hardly do for his wife to be in correspondence with one who was in exile and in bad odour, for his refusal to take the Covenant, and his deep disapproval of the murder of the king. She, however, exerted herself sub rosa to get the attainder taken off his estate, and received his wife kindly when once she had made it clear that the old intimate relations could not be publicly renewed.

Another example of such friendship-one which, however, did not escape calumny-was that which Falkland formed with Mistress Moray, who was staying at Oxford during the war, at the time the Court was there. She was

a woman of much intellectual charm, and he no doubt found great solace in those sad and troubled days in her conversation and sympathy, and in opening out his perplexities to her, especially when his 'deare sweetheart' Hyde was absent in attendance on the Prince of Wales in the West. Everything said or done at the Court was commented on, and that in no charitable spirit; it was perhaps inevitable that stones should be thrown, and if they were, Aubrey would not be behind with his little pebble. Heedless, inquisitive, gossipy, and wildly inaccurate, he is so demonstrably wrong in innumerable matters of names, dates, and events, he need not be taken seriously when character is at stake. His prime object was to render his book amusing by every bit of scandal he could adorn it with; he was not likely to take much pains to verify its source. This is his version of Lord Falkland's death :—

'At the fight at Newbury, my Lord Falkland being 'there, and having nothing to doe, to chardge as the 2 'armies were engaging, rode in like a mad-man (as he

was) between them, and was (as he needs must be) ‘shott. Some that were your superfine discoursing 'politicians, and fine gent. would needs have the reason ' of this mad action of throwing away his life so to be 'his discontent for the unfortunate advice given to his 'master as aforesaid (That of besieging Gloucester after

'the victory of Roundway Down, whereby much advantage was lost); but I have been well informed, by those who 'best knew him, and knew intrigues behind the curtain (as they say), that it was grief for the death of Mrs. Moray, a handsome lady at Court who was his mistresse, ' and whom he loved above all creatures, was the true cause of his being so madly guilty of his own death as aforementioned. (Nullum magnum ingentium sine

' mixtura dementias.)'

As to his being guilty of his own death, an unconsidered rashness is surely not to be confounded with a deliberate intention of suicide. For the other matter, let him speak who knew him best.

'He died as much of the Times as of the Bullet: for 'from the very Beginning of the War, He contracted so deep a Sadness and Melancholy, that his Life was not 'pleasant to him; and sure He was too weary of it. Those who did not know him very well, imputed, very ' unjustly, much of it to a violent Passion He had for a 'noble Lady: and it was the more spoken of because 'She died the same Day, and as some computed it, the 'same Hour that He was killed; but they who knew ' either the Lord or the Lady, knew well that neither of 'them was capable of an ill Imagination. She was of 'the most unspotted, unblemished Virtue, never married, ' of an extraordinary Talent of Mind, but of no alluring 'Beauty, nor of a Constitution of tolerable Health, being ' in a deep Consumption, and not like to have lived so long by many Months. It is very true that Lord 'Falkland had an extraordinary Esteem for her, and 'exceedingly loved her Conversation, as most of the 'Persons of eminent Parts of that Time did; for She 'was in her Understanding, and Discretion, and Wit, and Modesty, above most Women; the best of whom had 'always a Friendship with her. But he was withal so 'kind to his Wife, whom He knew to be an excellent 'Person, that though He loved his Children with more

Affection and Fondness than most Fathers do, He left by Will all He had to his Wife, and committed his 'three Sons, who were all the Children He had, to her 'sole Care and Bounty.' And yet another account describes him 'riding to his death as gaily as most men to a wedding.'

So we may leave him; for the testimony of the one who knew may far outweigh the irresponsible hearsay judgments of the man whose only care was to write an amusing book.

CHAPTER XIII

RELIGION

THROUGHOUT the records of this time, whether public or private, whether historical or personal, one subject is continually prominent, and that is Religion. When we read of the discussions of theological topics, the exchange of views that were so much in favour in certain circles; when we note the heresies which were in the air, or the cleavage in religious opinion which ran through the Church itself, we see a remarkable parallel between those times and our own. But here the likeness ends; the contrast is quite as strong; for with the men of those days religion as a motive power was all pervading, all prevailing. It was something more than a decent fashion; if they were intolerant it was because they really cared, and the newspapers and pamphlets, quite as much as the sermons of the day, show that it was the religious far more than the political ideal for which they did not scruple to plunge their country into civil war. With the contest in its public aspects we have here no concern, but in the ordering of men's daily lives it comes continually to the front.

Religious observance had not yet become, as it did under the Puritan rule, a matter for Sundays only. The Court attended daily matins and evensong, and so did all who were sufficiently near a church or were of consequence enough to have a private chapel. Family prayers, though already introduced, had not yet superseded public

worship. As to education, that was religious as a matter of course without question; it is not too much to say that such an idea as secular education had never been heard of. Religion was the very foundation of the training of children. In all public schools daily worship in chapel and observance of the red-letter holy days was the rule until the Prayer-book was forbidden under the Commonwealth, and these practices came back at the Restoration. Boys were brought up in habits of worship quite as much as girls, and daily service had not come to be regarded as chiefly the affair of women of leisure.

Besides this daily unquestioning observance of the forms of religion, it was a matter of profound and absorbing interest. There was little or none of that easy tolerance of other people's views, springing more from indifference than charity, which characterises ourselves, and the differences were the more acute in that they existed in the very bosom of the Church itself. It was not so much strife between Church and dissent, which developed later, nor the absolute incompatibility between Catholic and Protestant, as on the Continent, as a struggle between the two rival factions for supremacy within the Church, which followed from the fact that in England the Reformation had proceeded on two distinct and divergent lines, producing a situation which was bound to issue in tearing Church and nation into two opposing camps. Puritan and Laudian alike considered himself a loyal son of the Church, and each was bent on remodelling her according to his own conception, so soon as Elizabeth's strong hand was withdrawn from the compromise she had kept working so long. Then, as now, the cleavage between the two wings of the Church was deeper and more fundamental than either that between the orthodox party and the Church of Rome or between the Puritan faction and Protestant heresy. The aims of the two were absolutely incompatible, and had Englishmen been possessed of the logical consistency of other people,