obstinate
against all other advices. He was bred with high notions of the Kingly
authority, and laid it down for a maxim, that all who opposed the King
were rebels in their hearts. He was perpetually in one amour or other,
without being very nice in his choice: Upon which the King said once,
he believed his brother had his mistresses given him by his Priests
for penance. He gave me this account of his changing his religion:
When he escaped out of the hands of the Earl of _Northumberland_, who
had the charge of his education trusted to him by the Parliament, and
had used him with great respect, all due care was taken, as soon as
he got beyond sea, to form him to a strict adherence to the Church
of _England_: Among other things much was said of the authority of
the Church, and of the tradition from the Apostles in support of
Episcopacy: So that, when he came to observe that there was more
reason to submit to the Catholick Church than to one particular
Church, and that other traditions might be taken on her word, as
well as Episcopacy was received among us, he thought the step was not
great, but that it was very reasonable to go over to the Church of
_Rome_: And Doctor _Steward_ having taught him to believe a real but
unconceivable presence of _Christ_ in the Sacrament, he thought this
went more than half way to transubstantiation. He said, that a Nun's
advice to him to pray every day, that, if he was not in the right way,
God would set him right, did make a great impression on him. But he
never told me when or where he was reconciled. He suffered me to say a
great deal to him on all these heads. I shewed the difference between
submission and obedience in matters of order and indifferent things,
and an implicite submission from the belief of infallibility. I
also shewed him the difference between a speculation of a mode of
_Christ's_ presence, when it rested in an opinion, and an adoration
founded on it: Tho' the opinion of such a presence was wrong, there
was no great harm in that alone: But the adoration of an undue object
was idolatry. He suffered me to talk much and often to him on these
heads. But I plainly saw, it made no impression: And all that he
seemed to intend by it was, to make use of me as an instrument to
soften the aversion that people began to be possessed with to him. He
was naturally eager and revengeful: And was against the taking off any
that set up in an opposition to the measures of the Court, and who