Henrietta Maria Part 18

Charles himself thought that a little French money and a little French influence would settle everything. His enemies were manifestly cast down, not only by the death of Richelieu, but by the accounts which reached London of the kind reception which had been given to the Queen. But, nevertheless, Henrietta was to find disappointment here as elsewhere.

France was in no condition to give such help as would have sufficed for her needs. The country was overtaxed, and though the new reign was brightened by the eclat of the victory of Recroy, at which the young Duke of Enghien, afterwards the great Conde, won his reputation, yet the war with Spain was a terrible burden. Moreover, in spite of the a.s.sertions of the Queen-Regent and her advisers that it was the means and not the will that was lacking, there is little doubt that the French Government was beginning to see in the English troubles a state of affairs highly satisfactory to itself.

Besides, Mazarin certainly inherited from Richelieu a distrust of Charles and Henrietta. The Queen was specially distrusted. The English Catholics had not quite forgotten her French birth, but it was believed in France that they had inclined her to Spain, an opinion which was strengthened by the fact that up to the time of her leaving England two of her princ.i.p.al advisers were the Digbys, father and son,[318] who were well known to be pro-Spanish in their sympathies. Mazarin was quite aware of Henrietta's influence over her husband, and he hoped that her removal from his side would help to turn Charles' eyes from Spain.

And there were other and more personal reasons for Mazarin's distrust of the Queen of England. Henrietta, who was always too p.r.o.ne to believe that good diplomacy consisted in cultivating relations with all parties at once, allowed her amba.s.sador Goring to meddle in the intrigues which grew up round Mazarin as they had round Richelieu, a fact of which the Cardinal, who had inherited a perfect system of espionage, was quite aware. By the time Henrietta reached France the power of the Importants was broken, and Madame de Chevreuse had again left the Court. The exiled Queen desired greatly to see her old friend, and without pausing to consider how imprudent was the appearance of any connection between herself and that factious lady, she asked her sister-in-law's permission to have an interview with the d.u.c.h.ess, permission which with all courtesy was refused, at the instance of Mazarin. The Cardinal, moreover, caused the Queen of England to be warned against others of her old friends, among whom may be mentioned M. de Chateauneuf, who had indeed escaped public disgrace, but who was known to be as inimical to Mazarin as ever he had been to Richelieu.[319]

Thus it came about that, in spite of the kind words and occasional a.s.sistance of the Queen-Regent and of Cardinal Mazarin,[320] Henrietta was less successful than she had hoped to be, and could by no means persuade Mazarin to an open breach with the Parliamentary party, whose strength he was beginning to appreciate. "I have not found the means of engaging France as forwardly in your interest as I expected," she wrote sadly to Charles.

In 1645 she was informed that all the French Government could do for her was to permit her to make levies in the country (and she was so poor that it was thought she would not take advantage of the permission), and to make an appeal to the clergy of France on behalf of the necessities of the King of England.

Of this last grace Henrietta availed herself eagerly; but of all the many injudicious acts which she committed at this period of her life, this appeal to the clergy of a race and of a faith alien to those of her subjects was one of the most injudicious. The outburst of anti-Catholic rage which she had witnessed in England ought to have taught her prudence; but hers was not a mind to learn by experience. Moreover, she seems from the outbreak of the war to have looked upon the Puritans as irreconcilables who could only be subdued by force, and whom it was useless to attempt to propitiate. She thought also, and most erroneously, that they were but a small minority of the nation.

The Queen had recovered her spirits. Not only had Mazarin, in spite of his official refusals, sent her secretly a sum of money sufficient to raise her ever-ready hopes, but she expected great things from a growing friendship with Emery, the Deputy Treasurer and one of the richest men in France. To complete her satisfaction the clergy showed great sympathy with her, and sent her, on their first a.s.sembling, a sum of money as an earnest of more to come[321]; which money was immediately laid out in raising levies for England.

The a.s.sembly of the French clergy, which was presided over by the Cardinal-Archbishop of Lyons, the brother of the great Richelieu, met in May, 1645, but it was not until the February of the following year that the case of the Queen of England was seriously considered. Henrietta's advocate on this occasion was probably the best that could have been chosen. The Bishop of Angouleme during his sojourn in England had resisted in a really praiseworthy manner those foreign influences which had corrupted some of his fellow-countrymen who resided there, and he was perhaps regarded in Paris with greater favour than any other of the Queen's servants. He was, moreover, a speaker and preacher of repute, and the oration which he delivered before the Fathers of the Church was not only a fine piece of oratory, but was skilfully constructed to work as much as possible upon the feelings of his audience.[322]

He dwelt upon the miserable condition of the Catholic Church in England, which, before these troubles, had begun, after a century of persecution, to raise its head under the protection of the Queen. He a.s.serted (what was true) that were the King forced to make terms with his foes, the Catholics would be the scapegoat. He drew lurid word-pictures of the terrible consequences to the Church throughout Europe should the impious rebels succeed in their object of setting up a Puritan republic in England. Then he turned to the even more powerful argument of self-interest. The Huguenots, he said, who were beaten down but not destroyed, were looking across the Channel to the Puritans of England, whose real design was the destruction of the Catholic Church as well in France as in their own land.

To help forward this project of the Evil One large sums of money were being dispatched by the French Protestants to aid the armies of rebellion in England.[323]

"Res tua tunc agitur, paries c.u.m proximus ardet,"

cried the good Bishop, hoping, not without reason, to arouse the fears of his audience; for it was only twenty years since the fall of Roch.e.l.le, and the revival of the power of the Huguenots, which it had required the strong hand of Richelieu to repress, was an ever-present terror to the French Catholics. But Du Perron was not content with such arguments. He was able to make a statement which he hoped would tell much in favour of the cause he was advocating. He declared that the King of England had promised in writing to his wife that if he were restored by Catholic help he would repeal every law against the Catholics on the statute book,[324] and the Bishop added that he was at liberty to make this statement, as its purport was already known to the Puritans through the interception of the King's letter. That Charles made this promise there is no reason to doubt; that had cause arisen he would have broken it, as he broke others, is in the highest degree probable.[325] Perhaps the French bishops knew the man with whom they had to deal, perhaps they were instructed by Mazarin, whom they were too well trained not to consult. Be this as it may, the results of the eloquence of the Bishop of Angouleme were disappointing, even though he enforced his arguments by descriptions of the piteous condition of Henrietta and of her children, "the grandsons, the nephews, and the cousins of three of our Kings." The clergy of France did not feel able to offer to the Queen of England more than a few thousand crowns, "a somme fitter to buy hangings for a chamber than prosecute a war,"[326] as a newswriter of the day said.

But disappointed as the Queen was, she quickly turned to other hopes and schemes.

Ever since the Irish rebellion of 1641 Puritan scandal had linked Henrietta's name with that of the rebels. The accusation as it stood was ridiculous, but the Confederate Catholics,[327] as the Irish in arms called themselves, certainly hoped something from the Catholic Queen, and in 1642 they presented to her a pet.i.tion, in which they begged her "Hester-like intercession to our most gracious Prince." They heard with sympathy of her arrival in Paris, and again dispatched a letter to congratulate her on that event.

She, on her side, regarded the Confederate Catholics as rebels in arms against their lawful King; but she had a certain sympathy with them as the victims of Puritan intolerance, and she thought, like her husband, that it might be possible to turn their arms against worse enemies. With this end in view she carried on negotiations with a certain Colonel FitzWilliams, whom she found in Paris, and for the same purpose she cultivated the acquaintance of the agent of the Confederate Catholics in that city, Father O'Hartegan, the Jesuit.

This patriot, who was of a type not uncommon in his native land, was greatly pleased at the notice of the Queen of England, whom he believed to be on the point of starting for Ireland. He also thought, on account of some slight attention shown to him by Mazarin,[328] that France, which up till now had shown herself very cool to the necessities of the persecuted Irish Catholics, and had even, by the mouth of the Cardinal, lectured them on their lack of loyalty to their sovereign, was about to do her duty by them. "What is needed," remarked the Jesuit modestly, "is 200,000 crowns out of hand, with a good store of arms and ammunition, and promise of yearly favour."

O'Hartegan had reason for his good spirits. His glib tongue recommended him where he was not too well known, and he was caressed by the English Catholics in Paris and by Jermyn, who was the more entirely satisfactory to deal with, inasmuch as he had no religious scruples of any kind. Moreover, the affairs of the Confederate Catholics were going very well in Rome.

When Henrietta had been but a short time in France, the news of two deaths arrived, that of Elizabeth, Queen of Spain, and that of Maffeo Barberini, Pope Urban VIII.

The Queen of England had long ceased to be in close touch with her sister,[329] but it was thought that she would be greatly distressed at the death of the Pope, for the Barberini had always been considered her friends. But it may be that she was not altogether displeased. Any change in the personnel of the European Courts meant a fresh chance for her schemes; and though Urban had been kind enough to send her 25,000 crowns, which she, or perhaps her husband, acknowledged from Oxford in 1643,[330]

yet he had shown himself somewhat callous to her larger claims, and it was perhaps not unknown to her that Cardinal Francesco, in spite of his often-repeated professions of friendship, had been the first foreign prince to contribute to the necessities of the rebellious Confederate Catholics.

The new Pope, Innocent X, was believed to favour Spain as his predecessor had favoured France, but Henrietta had not lived for nearly twenty years among the English Catholics without having learned to consider this an advantage rather than otherwise in religious negotiations. She determined to send an envoy to Rome, ostensibly to congratulate the Pope upon his accession, and O'Hartegan learned that her choice had fallen upon her old friend Sir Kenelm Digby.

There are few more picturesque figures in the history of the time than that of this gentleman: a scholar who was welcome among the learned of all nations, a chemist who was half scientist, half charlatan, a naval commander who had brought home stories even more remarkable than the majority of travellers' tales, it is not surprising that he should have attracted the attention of the Queen, who liked brilliant people. She may perhaps also have been touched by the strange story of his love, which had bound him in affectionate marriage to a woman who had been the acknowledged mistress of another man. But she ought to have known better than to send him to Rome. Not only was he a vain and undependable person--a teller of strange tales, as even the courteous Evelyn described him--but the religious vacillations and experiments which had made him unwelcome a few years earlier to Urban VIII were not likely to commend him to Innocent X, who would be less attracted by his learning and accomplishments than his scholarly predecessor. The English Catholics in Paris who opposed the appointment were wiser than could be understood by Henrietta; she added to her mistake by permitting the envoy who was going to Rome on an international mission, and who above all should have shown himself strictly impartial between the rival factions of English Catholicism, to take upon him before leaving Paris the charge of advancing at the Papal Court the interests of the Chapter, which, after the banishment of the Bishop of Chalcedon, claimed ecclesiastical authority in England, whose pretensions were resolutely opposed by the regular and some even of the secular clergy.[331]

And Sir Kenelm had hardly reached Rome when the need for help became more pressing than ever, for the 14th of June of that same year was the day of Naseby.

It was a crushing defeat, and after it the royal party never really rallied. Henrietta, in her unconquerable hopefulness, thought that now, at her extremity, France would come effectually to her aid; but Mazarin feared to offend the Puritans more than he feared their dominance, and the old weary round of intrigue was pursued with the same lack of result. Even an offer from which the Queen hoped much, made to her by the Duke of Bouillon, of raising troops for England round Cologne, came to nothing, because the Cardinal believed that the real intention of Bouillon was to use these men in the interests of Spain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR KENELM DIGBY

FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY VAN DYCK]

And Naseby was more than a military defeat. On that fatal field, through some misfortune or negligence, fell into the enemy's hand the papers of the King.[332] Nothing more unfortunate could have occurred. The secrecy of these letters, which were shortly published in London with choice comments, was worth more to Charles and Henrietta than men or money. Their publication betrayed the schemes in which the Queen had been spending her strength for winning back England by foreign troops or by foreign gold. It revealed how greatly the King was under the influence of his wife, and how deeply she was compromised with the hated Irish. Most disastrous of all, it showed how at the very time that he was promising to support the Protestant religion and never to permit Catholicism, he was secretly giving her authority to pledge his word for the complete toleration of the hated religion. He stood revealed as what he was, a shifty and untrustworthy man.

After Naseby Charles was never trusted again.

Henrietta probably did not appreciate the magnitude of the disaster, and she turned again cheerfully to the tortuous intrigues from which she hoped so much.

At first it seemed as if Sir Kenelm Digby's mission would be successful.

The smaller Italian princes to whom he appealed he found indeed "a frugal generation," but the Pope received him with great kindness, and appeared charmed by his flow of persuasive eloquence and by the piety and fascination of his manners. He even gave him an order for 20,000 crowns, to be used in arms and munitions of war, which the Queen of England gratefully acknowledged from S. Germain in September, 1645.[333] So far so good, but neither she nor her agent knew the odds against which they were fighting.

Henrietta always believed that her husband's leniency to the Catholics during his years of power had given him a claim upon the grat.i.tude of the whole Catholic world. She also knew better than any one else what the hatred of the Puritans to her co-religionists really was, and what their domination might mean. But at Rome matters were looked at in another light.

A certain interest was taken in Charles, and considerable sympathy was felt for his unhappy wife; but neither were trusted. Henrietta was believed to be guided by heretics, and even, through their influence, to have been in the past "a powerful instrument for the destruction of the Catholics and of the Catholic religion";[334] while Charles was disliked as a heretic, and his failures to keep his word--his persecution of the Catholics in 1626, his desertion of Strafford and the like--were reckoned up against him with pitiless accuracy. As he had been in the past so no doubt would he be in the future. It cannot be said that it was a misreading of Charles'

character which led the Pope and his advisers to think that he would have taken the money of the Church and then thrown over the Catholics, if by doing so he could further his own interests. And there were other and better claimants in the case. Hopes at Rome were rising high with regard to Ireland. Urban VIII, in 1628, had thought it would be a nice arrangement for all concerned if that island were handed over to the Holy See. Innocent X's designs were not quite so far-reaching, and he recommended loyalty to the King of England; but he thought that it might be possible to coerce a faithless and heretic Prince by means of the Confederate Catholics.

Moreover, that body, which had agents all over Europe, was fortunate enough to have in Rome a representative as able and effective as Sir Kenelm Digby was the reverse, in the person of Father Luke Wadding, of the Order of St.

Francis. This friar left Ireland when he was a boy of fifteen, and he never saw again his native land; but throughout a long life which he spent roaming about the Continent he preserved a fervid Hibernian patriotism, of which the effects are felt to the present day.[335] At this time he was living in Rome, and any slight feeling of loyalty to the King of England which he may have once possessed had long ago been lost in the desire to see his faith and his race triumph over the hated oppressor. It was he who had prevailed upon Cardinal Frances...o...b..rberini to send money to Ireland, and though he had not been able to rouse the cautious Urban VIII to any considerable effort,[336] he prepared with undiminished hope to use all his influence to win over Innocent X, from whose Spanish sympathies he augured the happiest results.

And indeed it was largely owing to the representations of this Irish friar that, in the summer of 1645, while Sir Kenelm Digby was still feted in Rome, an envoy on his way from the Pope to the Confederate Catholics appeared in Paris bearing a large sum of money, which the indefatigable Wadding had ama.s.sed for the use of the faithful in his native land.

Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo, was a worthy ecclesiastic of middle age. It is said that he was appointed to this delicate mission to pleasure the Grand Duke of Tuscany, whose subject he was. He had, however, a certain interest in the British Isles, because as a young man he had been a.s.sociated with a Scotch Capuchin, by name George Leslie, of whom he wrote an edifying biography, which may be considered an early example of religious romance.[337] Clarendon stigmatizes him as a "light-headed envoy," but the epithet is hardly happy as applied to this stern, unbending Churchman, whose unalterable determination it was that the money of the Church should not be squandered to further the interests of a heretic sovereign. In this respect, indeed, he followed with fidelity the instructions given to him which dwelt upon the necessity of the strongest guarantees of real benefit to the Catholics before money was advanced to the King of England, and which altogether would have been instructive, if not pleasant, reading for Charles and Henrietta.

The Queen was indeed already beginning to repent of her overtures to the Confederate Catholics,[338] for in the early part of the year some letters of O'Hartegan had fallen into the hands of the Roundheads, who caused them to be printed. These letters spoke disrespectfully of her, and showed how cheaply the Jesuit held the advantage of the King, so that Charles, who was wont to feel great indignation at every one's self-seeking and shiftiness except his own, wrote to his wife that the agent was "an arrant knave."[339] Rinuccini's arrival in Paris made matters worse. Henrietta was a Catholic, but she was a queen also, and it was an insult to which she could not tamely submit that the Pope should send an envoy to those who, after all, were rebels in arms against her husband. She wrote a dignified letter of remonstrance to Innocent, and she refused to receive Rinuccini except as a private person, a condition which the amba.s.sador, one of whose strongest characteristics was his personal vanity, declined to accept.

The poor Queen was indeed in a mesh from which there was no escape, and she knew not how to carry out the task of so settling the affairs of Ireland that the King might be able to draw troops therefrom. She desired to make peace between Ormonde, her husband's Viceroy, and the Catholics, and her difficulties were such as attend all persons who, being in authority, are obliged to seek at one and the same time the help of representatives of opposing interests. Rinuccini, seeing her under the influence of Protestants, concluded, not unjustly on his own premises, that the duty of the Holy Father was to turn a deaf ear to her entreaties for aid, and to send such moneys as he could afford to the Confederate Catholics, whose loyalty to the Holy See was not compromised by any inconvenient devotion to a heretic Prince. Out in Rome Sir Kenelm was begging and praying for help, unconscious of the fact that the envoy was warning the Pope against him, and a.s.serting, probably with some truth, that the rosy pictures which he drew of the intentions of the King of England with regard to the Catholics were greatly over-coloured. The Confederate Catholics in Ireland were waiting eagerly for the coming of Rinuccini, and had little desire to help the King of England, except in so far as such help would conduce to the realization of their chief object, the emanc.i.p.ation of Ireland from the hated foreigner.

Rinuccini, after a considerable delay in Paris, whence he wrote many letters to Rome expressing his views with great frankness upon the Queen of England and her advisers, pushed on to Ireland, where, far from making peace with Ormonde or with any one else, he set everybody by the ears--not a difficult task, it is true, in that island--and ended by excommunicating most of the Confederate Catholics themselves. Steps were taken by some of the victims to find out the opinion of the Sorbonne as to the validity of this sweeping ecclesiastical censure.

Meanwhile, in Paris, Henrietta was dragging on her old life of intrigue and disappointment. The presence at her side of Jermyn, whose great influence over her was generally remarked,[340] was not in her favour, either with the extreme Catholics, who disliked him as a heretic, or with the French, who considered him, with justice, to be a man of mediocre ability, and who were pleased to see that the Queen, in spite of her subservience, could sometimes a.s.sert her will against his. The French Government was becoming more and more afraid to provoke the Puritans, whom Mazarin feared to throw into the arms of Spain. The defeat of Naseby, whose importance the Queen and her friends vainly endeavoured to minimize, was followed by the hardly less disastrous day of Philiphaugh, when Montrose was overwhelmed by an army of the Covenant. Thus the year 1646 broke in gloom and despondency, which were not lightened when a scheme of the Queen's for the invasion of England by French troops was discovered by the interception of her letters.[341] In the spring affairs had so far advanced that Charles, with a confidence rendered pathetic by the event, gave himself up into the hands of the Scots, the true compatriots of a Stuart King.

For a moment there seemed to be hope, and it is possible that Charles might have recovered his crown had he been able to accept unreservedly the Covenant. His refusal to give up the Church of England, which was one of the most respectable acts of his life, brought upon him remonstrances, entreaties, and almost anger from his wife, to whom all Protestants were heretics alike. She even sent D'Avenant to him to represent her wishes on the subject; but Charles, with a violence he did not often show, drove the hapless poet from his presence with an intimation that he was never to enter it again. Mazarin at this time seems to have desired the King's restoration by means of an accommodation, though, owing to the ever-present fear of Spain, he would not openly a.s.sist him. He could not repress his scorn for the man who could throw away his crown for such a bagatelle as the Church of England. In fact, he frankly owned that he could not understand Charles. The latter had granted concessions which compromised his kingly dignity; why make a fuss about a trifle which, nevertheless, if conceded, might restore him to power? The Cardinal urged the French amba.s.sador in England to do all he could to bring the King to reason; but the latter, who was becoming very sceptical as to the friendship of the French,[342] was not likely to listen. The chance was lost, and Charles soon found himself a prisoner in the hands of the English Presbyterians.

His countrymen, to whom in the days of his power he had shown favour not always in accordance with his own interests, had sold him to his enemies.

Once again, a year later, there was a lifting of the clouds. In 1647 it became evident that the Puritan party was growing weary of the Presbyterian tyranny. As is commonly the case in revolutions, wilder and stronger spirits were crowding out the more moderate reformers who had begun the battle. The Independents, to whom in large measure the victories of Marston Moor and Naseby were due, had control of the army, and the great figure of Cromwell, which soon was to bestride England like a Colossus, was coming to the front. In the late spring it seemed as if Charles and the Presbyterians might come to terms. On June 4th a deputation from the army waited on the King at Holmby House, where he was imprisoned, took possession of his person, and carried him off to Newmarket.

The Independents showed great respect for their royal prisoner, and it seemed as if they would be willing to make an accommodation with him.

Henrietta, in Paris, whither all news was quickly carried, thought with her usual hopefulness that at last, at the darkest hour, the day was dawning.

There happened to be at her Court two gentlemen who seemed well fitted to act as intermediaries between Charles and the Independents; one of them, Sir John Denham, the bearer of a name which is still remembered in English literature, had improved a sojourn in prison by making friends with that worthy army chaplain Hugh Peters, who was closely connected with the Independent leaders; the other, Sir Edward Ford, was Ireton's brother-in-law. These two slipped across the Channel, and they were permitted to see the King; but whether the Queen did not feel much confidence in her envoys (and, indeed, Denham was a rash and headstrong man who died insane), or whether her restlessness would not permit her to cease from fresh attempts to improve her husband's position, she determined to send another emissary of higher standing to intermeddle in this delicate negotiation.

Just at this time Sir John Berkeley, who had distinguished himself during the war as Governor of Exeter, was returning from Holland, whither he had been to express the Queen's condolences on the death of the Prince of Orange. He was almost unknown to Henrietta personally, but she was aware of his reputation for loyalty and good sense, and she knew also perhaps that he was regarded with respect by the enemy; he had hardly arrived at S.

Germain-en-Laye, where she was keeping her Court, when he accidentally fell in with one of her servants, Lord Culpepper.

"You must prepare for another journey, Sir John," said the latter; "the Queen designs to send you into England."

Berkeley, as is not surprising, was rather taken aback. England was the last place to which he desired to go; he knew none of the Independent leaders, and, as he justly remarked, it was a pity to send over too many of the King's servants to share in the places and preferments which those worthies hoped to keep for themselves; but Culpepper waived these objections aside. "If you are afraid, Sir John," he said contemptuously, "the Queen can easily find some one else to do her business."

No man of spirit could bear such an imputation. Berkeley, against his better judgment, set off to add another to the long list of the Queen's diplomatic failures.[343]

Another failure more personal and even more bitter was awaiting her.

In the first days of 1646 Sir Kenelm Digby appeared in Paris; he was immediately received by the Queen, and "he got three hours' conference with her and in end she seemed to be verie well pleased."[344] It appears that he brought with him for the Queen's consideration and the King's confirmation a doc.u.ment which he had drawn up in Rome and which had been provisionally accepted by the Pope, though a copy had been sent to Rinuccini for such emendations as he might think fit. By these articles Innocent agreed, in return for the abolition of the Penal Laws in England and the public establishment of Catholicism in Ireland, to make a grant, 100,000 crowns; but in his distrust of Charles he provided that the money should not be paid to the Queen until the King had carried out the provisions with regard to Ireland. It was further agreed that Irish troops under Catholic leaders should be taken into the King's service in England.[345]

It is hardly likely that either Charles or Henrietta relished these articles, which showed plainly enough how deeply they were distrusted at Rome, and which required so much before they could touch a penny of the coveted money. Perhaps the King was indignant with Sir Kenelm for suggesting such terms, for it was probably against his wishes that the knight, after the failure of his negotiations, was again dispatched to Rome in the autumn. He carried with him, however, the undiminished confidence of the Queen,[346] and by October he was fixed at the Papal Court waiting for the help which never came.

And, indeed, his chances of success were even slighter than before; he was, it is true, the most accomplished cavalier of his time--"the Magazine of all arts," as he was called. Distinguished foreigners who visited the Eternal City came to see him, and went away quite fascinated by his stores of learning and by his agreeable conversation; had he been dropped from the clouds on to any part of the world he would have made himself respected, said his admirers. Yes, retorted the Jesuits, who did not love him, but then he must not remain above six weeks; the trouble was that he had been in Rome a good deal more than six weeks. The Pope was tired of his endless talk and was beginning to think that he was mad, which perhaps was not far from the truth; his folly in mixing up matters of high policy concerning the King and Queen of England with an affair of purely ecclesiastical interest, such as the recognition of the Chapter, was commented on, and the extraordinary bitterness which both he and his friends displayed towards their opponents, among whom were the powerful religious Orders, was not in his favour; his position was further injured by his intimacy with Thomas White, a learned but eccentric priest then in Rome, who, afterward the elaborator of a theory of government which, like that of Hobbes, was believed to be a bid for the favour of Cromwell,[347] was already regarded with suspicion by the orthodox as unsound both in theology and philosophy; finally, the envoy suffered by the absence of Frances...o...b..rberini, who had withdrawn from Rome. The Cardinal had not, it is true, been a very faithful friend[348] to the Queen of England, but in spite of occasional lapses he felt a certain interest in English affairs which might have counteracted in some measure the Irish influence brought to bear upon the Pope. Nor was it only Sir Kenelm who was out of favour; his cousin George Digby, through whose hands pa.s.sed the negotiations of the King and Queen with the Irish, was industriously misrepresented by Rinuccini, while there were those who did not scruple to insinuate that the Queen required money for her private purposes, and that Jermyn, the heretic Jermyn, would have the spending of it. So greatly was the Pope influenced by these scandals that even those who favoured Henrietta and who would gladly have seen the Holy See unite with France to restore the King of England thought that Digby's best policy would be to plead for a grant of money for Ireland; but this course was prevented by the extraordinary conduct of Rinuccini, which has been already referred to, and which caused great wrath in the school of Catholics to which Digby belonged. It would be well, wrote White bitterly to Sir Kenelm, if the Pope could send into Ireland "such orders, or rather such a man, that may conserve the peace and seek more after the substance than after the outside of religion."[349]

Thus affairs stood in Rome at the crisis of 1647.