The Statesman.
London, England, 1821-07-06 00:00:00

was such as made it hardly possible for any person to
say whether it was It •forined or Catholic, or to know
any ritual could have been gone throsigh without ince-
siouing jars either on the one side or on the other. Be-
, , sides which, the pregnancy of the ()neon, shortly after
the marriage, labouring as be always did under the
most anxious desire of the birth of a son, would natu-
rally turn aside the King's thoughts from any other
subject. and *he died the day after the delivery, within
a year and a few months after the death of Qiiren Anne
Boleyn. Then, with regard to Anne of Cleves, her
ease was no exception to his arguments, because it was
well known that from the very day of his marriage with
her he began his attempias to effect her divorce, which lie
continued till he accomplished his purpose with her con-
sent, which consent of bets was a must material feature
in the case. She consented to the divorce, and waived
all claim to the Crown. The state of the Church
during his union with Catherine Howard was again
a material objection to her being crowned; besides
which, very won after their 'carriage she was discover-
ed to be incontinent, and a divorce took place. Again,
at the time of Catherine Parr, the state of ecclesiastical
affairs would very well aceount for there being no Coro-
nation—if it should be found, ou full search being made
that no such Coronation did take place. That, however,
he had no right to admit ; no man had a right to assume
that it did not take place ; although lie believed it was
highly probable that it did not, as there were no remains
of the solemnity. There was no necessity for perusing
the inquiry in the reigns of Edward VI., Mary and
Elizabeth, as Edward was never married. and Mary and
Elizabeth were Queens regnant. With regard to the
reign of James 1., he was crownel shortly after his ar-
rival from Scotland. On the second of February. 1t;25,
he was crowned, that being &considerable period after
his accession, which occurred tot the nth March pre-
ceding, on or about a year before. A Proclamation is-
sued in the usual terms, and almost in the same terms as
the Proclamation of his present Majesty, on the 17th
January, 1625, for the " Coronation of the King, and
his dearly beloved Consort, the Queen." On the 24th
of the same month and year, another Proclausation is-
sued, appointing a Court of Claims, and in the recital of
that Proclamation, the Coronation was mentioned as be-
ing to take place on February 2, " of ourselves and our
dearly beloved Consort." go that on the 24th of Jan
only nine days before the Ceremony, as well as one the
17th, it was clearly intended that die Queen should be
crowned on the second day of the ensuing month. It
was true that on the 3lhh ofJanuary, another Proclama-
tion was issued, the third in the same month, and only
three days before the Ceremony took place, for
the purpose of creating Knights of the Bath to
: assist at the solemnity of the Coronation, iu which,
I for the first time, the words " our dearly beloved
Consort," were dropped. The intention, however,
as regarded her, might not have been dropped; nor
was there any positive evidence to show that her Coro-
nation slid not take place, which hail been announced
in the Proclamation of the 17th, and solemnly recog-
nised in that of the 4dth. Having then done with these
cases, he was now to come ton period when he was bet-
ter able to feel his way, and when the facts to which he
should have occasion to allude were more defined
and better authenticated. It would be his duty to refer
their Lordships to a most curious and valuaille work
which was in the British Museum in the Harlian Collec-
tion. In this were contained the whole particulars of
the Coronation of Charles I. and the ceremonial of that
occasion furnished several farts calculated to tbzo* light
upon the present question. From that it appeartlff, that
up to a very short tinie preceding the Coronation, the
King had determined that his Royal Consort should be
crowned with him. This however, dill not take place,
but the grounds upon which her absence was to be ac-
counted fur were distinct and decisive. He hoped to be
able to show that the Queen not brim; crowned with her
husband arose, in a gret measure, from her own indis-
position—or more properly, her scrupulooraversion to be
present at a ceremony performed in a religion different
from her own. It was unnecessary to tell this II ourt,
that Henrietta Maria, wife to Charles I. being a daugh-
ter of theiKing of Franey, was in her reli gine a Roman Ca-
tholic. Her history was au eventful one and the sufferings
which she afterwards experienced, and great part of which
were induced by her attachment to the tenets of that re-
ligion, proved that she oats not only professedly a Ito-
man Catholic, hut that she was also a most as-n*l)o4ms
believer in, and uncompromising stickler for the
tufalli-
uf that religion. Charles, as the bead of a Protest-
ant State, was necessarily a Protestant, and the laws of
this country required that the ceremony should he per-
formed by the hands of a Metropolitan of the Church of
England. In these times religious animosities ran very
high, and Charles, whose conduct had already given the
people cause to dislike him, seemed only to want this
omened marriage with the daughter of the King of
France to aggravate that feeling, for by it he added
religious jealousy to political distrust. The people,!
from the beginning, showed an aversion to the faing'sl
connecting himself with a Roman Catholic wife, for
Charles was not supposed to he very steady in his faith,
and the influence of a Consort who pr as'essed principles'
of religion such as the nation then abhorred, was much 1
dreaded. It was Irons a knowledge of use prevalence of '
these feelings that some regulations were introduced to I
the Marriage Treaty, which it was hoped . would quiet
the alarm then so generally felt. The principle of these
related to the persons who were to make part of
the Queen's household, it being expressly stipulated
that for fear undue means of proselytizing would he
resorted to, the Queen should be restricted from
hiring, as her servant., any natural born subjects
of the King. The King at the same time openly
declared his attachment to the national faith, and
uo pains were neglected to re-assure the people.of his
hearty and sincere disposition to continue in it. But these
steps had not the effects expected from Olefi—the appre-
hensions of the people, arising Iron. jealousy of a human
Catholic Consort to the King, were not fully removed
and the Parliament felt itself called upon to take the
matter into its own consideration. Being met, some dis-'
cussion arose ; the danger likely to arise to the re!igion
of the country from the circumstances in which the hint;
was placed was strongly stated, and, in the result, a Pe-
tition was agreed upon to the King, which was to lay
before his Majesty the sense of horror which his Parlia-
ment and his people felt for Popery,and the fears, which
they could not conceal, they enterained of the effects which
the influence of his Royal Consort wasii Vely to produce.
They therefore prayed him, that lie would show himself
a sincere supporter of that religion to remove the
doubts of the people, by adopting such farther
precautions as would effectually neutralize any efforts
that should be made on the part of the Queen
or her friends, to extend that religion of which
they were such zealous professors. The King
received the Petition with good humour—thanked the
Parliament for their attention to the interests of religion,
but at the same time hinted that it was net necessary
thus to remind him of how much was expected from him
in support of that religion. Ile was not displeased With
them for bringing the subject before him; but his at-
tachment to the national religion could not be height-
ened by any suggestions from without. He declared.
that if they had never addressed bins, be should have,
taken the same steps. lie desired theta to dismiss from
their minds all uneasiness which the religion of the!
Queen might excite; her Majesty was not ambitious of
making proselyte., and the prospect of her being able to
make a convert of hint (the King) did not at all enter
into the views which his father entertained when he pro-
posed the alliance to him. Such was the answer re-
turned by the King to the address of the Parliament,