1662. favour to the nonconformists; (for that became the common name to them all, as puritan had been before the war:) they were the rather to bestir. themselves to procure a toleration for them in general terms, that they themselves might be comprehended within it. The lord Aubigny seconded the motion. He said, it was so visibly the interest of England to make a great body of the trading men stay within the kingdom, and be made easy in it, that it would have a good grace in them to seem zealous for it: and, to draw in so great a number of those, who had been hitherto the hottest against them, to feel their care, and to see their zeal to serve them; he recommended to them to make this the subject of all their discourses, and to engage all their friends in the design. Bennet did not meet with them, but was known to be of the secret; as the lord Stafford told me in the tower a little before his 194 death. But that lord soon withdrew from those meetings: for he apprehended the earl of Bristol's heat, and that he might raise a storm against them by his indiscreet meddling.

A declaration for toleration.

The king was so far prevailed on by them, that in December 1662 he set out a declaration, that was generally thought to be procured by the lord Bristol but it had a deeper root, and was designed by the king himself. In it the king expressed his aversion to all severities on the account of religion, but more particularly to all sanguinary laws; and gave hopes, both to papists and nonconformists, that he would find out such ways for tempering the severities of the laws, that all his subjects should be easy under them. The wiser of the nonconformists saw at what all this was aimed, and so received it

for the pa

coldly. But the papists went on more warmly, and 1662. were preparing a scheme for a toleration for them, And one part of it raised great disputes among themselves. Some were for their taking the oath of allegiance, which renounced the pope's deposing power. But all those that were under a management from Rome refused this. And the internuncio at Brussels proceeded to censure those that were for it, as enemies to the papal authority. A proposition was also made for having none but secular priests tolerated in England, who should be under a bishop, and under an established government. But that all the regulars, in particular all Jesuits, should be under the strictest penalties forbid the kingdom. The earl of Clarendon set this on; for he knew Designed well it would divide the papists among themselves. pists. But, though a few honest priests, such as Blacklow, Serjeant, Caron, and Walsh, were for it, yet they could not make a party among the leading men of their own side. It was pretended, that this was set on foot with a design to divide them, and so to break their strength. The earl of Clarendon knew, that cardinal de Retz, for whom he saw the king had a particular esteem, had come over incognito, and had been with the king in private. So, to let the king see how odious a thing his being suspected of popery would be, and what a load it would lay on his government, if it came to be believed, he got some of his party, as sir Allain Brodrick told me, to move in the house of commons for an act rendering it capital to say the king was a papist. And, whereas the king was made to believe that the old cavaliers were become milder with relation to popery, the lord Clarendon upon this new act inferred,

1662. that it still appeared that the opinion of his being a papist would so certainly make him odious, that for that reason the parliament had made the spreading 195 those reports so penal. But this was taken by another handle, while some said, that this act was made on purpose, that, though the design of bringing in popery should become ever so visible, none should dare to speak of it. The earl of Clarendon had a quite contrary design in it, to let the king see how fatal the effects of any such suspicions were like to be. When the earl of Bristol's declaration was proposed in council, lord Clarendon and the bishops opposed it. But there was nothing in it directly against law, hopes being only given of endeavours to make all men easy under the king's government: so it passed. The earl of Bristol carried it as a great victory. And he, with the duke of Buckingham, and all lord Clarendon's enemies, declared openly against him. But the poor priests, who had made those honest motions, were very ill looked on by all their own party, as men gained on design to betray them. I knew all this from Peter Walsh himself, who was the honestest and learnedest man I ever knew among them. He was of Irish extraction, and of the Franciscan order: and was indeed in all points of controversy almost wholly protestant: but he had senses of his own, by which he excused his adhering to the church of Rome: and he maintained, that with these he could continue in the communion of that church without sin: and he said, that he was sure he did some good, staying still on that side, but that he could do none at all, if he should come over: he thought, no man ought to forsake that religion in which he was born

and bred, unless he was clearly convinced, that hẹ 1662. must certainly be damned if he continued in it. He was an honest and able man, much practised in intrigues, and knew well the methods of the Jesuits, and other missionaries. He told me often, there was nothing which the whole popish party feared more than an union of those of the church of Eng land with the presbyterians: they knew, we grew the weaker, the more our breaches were widened; and that, the more we were set against one another, we would mind them the less. The papists had two maxims, from which they never departed: the one was to divide us: and the other was, to keep themselves united, and either to set on an indiscriminated toleration, or a general prosecution; for so we loved to soften the harsh word of persecution. And he observed, not without great indignation at us for our folly, that we, instead of uniting among ourselves, and dividing them, according to their maxims, did all we could to keep them united, and to disjoint our own body: for he was persuaded, if the government had held an heavy hand on the regulars and the Jesuits, and had been gentle to the seculars, and had set up a distinguishing test, renouncing all sort of power in the pope over the temporal rights 196 of princes, to which the regulars and the Jesuits could never submit, that this would have engaged them into such violent quarrels among themselves, that censures would have been thundered at Rome against all that should take any such test; which would have procured much disputing, and might have probably ended in the revolt of the soberer

1662. part of that church. But he found, that, though the earl of Clarendon and the duke of Ormond liked the project, little regard was had to it by the governing party in the court.

1663.

Bristol's designs.

The church party was alarmed at all this. And though they were unwilling to suspect the king or the duke, yet the management for popery was so visible, that in the next session of parliament the king's declaration was severely arraigned, and the authors of it were plainly enough pointed at. This was done chiefly by the lord Clarendon's friends. And at this the earl of Bristol was highly displeased, and resolved to take all possible methods to ruin the earl of Clarendon. He had a great skill in astrology, and had possessed the king with an high opinion of it and told the duke of Buckingham, as he said to the earl of Rochester, Wilmot, from whom I had it, that he was confident that he would lay that before the king, which would totally alienate him both from his brother and from the lord Clarendon: for he could demonstrate, by the principles of that art, that he was to fall by his brother's means, if not by his hand: and he was sure this would work on the king. It would so, said the duke of Buckingham, but in another way than he expected for it would make the king be so afraid

:

It was always an objection to his skill in astrology, that he declared himself a papist the year before the restoration, which had disqualified him from any employment in England: but the truth was, he had turned, to qualify himself to serve under Don John, in

Flanders, who had a very great esteem for him, and there was little prospect of the change that happened the year after, nor had any almanack foretold it: but he took care to have his children brought up protestants, that they might not lie under the like disadvantage. D.