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veying her desire of amity, her tolerant policy, and her unshaken protestantism. Caraffa, a noble Venetian, who then filled the papal throne by the name of Paul IV., made answer with a haughtiness unquenched on his death-bed, and with the marble inflexibility of fourscore, "that England was a fief of the apostolic see; that she could not succeed, being illegitimate; that the reigning pontiff could not reverse the decrees of his predecessor against the marriage; but that, notwithstanding her boldness in presuming to wear the crown without his previous assent, being yet desirous to show a fatherly affection towards an illustrious nation, and to a lady of high though not unstained lineage, if she would renounce her pretensions, and refer herself wholly to his generosity, he should be disposed to do for her whatever could be done consistently with the honour of the apostolic see.' "* To this arrogant answer many historians have ascribed the separation of England. But cardinal Pallavicino, though he blames the obstinate folly of the pontiff, which thus rejected every chance of reconciling England, adds, with his accustomed sagacity, that the mildness of Elizabeth's language was only an opiate used to lull the pontiff to sleep, till her power should be secured; but that she would quickly throw off the mask, and act with the zeal of an obstinate heretic, who was herself declared to be a bastard, and whose mother was pronounced to be a prostitute by the doctrines and authorities of the catholic church.† The advances of Elizabeth did not deceive the Roman court. ‡ Elizabeth commanded her minister to return; the pope prohibited him from leaving Rome under pain of excommunication, and offered him a provision as master of the English hospital. Carne, in his despatches to London, protested against his detention, and solemnly declared that he would rather beg his bread homeward than seem to disobey his sovereign's command. It was, neverthe

Fra Paolo, lib. v.

+ Pallavicino, lib. xiv. c. 8. The orthography seems to have been either with a termination in i or in o indifferently.

+ "Nec fefellerint hæc pontificem Romanum.". Camd. Ann.

*

less, suspected that the veteran diplomatist, actuated by deep-rooted attachment to the ancient faith, had voluntarily procured the exile of which he affected to complain. He died at Rome in 1561, no otherwise worthy of historical notice, than as the last of a long succession of ministers who had for 800 years maintained the ecclesiastical and pontifical intercourse between England and the see of Rome: for the brief and abortive effort to revive it in the following century cannot be regarded as a substantial exception.

When Caraffa found Elizabeth inaccessible to his menaces, he issued a bull, in which he did not name her, but confirmed the excommunication and the other punishments provided against all heretics, whether they be subjects or sovereigns; and deprived heretical sovereigns of their dominions, inflicting upon them an incapacity to be restored by any authority; and excluded them all, comprehending in the exclusion persons of regal and imperial dignity, from every solace of human intercourse and society.† Caraffa died a few months afterwards, loaded with the curses of the Romans: his statue was thrown into the Tiber, and his remains were with difficulty saved from the fury of the raging populace. Had the accession of Elizabeth been somewhat later, the reception of her advances by Paul's successor, Pius IV., a prince of the house of Medici, would have been more courteous, and might perhaps have preserved to the Roman court the possibility of advantage, which depended on the continuance of an amicable correspondence with England. For in May, 1560, the pope despatched Parpaglia, abbot of St. Saviour, to the queen, with letters full of respect and affection, imploring her to return to the communion of the church, and assuring her of his readiness to contribute to the happiness of her soul and

"Creditur tamen solertem senem hoc exilium ex inflammato Romanæ religionis studio sponte elegisse." -Camd. Ann.

+This bull, hitherto only vaguely alluded to by historians, is in the Bullarium Romanum, i. 840. editio Lucem. 1727. 15th March, 1559. It was confirmed by Pius V., in a bull which subjects all dignities, including the royal, to the tribunals of inquisition. Bullar. Roman. ii. 214. This last bull expressly names the bull of Paul IV. (Caraffa). It bears date on the 12th January, 1567. See afterward the bull of February, 1569.

the establishment of her royal dignity. He is even said to have verbally instructed Parpaglia to promise that, if she would return to the bosom of the catholic church, and submit to the parental authority of the apostolic see, his holiness would declare the validity of her mother's marriage, permit the use of the English liturgy, and allow the sacrament in both kinds to the laity.* Parpaglia was not, however, allowed to enter England. Pius IV., not altogether despairing, renewed his efforts in the succeeding year. Martinengo, an Italian abbot, in April, 1561, announced from Brussels to the English ministers, that he was desirous of proceeding to London on the part of the most holy father, to represent to the queen the earnest wishes of his holiness to reconcile her and her subjects to the rest of Christendom; and to entreat her, for that end, to send her prelates to the general council about to be holden in the city of Trent. A privy council was assembled at Greenwich, on the 1st of May, 1561, to consider this momentous proposition. It was there determined that it was impossible" to allow the pope's jurisdiction within this realm to any purpose, without shaking the queen's title to the throne, which was evidently irreconcilable with the decrees of the Roman pontiff; that the appearance of a nuncio in London would countenance the false reports of the queen's intention to change her religion, and thereby encourage the audacity of the disaffected, as well as render faithful subjects fearful of manifesting their affection; that, besides the highest motive of religion, it was inconsistent with common prudence to run the least hazard of a new religious revolution, at the very moment that the country was beginning to recover from the last; that the legate then in Ireland was active in stirring up revolt; that Parpaglia was in the former year charged with the task of exciting a rebellion in England; and that a general council, though if really independent it would be most acceptable in England, must, in the present circum

* Camden, i. 73.

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stances, be regarded as a papal lure.* Had the Roman government been disposed, at the accession, to grant all that they are supposed to have authorised Parpaglia to offer, Elizabeth might perhaps have purchased a truce with a formidable antagonist, by concessions to the English catholics far beyond the usage of that period.†

But the time for such negotiations was now past: the council advised that Martinengo should not be allowed to enter the kingdom. The queen's policy consisted in showing that steady countenance to her opponents which alone could secure the fidelity of adherents. The history of the dealing of the Roman see with the Lutheran reformation is crowded with such lessons to all who bear sway over nations in seasons of trouble and peril. The grant of the cup to the laity, the use of the vulgar tongue in worship and instruction, even the celibacy of the clergy, were generally owned to concern matters of discipline only, where concessions might be made without derogation from the unerring judgment of the catholic church. But the pretension to infallibility had not only perverted the understanding, but corrupted and inflamed the temper of the papal counsellors. Its influence extended beyond its argumentative consequences: it begat a haughty spirit, a stubborn pride, an undistinguishing defiance of all attempts to conciliate, in cases where they might have yielded without inconsistency. The effect of this was, that the British islands were completely separated from the Roman communion, and France nearly so; to say nothing of the degree in which the ancient faith throughout Christendom was undermined. ‡

Hardwicke Papers, i. 180.

+ This could only be, if all the terms which Parpaglia was supposed to have the power of granting, except the recognition of Anne Boleyn's mar. riage, be understood as confined to the English catholics only.

All attempts have proved unsuccessful to recover either the count de Feria's propositions of marriage, or Carne's despatches, containing the account of Caraffa's answer to Elizabeth. But the numerous allusions to the former in the letters of the chief actors in these scenes leave no doubt of the fact. The truth of the latter may be considered as established by the consideration, that though it rests much on the testimony of father Paul, it is not contradicted, but rather tacitly assumed, by his acrimonious opponent, cardinal Pallavicino, who wrote from the Roman records, and might have known those who were of full age at the accession of Elizabeth.

The final breach between Elizabeth and Rome probably contributed to the sudden cessation of Philip's efforts to obtain her hand. Her marriage continued to be a subject of the deepest interest, not only to her own people, but to all zealous and reflecting catholics and protestants throughout Europe. Philip, after his own failure, laboured to obtain the hand of Elizabeth for his cousin the archduke Charles. Her encouragement of this union was ascribed by continental politicians to her hope that an alliance between England and Austrian Germany might in some degree curb the ambition and counterpoise the power of the two great crowns of France and Spain. The protestants were suspicious of its tendency to introduce a popish influence into England, while the court of Rome dreaded that the heretical queen might lessen the union of catholic sovereigns. The negotiation was renewed, partly perhaps to parry the importunity of parliament for the queen's marriage, from 1563 to 1565 †; and, on the latter occasion, it was promoted by Leicester, with a zeal which indicates the extinction of the ambitious hopes ascribed to him. Elizabeth refused to allow the public exercise of any religion but the protestant in her dominions; a matter which, from the long continuance of the negotiation, appears to have been deemed not incapable of compromise. The apprehension of the success of the negotiation procured for Elizabeth a suitor of fourteen years of age in the person of the duke of Anjou, who afterwards ruled France under the name of Henry III.; a prince whose brutal amours and acquiescence in cruelty do not appear to have been relieved by a solitary virtue. Castelnau visited Britain in 1566, to tender for the queen's choice either him or his brother Charles IX.; two marriages so seductive, but so execrable, that it would be hard to find a parallel for them in history. §

In the matrimonial negotiations with the royal family *Throgmorton to privy council. Paris, 10th June, 1559. Forbes, i. 120. Id. to Cecil, 18th November, 1569. Forbes, i. 265. + Haynes, 407. 419. 436. in Cecil's Germany.

Ellis, second series, ii. 206.

letters to Mundt, a secret agent in

Mém. de Castelnau, liv. v. ch. 11, 12,

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