world, he said, had much overrated His Britannic Majesty, who had less capacity than Charles, and not more virtues.[1]
The two envoys of Lewis, though pursuing one object, very judiciously took different paths. They made a partition of the court. Bonrepaux lived chiefly with Rochester and Rochester's adherents. Barillon's connections were chiefly with the opposite faction. The consequence was that they sometimes saw the same event in different points of view. The best account now extant of the contest which at this time agitated Whitehall is to be found in their despatches.
As each of the two parties at the Court of James had the support of foreign princes, so each had also the support of an ecclesiastical authority to which the King paid great deference. The Supreme Pontiff was for legal and moderate courses; and his sentiments were expressed by the Nuncio and by the Vicar Apostolic.[2] On the other side was a body of which the weight balanced even the weight of the Papacy, the mighty Order of Jesus.
That at this conjuncture these two great spiritual powers, once, as it seemed, inseparably allied, should have been opposed to each other, is a most important and remarkable circumstance. During a period of little less than a thousand years the regular clergy had been the chief support of the Holy See. By that See they had been protected from episcopal interference; and the protection which they had received had been amply repaid. But for their exertions it is probable that the Bishop of Rome would have been merely the honorary president of a vast aristocracy of prelates. It was by the aid of the Benedictines that Gregory the Seventh was enabled to contend at once against the Franconian Cæsars and against the secular
- ↑ St. Simon, Mémoires, 1697, 1719; St. Evremond; La Fontaine; Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Jan. 28/Feb. 6, Feb. 8/18. 1686.
- ↑ Adda, Nov. 16/26, Dec. 7/17. and Dec. 21/31. 1685. In these despatches Adda gives strong reasons for compromising matters by abolishing the penal laws and leaving the test. He calls the quarrel with the Parliament a "gran disgrazia." He repeatedly hints that the King might, by a constitutional policy, have obtained much for the Roman Catholics, and that the attempt to relieve them illegally is likely to bring great calamities on them.
