not made Secretary of State till near the end of this Negotiation nor was he ever sent to Rome with Brian nor was Brian a Lord but only a Knight and it was a year after this Sute was first begun before Brian was imploied in it so that he could carry no such deluding Message to the Pope concerning the Queen's desiring the Divorce And for this pretension of the Queen's desiring to retire to a Monastery it was never made use of by the English Ambassadours It was on the contrary a notion of the Pope's who thought that if that could be put in her Head it would be the easiest Method of getting out of this uneasy matter and therefore he ordered his Legate Card. Campegio to advise the Queen to it And for the scandals of Brian's Life they must have been very great if they gave offence at Rome at that time but as I can not answer much for Brian so I will not trouble my self to vindicate him but he could not behave him more indecently at Rome than Campegio did in England when he came over Legate who scandalised even the Court with his lewd behaviour 31. He says the Pope was sensible of his obligations to the King and resolved to do all he could to gratify him and so ordered Cajetan to examine the matter who did it in his manner after the Method of the Schools And here he gives us an abstract of his Book He laid this down for a Maxime that the High-Priest under the N. Testament had no less Authority than the High-Priest had under the Law of Moses who had power to allow of such Mariages to good ends and in good Circumstances and that the end of this Mariage was noble that the Crowns of England and Spain being united might send their Fleets to block up Constantinople And that by this Mariage as Italy was to be set at Peace so K. Henry was diverted from marrying into Families suspect of Heresy and that therefore the Pope could not grant a Dispensation for annulling it And with his usual Confidence he cites on the Margent Cajetan's Consultation And this he says confirmed the Pope in his Resolution not to grant the Dispensation for breaking the Mariage upon any Terms whatsoever I have given such Authentick Demonstrations of the Falsehood of this Particular that I am sure the strongest Fit of Mr. Varillas's Religion can not resist them For the Pope upon the first Proposition franckly granted the Dispensation and only consulted with some Cardinals about the Methods of doing it and afterwards he sent one over to England and promised that he would do not only all that he could grant either in Law or Justice but every thing else that he could grant out of that plenitude of Power with which he was vested in the King's favour The Pope also proposed a Method that perhaps would have brought the matter to an easier issue which was that if the King was satisfied in his own Conscience concerning the Divorce in which he did not think that there was a Doctor in the whole World that could judg so well as himself then he might put away his Queen and marry another and then the Pope would confirm all For the crafty Pope thought it would be easier for him to confirm it when it was once done than to give Authority to do it and in short the Pope made the King still believe that he would do it till by that means he brought the Emperour to grant him all he desired And as for Cajetan's opinion I am now in a Countrey where I cannot find his Works so I cannot be so positive in this matter but as far as my Memory serves me Cajetan writ nothing with relation to this matter but only in the body of his School-Divinity that he had published long before this Sute began he had set on foot a new Opinion touching the Prohibitions of marrying in near Degrees which the Church by a constant Tradition had in all Times lookt on as Moral Laws whereas he asserted they were only Positive Precepts that did not bind under the Christian Religion and by consequence that there was no Law now against Mariages in those Degrees but the Law of the Church with which the Pope might dispense In all the Books that I have seen that were writ for the Queen's Cause Cajetan's Authority is brought as a thing already abroad in the World and not as a Consultation writ upon this Occasion and by what I remember of that Cardinal's Life it is said that in his reasonings with Luther he had found himself so defective in the knowledg of the Scripture that whereas formerly he had given himself wholly to the Study of School-Divinity he after that gave himself entirely to the Study of the Scripture in which making allowances for his Ignorance of the Original Tongues he succeeded to admiration But thô I cannot procure a Sight of his Treatise concerning the Degrees of Mariage the Idea that I retain of his solide way of writing makes me conclude that he was not capable of writing in so trifling a manner as Mr. Varillas represents the Matter For what Man of sense could say that the Highpriest under the Jewish Religion could dispense with a Brother's marrying his Brother's Widdow in some cases in case that a Brother died without Children his Brother or the next of Kin might have married the Widdow by the Dispensation that the Law gave and not by a Dispensation of the Highpriest And for the Ends that he pretends of those two Princes going to block up Constantinople with their Fleets a Man must be ignorant in History to the Degree of Mr. Varillas to imagine this since as the Kings of those Times had no Royal Fleets but were forced to hire Merchant Vessels when they had occasion for them so the blocking up of Constantinople was too bold a project for those Days and does not seem to have been so much as once thought on And for the other Ends that he mentions thô the procuring such a Peace to Italy as was for the Interest of the Popes was a thing for which they would have sacrificed any thing yet this differs much from P. Iulius the second 's Character who granted the Dispensation since his whole Reign was a continued Imbroilment of Italy Nor does it appear that K. Henry's Mariage could have any influence on the Peace of Italy unless it were very remote And as for the other Reason alledged for the Mariage that it diverted K. Henry from marrying into Families suspect of Heresy this is too great a violation of the Costume for it seems Mr. Varillas had the present State of Europe in his Head when he writ it but Cajetan could not write this for in the year 1503 there were no Families in Europe suspect of Heresy so that all this reasoning that is here entitled to Cajetan is a mass of Mr. Varillas's crude Imaginations which doe equally discover both his Ignorance
beyond what was paied them in France was imputed to his Method of Writing that wants none of the beauties of History except that of Truth and to the Ignorance in which Strangers live as to the Particulars of their History It is true at last he has found a Patron and a Pension and now he has given us an Essay of his Merits but if this Work is examined severely he will very probably soon lose his appointments since mercenary Pens are seldom paied longer than they can be useful Here one finds so much occasion for censure that whereas in other Books one must run up and down to find matter for a Critical Judgment here it occurs so copiously that a Man must take care not to surfeit his Reader with too much of it and therefore must choose out the more remarkable Errours and there are even so many of these that it is to be feared that the World will not think him not his Writings worth the time and the pains that must be bestowed on them Mr. Maimbourg has set a Pattern to the World that thô few wil care to imitate yet it has taken so much with the present Age that it is no light indication of its degeneracy when surch books are so much read and sold in which the Writer seems to have so broken loose from all the common measures either of honesty or shame that one would wonder of what composition he were made if they did not know that he has lived 50 years the in Iesuite Order for as he has no regard to truth or likelyhood in what he writs so he seems to be proof against the evidentest discoveries of his prevarications that are possible and when they are laid open in a manner capable of making any man besides himself to blush he neither has the conscience to confess his errours nor the sense of honour to justify himself but he finds out still new matter to writ on and a new stock of Champaigne wine as I have been told that he has oft said to make his blood boil till he has spoild an other piece of History and he thinks a scornfull period or two in a Preface is enough to carry off all the shame to which his errours ought to condemn him He has also the Impudence to dedicate his books to the King and the world is still willing to be cosened by him This trade has succeeded so well with him that it seems Mr. Varillas vies with him in it and as he has the chaster stile and the more natural way of misleading his Reader so he has resolved not to be behind him in a bold quality that I love not to set down by its proper Name But thô Mr. Varillas has the art to refine upon the pattern that Mr. Maimbourg set him yet Mr. Maimbourg is the Author of the Invention and therefore he deserves the better Pension History is a sort of Trade in which false Coyn and false Weights are more criminal than in other Matters because the Errour may go further and run longer thô these Authors colour their copper too slightly to make it keep its credit long If Men think there are degrees of Lying then certainly those that are the most loudly told that wound the deepest that are told with the best grace and that are transmitted to Posterity under the deceitful colours of Truth have the blackest Guilt but some Men have arrived at equal degrees in hardning their Consciences and in steeling their Forheads and are without the reach either of inward Remorses or publick Discoveries so that as Augustus fancied there was a charm in the Pillour of a Roman that died hugely indebted since without an extraordinary saporiferous composition he could not fancy how such a Man could sleep securely so if humane Nature did not often produce some very irregular Individuals a Man that feels the Authority that Truth and Modesty have ever a pure mind can not easily imagine by what secret others can quite extinguish those Inclinations which he finds are so prevalent in himself But I will now by Mr. Varillas's leave take the liberty to set before him some of his most conspicuous errours and thô I do not expect much sincerity from himself yet I hope the world will be juster than he has shewed himself to be Mr. Varillas begins his History with a view of the progress of that which he calls Heresy in a Prophetick stile setting forth what effects it was to produce as if he were foretelling what was to fall out and that for 11. pages according to the Impression of Amsterdam this has so little of the air of a Historian and is so full of the figures of a Declaimer that it looks liker the strain of a heated and angry Fryer than of a grave and serious Writer of History who ought to be always in cold blood and ought not to let the heats of a vitious Rhetorick transport him But this is so like one of the forced raptures of some Missionary that one would think it was writ either by one of them or for one of them It is much a safer thing to prophecy concerning matters that are past than concerning those that are to come and one is less in danger of committing errours yet when heat enters into matters of History and meets with so vast a deal of Ignorance as is that of Mr. Varillas no wonder if it carries him into great errours If Mr. Varillas had gathered the History of the last Age out of any Books or out of those Letters tha◠he so often vouches he could not have said that Edward th◠6th's Tutor or Governour was the Duke of Northumberland since there is not any one Book writ concerning that Time that does not shew the contrary The Duke of Somerset was his Governour and for the Duke of Northumberland thô the last two Years of that Reign in which that King was past the Age of Tutelage he bore the chief sway of affairs yet he had neither the Character of the King's Tutor or Governour nor any other whatsoever but only that of a Privy Councellour that was much considered by him and he at his Death professed that he had been always a Catholick in his Heart so that his pretending to be of the Reformed Religion to serve his interests shews that he belongs no more to our Church than the now forced Converts belong to that of Rome In the same page he says that Mary Queen of Scotland did by her Bastard Brother's persuasions marry a single Gentleman and on the Margent he gives his Name Henry d' Arley this is a new proof how little he knows the Books of the last Age. This Henry whom he calls d' Arley was Henry Lord Darly eldest Son to the Earl of Lenox which was one of the chief Families of Scotland and a Branch of the Family of the Stewarts It is true it came off from it before the Crown came into it by Mariage yet the
all our powers and the emancipating us from all scrupulosity concerning truth or falsehood this perhaps is the character of Mr. Varillas's Religion thô those that know him well assure me that Religion makes very little impression on him and if that is true then his Apophthegme fails in himself since the Interest of a Pension and the passion of making himself acceptable in the present time have as entirely freed him from all regard to Truth as ever any false Principle of Religion did an enraged Zealot It is matter of horrour to see Religion and Conscience set up as the violentest Corrupters of Truth but we know out of what school this has sprung and it seems Mr. Varillas has so devoted himself to the Order of the Jesuites that he is resolved to speak aloud that which they more prudently think fit to whisper in secret and indeed if we may judge of him by this character that he gives of Religion we must conclude him to be entirely possessed with it since never Man seem'd to be less solicitous than he is concerning the truth or falsehood of the things that hoavers He accuses me of favouring my own side too much and that if I confess some of King Henry's faults it is only that I may have an occasion to excuse the wretched Cranmer This is some Intimation as if he had read my Book but I doe not believe he has done it for thô I have no great opinion either of his Vertue or of his Understanding yet I doe not think he is so forsaken of common-sense and of all regard to his reputation as to have adventured to have advanced so many notorious falsehoods if he had seen upon what Authentical grounds I had so exposed them that I doe not think it possible even for Mr. Maimbourg himself after all his 50 years Noviciat to arrive at a confidence able to maintain them any longer if he had once read my Book and what I had writ was at least so important that he ought to have weakned the credit of my History by some more evident proofs than that of saying barely that I was extreamly partial to my own side My book was so much read and so favourably spoken of in France these three Years past that in common decency he ought to have alledged somewhat to have justified his Censure but this manner of writing was more easy as well as more imperious And if a large Volume of History supported with the most Authentick proofs that has ever yet perhaps accompanied any Book of that sort is to be thus shaken off it is a vain thing to write Books for Men of Mr. Varillas's temper This had been more pertinent if he had voucht for it a report which was so spread over Paris that I had received advices of it from several hands of a design in which as was reported a Clergy-man was engaged that has many excellent qualities to which Mr. Varillas seems to be a great Stranger for he has both great application and much sincerity He has searcht with great exactness that vast Collection of Mss. that relate to the last Age which are laid up in the King's Library and he had found so many things relating to England that he intended to publish a Volume of Memoires relating to our Affairs he had also said that in some things he would enlarge himself more copiously than I had done and that in other things he must differ from me Matters generally grow bigger by being oft told so this was given out as a design to write a Counter-History which should overthrow all the credit that my Work had got But upon my coming to Paris I found some sincere enquirers into truth and who by consequence are Men that have no value for Mr. Varillas who intended to bring us together that we might in an amicable manner reason the matter be foresome of our common Friends and both of us seemed to be so well disposed to sacrifice all to truth that two Persons of such Eminence that they can receive no honour by the most advantageous Characters that I can give them who were Mr. Thevenot and Mr. Auzont did procure us a meeting in the King's Library and in their presence In which the Abbot as he discovered a vast memory great exactness and much sincerity so he confessed that he had no exceptions to the main parts of my History he mentioned some things of less moment in all which I gave not only our two learned Arbiters but even himself full satisfaction so that I quickly perceived I had to doe with a man of honour He insisted most on the judgment of the Sorbonne against K. Henry's Mariage which is not in their Registers But I was certainly informed by a Dr. of the Sorbonne that their Registers are extreamly defective and that many of their Books are lost He alledged a letter to K. Henry that he had seen telling him that it was to be feared that he might be displeased with the decision of the Sorbonne and that it might doe him more hurt than good which Letter bearing s after the decision that I have printed does not seem to agree with it To this I answered that all the other decisions of Universities being given simply in the King's favours and that of the Sorbonne bearing only that the Majority had declared for him this left ablot upon the matter since when the opposition is inconsiderable decisions are given in the Name of the whole Body but the mention of the Majority imported that there was a great opposition made which thô it was not supported by a number equal to the other yet was so considerable as to lessen very much the credit of the Decision To this I added that K. Henry's printing this the Year after it was given and none ever accusing that piece of Forgery Card. Pool on the contrary acknowledging that he was in Paris when it was obtained these were undeniable Evidences of its genuinness to which he answered by a hearty acknowledgment that he had seen another Letter in which the detail of the whole Proceeding of the Sorbonne is set down and as I remember there were but one or two more than the Majority that opined on the King's side but the rest were in different Classes Some suspended their opinions others thô they condemned the Mariage yet did not think it could be broken since it was once made and some were positively of the Pope's side In end after some hours discours in which all the Company was fully satisfied with the Answers that I gave he concluded that as he had seen many more Letters relating to that matter than I had done so if I thought fit he would furnish me with a Volume of Authentical proofs for what I had writ greater than that which I had already printed And these were the Letters of the French Ambassadours that were in King Henry the 8th's Court that are in the King's Library but I did not stay