nd had, of his own
accord, promised to keep the conversion of Charles strictly secret. [45]
James, while his power was still new, had thought that on this point it
was advisable to be cautious, and had not ventured to inter his brother
with the rites of the Church of Rome. For a time, therefore, every
man was at liberty to believe what he wished. The Papists claimed
the deceased prince as their proselyte. The Whigs execrated him as a
hypocrite and a renegade. The Tories regarded the report of his apostasy
as a calumny which Papists and Whigs had, for very different reasons,
a common interest in circulating. James now took a step which greatly
disconcerted the whole Anglican party. Two papers, in which were set
forth very concisely the arguments ordinarily used by Roman Catholics
in controversy with Protestants, had been found in Charles's strong
box, and appeared to be in his handwriting. These papers James
showed triumphantly to several Protestants, and declared that, to his
knowledge, his brother had lived and died a Roman Catholic. [46] One
of the persons to whom the manuscripts were exhibited was Archbishop
Sancroft. He read them with much emotion, and remained silent. Such
silence was only the natural effect of a struggle between respect and
vexation. But James supposed that the Primate was struck dumb by the
irresistible force of reason, and eagerly challenged his Grace to
produce, with the help of the whole episcopal bench, a satisfactory
reply. "Let me have a solid answer, and in a gentlemanlike style; and it
may have the effect which you so much desire of bringing me over to your
Church." The Archbishop mildly said that, in his opinion, such an answer
might, without much difficulty, be written, but declined the controversy
on the plea of reverence for the memory of his deceased master. This
plea the King considered as the subterfuge of a vanquished disputant.
[47] Had he been well acquainted with the polemical literature of the
preceding century and a half, he would have known that the documents to
which he attached so much value might have been composed by any lad of
fifteen in the college of Douay, and contained nothing which had not, in
the opinion of all Protestant divines, been ten thousand times refuted.
In his ignorant exultation he ordered these tracts to be printed with
the utmost pomp of typography, and appended to them a declaration
attested by his sign manual, and certifying that the originals were
i