Page images
PDF
EPUB

LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND, from the Norman Conquest; with Anecdotes of their Courts: now first published from official Records, and other authentic Documents, private as well as public. By AGNES STRICKLAND. Vol. IX. London: Colburn. 1846.

"THE author of this biography does not consider herself in any way responsible for the sentiments and theology of either James II. or his queen. She is herself a member of the Church of England, and relates things as she finds them; that being the duty of a biographer, notwithstanding differences of opinion on many important points."-(p. 411.)

We are favoured with the same comforting assurance in some other places of this extraordinary volume, as well as in the preceding ones. To clench the matter, Miss Strickland herself steps forth from the high abstractions of her historical pursuits, and through the daily prints proclaims to the public in propria personá that she is "an attached member of the Church of England." More shame for her, say we! The Church of England has no lack of such attached members at the present moment. Their attachment closely resembles that of an iron clamp driven into an old building, with a strong tackling hooked to it, having a team of dray-horses at the other end. The quantity of the building that falls when it is pulled down exactly tests the strength of the adherence. Mr. Newman, for instance, was just such an "attached member." He however has fallen off, and the score or two of unfledged parsonlings that have gone fluttering and squeaking after him may, we suppose, be considered as the first-fruits of his tumble. Mr. Frankland Paley, of Cambridge, is another of them. This trifling fall of dust and rubbish which just now directs the public eye towards him, is a tolerably pregnant proof that the strain is upon him already, and that it is not his intention to fall alone. Miss Strickland also is attached to the Church of England for the same purpose, which is that of doing the Church all possible mischief during the entire period of the continuance of her attachment: and her success has assuredly far surpassed that of any of her reverend coadjutors, not excepting even the Rev. Messrs. Gresley, Paget, and Sewell, the novelists. The numbers, not of women and girls merely, but of grown men of all ages whose principles Miss Strickland's Queens of England (as she is pleased to term her historical, or rather anti-historical romances) have entirely undermined, is truly surprising. It is especially so

[blocks in formation]

in the present day, when we are in the habit of congratulating ourselves upon the educated and enlightened views we entertain upon every question: for we do not understand how any wellregulated mind can possibly give in to the gross and palpable misapprehensions of the question between Protestantism and Popery which Miss Strickland makes the substructure of her serial romance such, however, is the case, and before dealing with her ninth volume we must endeavour to remove them.

The English Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries was never accounted by the actors in it a question of taste and elegance. The people of England neither rejected their Popish or papalising princes, nor supported their Protestant ones, either because they themselves were amiable and agreeable men, or because they had pretty queens. Henry VIII was not heartily seconded in his steps towards the Reformation, because of the broad expanse of his shoulders and the manly openness of his countenance, no, nor even because of his predilection for female beauty. We equally deny that the question between Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots ever turned upon the personal attractions, or the proficiency in female accomplishments, or the fascinating qualities of the two illustrious rivals. In the same manner we most solemnly disavow, that the revolution of 1688 was brought about, because the people of England thought William von Oranien more of a gentleman than James Stuart, and Mary Hyde a prettier woman than Mary d'Este. We beg very seriously to remind Miss Strickland that this was not one of the grounds of the Reformation, though she has made it one of the grounds of her attack upon it.

There is another misapprehension which Miss Strickland lays at the basis of her superstructure, and which will equally require to be removed. The reformation in England did not take place because the Popish princes were monsters of iniquity, and the Protestant princes patterns of piety and virtue. No advocate of Protestantism has ever advanced this ridiculous improbability, and we believe, until Miss Strickland, no assailant of Protestantism has ever assumed it to be pretended, and made that assumption a ground of attack.

We must make the same reservation in regard of the nobles and other leading men of the two great parties in religion of this stirring period. The reformed nobles were not supported by the people because they were all angels, neither were the Catholic nobles opposed by them because they were all devils. The moral worth of the two parties was never in this manner brought into antagonism. The idea of such an antagonism on any great ques

tion in which large masses of mankind are moved, is absurd even to idiotcy. If the truth of an opinion is only to be demonstrated when all the virtuous among men declare in its favour, and all the vicious against it, Christianity itself would shrink from such an ordeal. Yet Miss Strickland rakes up with exemplary diligence every calumny she can find against any Protestant, of whatever degree, and records it in her volumes as an argument against Protestantism. So much of the mischief that Miss Strickland's book has done arises from this misapprehension, and she is evidently so anxious to keep it up, that it may be worth-while to elucidate it somewhat more fully.

When a great question of religion is warmly debated by an entire people, and they are pretty equally divided upon it, (and such was the case in England during the progress of the Reformation,) the motives which determine the mass of mankind to one or the other side of it are very various, and often very unworthy. With many it will be nothing better than prejudice or prepossession or sentiment. Such was most probably the case with the mistresses of James II, Catherine Sedleigh, and Arabella Churchill, of whose Protestantism Miss Strickland omits no possible opportunity of reminding her readers. This complication of motive in the partizans of a religious question becomes still more entangled when the question itself is mixed up with politics, which was preeminently the case in the times of the Stuarts. During the reigns of Charles II and his brother, Protestantism and Popery were merely the names of two political factions. The Protestantism of Buckingham and the Popery of Rochester were of this character. Neither of those profligates took the slightest interest in the religious question themselves. They merely took up the opinions which were most likely to be acceptable to their own friends and party. This had been likewise far too much the case in the preceding reigns. The motives of the adherents of either party will by no means bear examination in every instance. The honest heartfelt conviction that Protestantism was true and Popery a lie, had diffused itself very widely among the people of England; but it has never been pretended, either that this conviction was the only motive which actuated the Protestants of those days in their opposition to Popery, or that they were all living examples of the moral power of the doctrines they had embraced. This being perfectly obvious, and never questioned by any one on any side-where, we ask, is the fairness, where the honesty, where the decency, of Miss Strickland's barefaced imposition upon the historical ignorance of her readers in this matter?

There is yet another misapprehension, which we must endeavour

to remove in limine, because it also is fundamental to Miss Strickland's theory. Popery in England, from the dawn of the Reformation until now, has never wanted its advocates, nor the Popish princes of England their eulogists. We grieve to add to this, that neither that bad cause nor its leaders have ever been in such a condition that it would not be worth the while of unprincipled persons to write for them. Such being the case, the writings of these partisans will necessarily furnish an abundant supply of materials for the construction of literary frauds like this which Miss Strickland is so successfully perpetrating.

Neither must the caution to which we have endeavoured to direct the reader's attention be forgotten here also. No one doubts that many of the kings, princes and nobles that opposed the English Reformation were sincere in their attachment to the Roman Catholic faith, and believed themselves to be acting in accordance with the will of God. It is equally an unquestioned fact, that many of them were personally amiable and moral characters. This may also be the case with their adherents, and even with their eulogists. Their praises of their persecuting superiors may be perfectly sincere and well deserved. Nevertheless we contend that the writer who enlarges upon and exaggerates the more amiable traits in the Romanist potentates of England, and at the same time softens down, palliates, and even apologises for their religious enormities, grossly misleads her readers, under pretence of instructing them. A single instance of this practice will suffice.

Doubtless something may be said for the wickedest persons that ever appeared upon the earth. Even bloody Mary herself, like St. Dominic and Pope Innocent III., may have been a very strict devotee; a characteristic highly commendable in itself. Yet we submit, that to write a history of Queen Mary full of high-flown eulogies of her piety, and scarcely mentioning the four or five hundred men, women, and children, whom she burnt alive, because they were Protestants, during the five years of her reign (as Miss Strickland has done), is no more history, than the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted is Shakspeare.

This is exactly the character of Miss Strickland's historical productions. With much parade of unpublished documents and exclusive information, she collects all that she can find which has been written by the partisans and flatterers of the Papist princes and nobles, adding largely to their eulogies from her own imagination. Indulging, at the same time, in a perfectly unmeasured liberty of vituperation at any unfortunate Protestant who may have ventured to hint at something which detracts in any measure from the spotless purity, the transparent sincerity, and the seraphic

piety of her heroes and heroines. For the Protestants, on the other hand, she collects from the same pure and unquestionable authorities all the calumnies that their incensed and bitter enemies have recorded against them; paying not the slightest regard to the refutations that appear on the very surface of our commonest histories. It is no fault of Miss Strickland's, if any Papist has one vice, or any Protestant one virtue. We shall presently see what a model of wedded perfection (according to our author) the people of England rejected in Mary d'Este; whereas, to judge by the hints she gives, the forthcoming lives of Queens Mary and Anne will be mere tissues of evil speaking, lying, and slandering, like that of Elizabeth. You may call this history, if you please, but it is history on the model of Madame D'Aulnay's Fairy Tales. The duchess Trognon sits for every Protestant queen, and the princess Graciosa for every Popish one!

We have however been detained too long from the volume before us, which is the beginning of the life of Mary d'Este, the second wife of the profligate, cold-hearted, and cruel James II. This princess was pretty, she dressed tastefully, the costume of the times became her figure remarkably well, and more than all, she was a zealous, bigotted, bitter Papist. After these, what could possibly be wanting to recommend her to the sympathies of Miss Strickland? She shines forth in her pages a heroine of the first water! Miss Strickland's admiration of Queen Mary Beatrice enchants, entrances-we had almost said intoxicates her: for we certainly never before happened to meet with such English as that in which our author gives vent to her raptures of eulogy and applause, at least not in the use of any sober person. We cull a small bouquet from Miss Strickland's well-stocked parterres, to give our readers the opportunity of judging of her powers of fine writing.

The subject of our first extract shall be "Mary Beatrice going to England to marry the Duke of York, takes leave of the young duke of Modena her brother."

"Mary Beatrice and the princely boy whom she regarded in the twofold light of her brother and her sovereign, were at that guileless period of life, when the links of kindred affection are more closely twined than at any other, round hearts whose sensibilities are in their first exquisite bloom, and as yet unblighted by intercourse with a selfish world. No wonder that they, who had been debarred by the restraining etiquettes imposed on children of their elevated station from forming other intimacies, felt very keenly the pangs of rending asunder the bonds of that sweet friendship which had united them from their cradles. Very frequently, no doubt, had the sorrowful bride to be reminded, during that journey, of the exhortation of the royal psalmist : 'Hearken, O daughter, and consider; forget also thine own people and thy father's house.'"-(pp. 47, 48.)

« PreviousContinue »