeitures for recusancy; and the whole project was quashed by the cunning of an adversary, who moved and carried a resolution that no member of the society of Jesuits should enjoy the benefit of the intended act. Immediately discord spread itself among the petitioners; pamphlets in favour of and against the society were published; and, on the one hand, it was contended that the boon, with whatever exceptions it were clogged, ought to be accepted, and that the Jesuits were bound in decency to resign their own pretensions for the common benefit of the Catholic body; on the other, that the distinction sought to be established by the bill was groundless and unjust, and that, if the

1 Kennet's Register, 476.

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CHAP, Catholics consented to purchase relief for themA.D. 1663. selves by the proscription of the order, they would entail on their memory the stigma of selfishness and perfidy. Amidst these altercations, the committee at Arundel House was dissolved; the progress of the bill was suspended, at the request of the Catholic peers; and in the succeeding session no one ventured to recall it to the attention of parliament.1

6. Though the kingdom presented everywhere the appearance of tranquillity, the different parties continued to look on each other with jealousy and apprehension. That there existed many who, if they had possessed the means, wanted not the will, to overturn the royal government, cannot be doubted; and these, by the imprudence of their language or their carriage, might occasionally minister just cause of suspicion; but, on the other hand, there were also many whose credulity was as extravagant as their loyalty; who could discover traces of guilt in conduct innocent or indifferent; and who daily besieged the council-board with the history of their fears, and with denunciations of treason. Most of these informers met with de

1 Journals, xi. 276, 286, 299, 310. Kennet's Register, 469, 476, 484, 495. Orleans, 236. Letter from a Person of Quality to a Peer of the Realm, &c. 1661. Clarendon, in his account of this transaction (p. 143), tells us that the Jesuits were apprehensive of being excluded from the benefit of the act, and broke up the committee at Arundel House by declaring that "Catholics could not, "with a good conscience, deprive the pope of his temporal authority, "which he hath in all kingdoms granted to him by God himself." But Clarendon is, as usual, incorrect; for they were actually excluded from the benefit of the act (Journ. 310); and in their "rea"sons," published by them at the time, they declare that ever since the year 1618 all Jesuits, by order of their general, "are obliged, "under pain of damnation, not to teach the doctrine" which Clarendon ascribes to them, "either in word, writing, or print."Kennet's Reg. 496.