But God be thanked,

every watch, and sometimes more. the last of June, at night, our dead reckonings being now all of us out, I recommended my master to give order to

Commons, the known wishes of his Protestant subjects, and the true policy of England at the time, after the Palatinate had been wrested by the Spanish forces under Spinola from his son-in-law, James persisted in allowing Gondomar to export ordnance and ammunition, and to raise in his dominions eight thousand troops to fight his own allies, the Dutch, and his subjects, their auxiliaries. He also, without the slightest concern or interference, suffered Gondomar to collect and provide for permanent supplies of money from his Catholic subjects, for the purpose of vanquishing his son-in-law, and of destroying the last vestige of influence which James might be supposed to have with the Protestants in Germany. (Dom. St. Papers, vol. cxiii. § 86; vol. cxvi. § 61; vol. cxvii. § 71; vol. cxix. §§ 90, 99; vol. cxx. §§ 13, 41; vol. cxxiv. § 82; II. Gardner, Prince Charles, pp. 11, 136, 152–54; II. Kennett, p. 753; I. Parliament Hist. p. 1862.)

One secret cause of James's tame subserviency to all the exactions of Gondomar, was, that in 1620 he had been inveigled by Buckingham and Gondomar into a plot for partitioning the territory of his Dutch allies between himself and the king of Spain. The Archduke Albert, however, disapproving of the project, it was dropped. But Gondomar held it as a rod over the head of James, who consequently yielded to his demands, on nearly all occasions, from fear of a disclosure that would inflict on him a lasting disgrace, and deprive him of all hope of future concert and support from his only ally. By playing upon James's hopes of the Spanish marriage, and representing it as attainable only by the largest concessions to the English Catholics, he had already procured the liberation of Catholics who had been imprisoned for refusing the oath of allegiance; and, soon after, two or three hundred Jesuits made their appearance in the streets of London, some of them wearing the habits of their order. Gondomar was about to return to Spain; and, as Matthew would be better able than any other to carry into effect his plans, at least in all that was desired for the promotion of the Catholic cause in England, he interceded with the king for his recall from exile. Matthew, consequently, was permitted to return, and arrived in England 29th December, 1621.

Both were earnestly desirous to bring about the Spanish match, as the means most likely to effect their grand purpose. Gondomar, in the hope of increasing Matthew's influence and efficiency, sought to give him social distinction, and to secure for him the favor of the king. He invited himself to dine with the king's cousin-german, the Duke of Lenox, and the Duchess, and named Matthew as one of the guests. Soon after, so much had Matthew advanced in the royal favor, that the king sent him to his father, the Archbishop of York, with a recommendation that, as he had discountenanced his son for having incurred "the king's displeasure, he would now receive him to favor upon his reconciling to his Majesty." Matthew was accordingly forgiven, and well treated by his parents. Their gentle and affectionate endeavors to restore him to their own faith, were, however, entirely without effect. His old friend, George Gage, who had, early in 1621, been employed at Rome to watch the negotiation for the Pope's dispensation, having returned with it in an objectionable shape, was now deputed as the king's special and confidential agent, with the king's letter to the Pope, Gregory the 15th, accrediting him as such, for the purpose of persuading his holiness to agree to certain changes in the conditions of the dispensation. To canvass thoroughly the subject of this negotiation, so vitally important to the Catholics of England, Matthew accompanied his friend to Dover, the port of embarkation. In the following year, Matthew himself was sent to the prince, at Madrid. His friend, Lord St. Albans, sent by him a letter, in which he was warmly recommended to Buckingham, as peculiarly fitted, by his wisdom and knowledge of the world, to serve the king and the prince in the pending affair of the marriage. The marriage, it is well known, as was from the beginning intended, came to naught. The main purpose of sending Matthew to Madrid, was to convince the Spanish government that if the conditions prescribed by the junta of

heave out his lead about ten of the clocke at night, and he did soe and found ground at 15 fathome, but this night in regard it was darke, and the winds tacking about to

theologians were insisted on, both the king and the Catholics would be placed in the hands of Parliament, and the Catholic cause in England be entirely sacrificed. It was thought that, as the son of a high dignitary of the English Protestant Church, whose favor he had lost by embracing the Catholic faith, his representations would have greater weight with the Spanish court than those of any other person. He accordingly addressed a letter to the king himself, showing the impolicy, so far as the Catholics of England were concerned, of persisting in the course prescribed by the theologians. But it was totally without effect; and, soon after, he returned to England in the same ship with the prince and his suite. The prince hastened to Royston, where his father then was, and there the honor of knighthood was conferred on Matthew, which probably he had been assured of, when he ventured, in his letter to the king of Spain, to assume the somewhat ambiguous title of Caballero, in order to propitiate the lofty pride of the Spanish monarch. (I. Gardiner, Prince Charles, p. 334; Dom. St. Papers, vol. cxxiv. §§ 2, 4, 60, 130; vol. cxxxiii. §§ 24, 31, 60; Cabala, p. 303; X. Bacon's Works, p. 144; II. Birch, James, pp. 333, 347, 414, 425.)

In 1625, Matthew accompanied Buckingham when sent to France to conduct the Queen Henrietta to England. By the request of Buckingham's mother, the Countess of Buckingham, he officiated as interpreter to the Queen. He also wrote to the Duchess of Buckingham, giving a description of the person and manner of the queen, and of the incidents of the journey. He now stood in high favor at court. But in his prosperity he showed the truest sympathy with all the sorrow of his earliest patron and fast friend, the unfortunate Lord St. Albans. This was always gratefully acknowledged, and repaid as far as possible, by the latter. In one of his letters to Matthew, he says, "your incessant thinking of me, without loss of a moment of time, or a hint of occasion, or a circumstance of endeavor, or the stroke of a pulse, in demonstration of your affection to me, infinitely ties me to you. (I. Clarendon, p. 38; Cabala, p. 302; X. Bacon's Works, p. 121.)

By the death of Lord St. Albans, in April, 1626, Matthew was bereft of a sincere and devoted, but no longer influential, friend. Two years later, the dagger of Felton deprived him of another equally warm, but much more powerful, friend, the Duke of Buckingham. Beside the painful sense of his own personal loss, he, in common with the brethren of his order, felt this untoward event as one of the greatest calamities that could have befallen the society of Jesuits. Aid and favor had previously often been obtained for them through Matthew, as their ordinary intermediator, by his direct application to Buckingham; but now, to all appearance, little or none could be hoped for, since it must be sought by solicitations in various quarters, and required the concurrence of many minds, likely to be affected, more or less, by the anti-Catholic hostility of the public. (I. Birch, Charles, p. 409.)

The exigency, however, did not prove so disastrous as was feared at first. Matthew himself was enabled to prosecute his religious schemes with greater facility, by some addition to his moderate but well-husbanded means, which came to him from the family property on the death of his mother, in May, 1629, fourteen months after that of his father, the Archbishop of York. But the turn given to public affairs favored him still further. Charles, indignant at the outburst of joy with which the people received the news of Buckingham's death, gradually abandoned the policy which, in the hope of reconciling the approaching parliament to his measures, he had recently pursued, in forbidding the clergy to preach up passive obedience; in causing, also, the gentlemen who had refused to contribute to the late loan, to be released from confinement; and the Catholics to be treated with more severity. He now, on the contrary, assumed a lenity towards the latter, which, while it angered their adversaries, freed them from all fear of persecution. At the same time he bestowed his favors upon those only who had been friends of Buckingham, or were known to be obnoxious to the popular leaders of the House of Commons. To the latter,

the North west, we were enforced to lie off to sea; and the third of July, towards sunsett, we arrived between the Capes, which are called Cape Charles and Cape Henry;

however, nothing could be more unwelcome than his promotion, in 1628, of Richard Montague to the Bishopric of Chichester, and of Laud to that of London. Both had been censured by the House of Commons for their Armenianism, and moderation toward the Catholics; and both maintained in the pulpit, the arbitrary power of the king, and the passive obedience of the subject. With Laud, who was, on many points, half a papist, Matthew, nearly up to the end of that prelate's political career, kept up an intercourse of the most intimate and familiar character. His zeal for the advancement of Catholic interests in England, insured him, also, the favor of the queen. Her enthusiasm equalled his own; and, when Buckingham was no more, she, having gained the entire confidence of the king, and sharing more freely in the direction of public affairs, was better able to second his views, and to procure for the Catholics, as she did, indulgences which made them presumptuous, and the nation dissatisfied. When Buckingham was living, the Lord Treasurer, Weston, afterwards Earl of Portland, and the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Carlisle, stood next to him in the affections and confidence of the king, and these continued to enjoy the same degree of favor. With both of them, Matthew was on the most cordial and friendly footing; staying for days in the treasurer's house at Roehampton, and always a welcome guest at the luxurious table of the Lord-Chamberlain. He was the panegyrist of the Countess of Carlisle, and one of her most devoted admirers. In the "Collection of Letters," published after his death, he has given an exalted character of her, which Fenton afterwards inserted in his notes on Waller. Having, from the time of Charles's return from Spain, free access to him and to his household, Matthew formed a friendship with Sir Henry Vane, Senior, an old domestic favorite, who held the place of cofferer now called master of the household of Charles, both before and after he came to the throne. The king gave Vane many proofs of his regard. He sent him to the States-General in 1625, to announce the death of his royal father; made him privy counsellor on his return; resident ambassador at the Hague in 1629; ambassador-extraordinary at the courts of the kings of Denmark and Sweden in 1631; Treasurer of the Household in 1639; and Secretary of State in the year following. Whenever Vane was abroad, Matthew corresponded with him, and kept him duly advised of all court movements, intrigues for his place, and events of special interest. One of his letters is dated from Vane's own lodgings at Court; and, in another, of 1632, he mentions the great improvement of his son, Henry Vane (four years later governor of Massachusetts), who had recently returned from his travels, and says that "his French is good, his discourse discreet, and his fashion comely and fair." The intercourse between Matthew and Vane was probably kept up daily, until the latter, by his testimony, which brought his old enemy, Lord Strafford, to the block, lost the favor of the king, and was deprived of all office. Matthew's friend, Carleton, now Lord Dorchester, became Secretary of State in December, 1628; and up to the day of his death, on the 15th of February, 1632, cheerfully gave him the full benefit of his official power, and personal influence. He was also so highly valued by Vane's enemy, Lord Strafford, that he took him to Ireland with him, for his counsel and advice.

With such abundant protection, Matthew felt secure in exerting all his powers in the work of conversion. He had found, on his return from his second banishment, that, in the interval of his absence, one of his distinguished converts, the Countess. of Buckingham, had abjured the Romish faith, and a few days later, in January, received the sacrament of the holy supper, at the hands of Laud, in Saint Paul's Chapel. In the following June, she received it a second time, in the King's Chapel. But it must be added that she was said to have received £2000 for it. In each instance she was accompanied by her son, the Marquis of Buckingham, and the Marchioness, who, on her marriage, had come over from the Papal to the English Church. But, in September following, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton, that the Countess had relapsed, and openly avowed her reconciliation to the Catholic Church. This cost her only a temporary loss of favor at court. (II. Birch, James, pp. 282,

about one of the clocke we came to anchor, the tide being spent, within three miles of Point Comfort, which is some seven leagues from the Capes and it lieth upon the mouth

316, 333; II. Id. Charles, p. 167. Dom. St. Papers, vol. cxxxi. § 53; vol. cxxxiii. § 24; II. Wood's Athen. Oxf. p. 402.)

Clarendon says, "the papists attempted, and sometimes obtained proselytes, of weak, uninformed ladies, with such circumstances as provoked the rage and destroyed the charity of great and powerful families, which longed for their suppression." Of the circumstances here alluded to, the most provoking were the heavy contributions obtained from wealthy converts, to the disappointment and detriment of family and other expectants. Thirty thousand pounds were got from one English countess for the Jesuits' College at Liege; and eight thousand as a beginning, from the Countess of Shrewsbury, for that at Ghent. In these and various kindred measures for raising the order of St. Ignatius in wealth and power above its rivals, the monastic orders, Matthew was incessantly and indefatigably occupied up to the time when the Parliament of 1640 stripped Charles of his kingly authority. His second exile had taught him the danger of drawing public attention to his works of proselytism. But, notwithstanding all his precautions, in 1637 the conversion of Lady Newport, brought him, it was said, into some peril. This is the only instance we have found mentioned in contemporary accounts. But that his services in this and other spheres of action, though less noticed, were as numerous and important as ever to the Church of Rome, is warmly acknowledged in the letter addressed to him by Urban VIII. The Pontiff says, "your ardent zeal for the salvation of souls, by which, for so many years, you have approved yourself a diligent, faithful workman in the Lord's vineyard, deserves its due praise and grateful remembrance from us; the account of the troubles you have gone through for the enlargement of the Holy See, and that charitable zeal whereby you have become all things to all men, that you might gain some, we have heard with a great deal of rejoicing. Go on, therefore, my beloved son; enkindle the Catholics with a divine zeal, and comfort them all, but especially those Amazons (the English translator superadds "viragos") who, day and night, champion-like, fight for the glory of our See." The crowning proof that Matthew had gained the high respect and entire confidence of Urban, is the unlimited control given him by the same letter, over the acts of the nuncio, Count Rosetti. He is told that the nuncio has been commanded to communicate to him all instructions received from the Pope, and is emphatically charged and commanded, so far as needful, not only to direct, advise, and instruct the nuncio in all things, but also to correct his escapes and errors. When the creation of an English cardinal was under consideration at Rome, as a measure likely to hasten the conversion of England, Matthew's name stood high on the list of reputed candidates. If any appointment had been made, it is nearly certain that Urban would have conferred it on Matthew, unless he thought it would remove him from the sphere of great usefulness which he then occupied. Urban had been educated at a Jesuit school, and all Jesuits, especially in England, would have urged the appointment of one of their own order. (I. Clarendon's Reb. p. 148; Dom. St. Papers, p. 570, vol. ccclxxii. § 65; II. Rushw. 2d part, p. 1324; Gage's West Indies, p. 209; Chalmers's Biog. Dict., art. Urban.)

After the Vatican, for many years, had withstood the entreaties of the English Benedictines and secular clergy for a bishop, at length Urban, about five months after the death of James, created Richard Smith, an Englishman, Bishop of Chalcedon, and sent him to England with episcopal power to ordain priests, give confirmation, and to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the English Catholics, as their metropolitan and ordinary. The next year the Pope addressed a letter to the English Catholics, in which, after citing the interdicts of Clement and Paul V., in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, as precedents for his guidance, he solemnly forbade them to take the oath of allegiance to Charles. The duty of enforcing obedience to this papal command devolved on Smith, to whom a letter was at the same time written by the Pope, to insure obedience to his decree. But the Jesuits and

of James River whereon standeth a new erected fort, which commands the river. All my men on my own ship are, God be praysed, in very good health, though my vice

regulars who were ordained and governed by the superiors of their respective orders — felt it a grievance to be placed under the control of a Benedictine; and Buckingham's rash war with France, in 1627, gave them a plea and a favorable opportunity for striving to realize their wishes by the removal of Smith. As he had been educated at the Sorbonne, with his fellow-student and friend, Cardinal Richelieu, his opponents declaimed against the inconvenience and inconsistency of having in England a bishop, whose acts and writings were subject to the censure and control of the faculty of Paris, the capital of the enemy. A body of Catholic laymen also besought him to refrain from holding, as he proposed, a court of ordinary, which would subject him to a premunire, or a charge of treason, and plainly declared that, as no authority would have been given him for so doing if the inconvenience had been known, if he persisted in his purpose, they should not obey his commands. Matthew, with Father Blount, then Provincial of the Jesuits in England, and a nobleman, whose name is not fully given, perhaps Lord Viscount Montague, took part in the expostulations with the Bishop. Wishing to ascertain the full extent of the powers conferred on him by the Pope's brief, they requested, but were refused, a sight of that document. This refusal widened the separation between the parties, left the Jesuits free to act without incurring the guilt of actual disobedience to the head of the church, and thus, no doubt, hastened their liberation from the Bishop's control. The civil authorities were informed of his doings and the unlawful purpose of his mission. Legal proceedings were instituted against him; and, as he kept out of the way, proclamations were issued for his apprehension; in which, after recounting his ecclesiastical offences, he was charged with holding a seditious and treasonable correspondence with the king's enemies, all persons, on pain of punishment as felons, were forbidden to lodge or entertain him, and a reward of £100 was offered for his capture. He finally escaped to Paris, where he was cordially received and entertained by Cardinal Richelieu. (II. Rushworth, p. 15; V. Dodd's Ch. Hist. Appx.; Townsend's Accusations, Ch. Rome, pp. 314, 445; Gage's West Indies, p. 5; Dom. St. Papers, p. 55; vol. xcix. § 8; vol. cxxii. § 33; vol. cxxx. § 85; vol. cxxxiii. § 7; vol. cxxxix. § 42; I. Blackstone's Com. p. 480; IV. do. p. 87.)

Having thus freed themselves from the thraldom of a rival order, the Jesuits in England turned their attention to a more worldly project for gaining wealth, by cbtaining a monopoly of the manufacture of soap. For this, it was proposed to pay in advance £10,000 into the exchequer; and, subsequently, £8 for each ton made. As it was estimated that five thousand, or more, if wanted, could annually be made, this would add to the king's revenue at least £40,000 a year. In the existing poverty of the exchequer, "this most odious and most grievous project," as Clarendon calls it, had not long to wait for an act of incorporation. Sir Richard Weston, the Lord Treasurer, was appointed the first president; and George Gage, one of the assistants and Matthew's attached friend, the treasurer of the company. The engagements of the crown with this legalized association, amounted to a guarantee for the safety of the English Jesuits. But another advantage gained, of great importance in the estimation of a person of Matthew's intelligence and ardent enterprise, was, that ample provision was secured for defraying the expense of new establishments and missions contemplated in foreign countries. His zealous and active imagination could hardly fail to have been stimulated by the flattering accounts of the wealth and power attained in the Jesuit missions of the Portuguese by the efforts of François Xavier, Menezes, &c., in Japan, the Philippines, Malabar, Goa, and elsewhere in the East Indies, and of the Spaniards in the New World. Other circumstances gave a particular direction to his aims and exertions. (II. Rushworth, pp. 136, 143, 215; I. Clarendon's Reb. p. 148.)

His friend, Lord Baltimore, in the summer of 1627, had gone out to Newfoundland with Lady Baltimore and their children, to make their permanent residence at Ferryland, in his province of Avalon. But, after two years' trial of the place, he became dissatisfied, and