Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1851 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter vi. of the critical and variable situation of the english sovereigns, with regard to their roman catholic subjects. The difficulties which were insurmountable in the Spanish match, and which were only eluded in the French, lead to the consideration of an important subject. I know of no historian who has yet developed the critical, and often the variable, situation of the sovereigns of England, in regard to their Roman Catholic subjects. Elizabeth was denounced by Romanist and Protestant; James and Charles, perpetually accused of sacrificing the national cause, were reproached by the Roman Catholics for deception and evasion. To form a just conception of the state of the English Roman Catholics, we must not only view their condition at home, a picture which I have already exhibited, but we must also become acquainted with their external relations with the Continental powers. The secret history of England may be often looked for among the great family of European Governments, and the solution of many a political enigma in our own country may be detected in the policy of foreign cabinets. It is there we find how many paradoxes are only truths unexplained; how conflicting interests have been forced to unite; and how consistency of conduct may be developed among the most contradictory schemes. Statesmen have been fascinated by a fond error, in imagining that their closet-intrigues can make permanent incompatible things, which from their very nature cannot stand together; and th
