loudly reprobated the cruelty of turning a
savage and licentious soldiery loose on an unoffending people. [13]
One cry of grief and rage rose from the whole of Protestant Europe. The
tidings of the revocation of the edict of Nantes reached England about
a week before the day to which the Parliament stood adjourned. It was
clear then that the spirit of Gardiner and of Alva was still the
spirit of the Roman Catholic Church. Lewis was not inferior to James in
generosity and humanity, and was certainly far superior to James in all
the abilities and acquirements of a statesman. Lewis had, like James,
repeatedly promised to respect the privileges of his Protestant
subjects. Yet Lewis was now avowedly a persecutor of the reformed
religion. What reason was there, then, to doubt that James waited only
for an opportunity to follow the example? He was already forming, in
defiance of the law, a military force officered to a great extent by
Roman Catholics. Was there anything unreasonable in the apprehension
that this force might be employed to do what the French dragoons had
done?

James was almost as much disturbed as his subjects by the conduct of the
court of Versailles. In truth, that court had acted as if it had meant
to embarrass and annoy him. He was about to ask from a Protestant
legislature a full toleration for Roman Catholics. Nothing, therefore,
could be more unwelcome to him than the intelligence that, in a
neighbouring country, toleration had just been withdrawn by a Roman
Catholic government from Protestants. His vexation was increased by a
speech which the Bishop of Valence, in the name of the Gallican clergy,
addressed at this time to Lewis, the Fourteenth. The pious Sovereign of
England, the orator said, looked to the most Christian King for support
against a heretical nation. It was remarked that the members of the
House of Commons showed particular anxiety to procure copies of this
harangue, and that it was read by all Englishmen with indignation and
alarm. [14] James was desirous to counteract the impression which these
things had made, and was also at that moment by no means unwilling to
let all Europe see that he was not the slave of France. He therefore
declared publicly that he disapproved of the manner in which the
Huguenots had been treated, granted to the exiles some relief from his
privy purse, and, by letters under his great seal, invited his subjects
to imitate his liberality. In a very few months it