reign, has been admitted with greater unanimity by recent historians than by those who spoke from personal observation, and whom Charles succeeded in partially misleading. "It was not," says the ablest of the statesmen who approached him, "the least skilful part of his concealing himself to make the world think he leaned towards an indifference in religion."[1] That belief was long since found to be untenable. Mr. Fox, and the author of the Annals of England, believe that he had been actually reconciled to the Catholic Church ; and Mackintosh fixes the date of that event in the year 1658. Hallam justly rejects this opinion, but is certain that the king had imbibed during the period of his banishment a persuasion that if any scheme of Christianity was true, it could only be found in the bosom of an infallible Church. Dr. Vaughan believes that, so far as he could be said to have any religion, he was a Catholic ; and Macaulay exactly agrees with Dr. Vaughan. Lingard, who 'declares his early professions of regard for CaTriblicism a pretence, supplies no psychological explanation of the discrepancy between the scene at his death and his previous insincerity ; while Dod more reasonably considers the reconciliation at the last moment a proof that he had inwardly espoused the Catholic doctrines before.
Many things contributed during the life of Charles to spread and to keep alive the report of his conversion. His mother's sincerity and zeal in religion were well known. She had attempted to instil the sentiments of her faith into her eldest daughter Mary, afterwards Princess of Orange, and although this was prevented by the king, she obtained his consent in her exile that their youngest child Henrietta should be educated a Catholic. At Paris Henrietta Maria exerted herself to induce the Duke of Gloucester to change his religion ; and when the exhortations of Charles, the influence of Ormond, and the memory of the last solemn parting with his father prevailed against her efforts, she drove him from her presence. Charles I. had feared that the
- ↑ Halifax, Character of Charles II. , p. II.
