2"*s.vh41.,Sepx.ii.'58.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 



201 



LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11. 1858. 



TBANCIS QUAELES AND " THE KOYAL CONVEKT." 



It is well-known that this once popular poet 

 visited the court of King Charles I. at Oxford 

 early iu 1644, where he met, and probably for the 

 last time, his old friend and fellow-loyalist. Dr. 

 Henry Hammond, the learned Archdeacon of 

 Chichester. The poet's biographers tell us that 

 shortly before his death, which happened in the 

 same year (Sept. 8), he composed a book or tract, 

 entitled The Royal Convert ; a publication which 

 so exasperated the dominant or Parliament party, 

 that the latter retaliated upon him by confiscating 

 his property, and denouncing him as a Papist. 

 "Being a true loyalist to his Sovereign," says 

 Winstanley, " he was plundered of his Estate 

 here ; but what he took most to heart (for as to 

 his other lasses [in Ireland] lie practised the pa- 

 tience of Job he had described) was his being also 

 plundered of his Books, and some rare MSS., 

 which he intended for the press, the loss of which, 

 it is thought, facilitated his death." No doubt 

 these accumulated losses vexed him not a little ; 

 but a better authority than Winstanley — namely, 

 his widow — assures us that a certain "Petition pre- 

 ferred against him by eight men (whereof he knew 

 not any two, nor they him, save only by sight) 

 struck him so to the heart, that he never recovered 

 it ; " and, from what follows in her Short Rela- 

 tion of his Life and Death, it may be inferred that 

 this "Petition" contained the cruel charge of 

 apostasy from the Protestant religion above alluded 

 to. His whole life, however, bore, as his many 

 publications still bear, ample evidence of his con- 

 sistent attachment to the Ileformed faith. The 

 last verses that he penned were " to the pretious 

 memory of Doctor Martin Luther" (prefixed to the 

 work of Thomas Haynes, 1641) ; and his dying 

 words were : " He wished all his friends to take 

 notice, and make it known, that as he was trained 

 up and lived in the true Protestant religion, so in 

 that religion he died." What, then, could have 

 induced those "eight" petitioners to prefer a charge 

 of recusancy against such a man ? The answer, 

 doubtless, to this interesting inquiry would be 

 found in his last publication — namely, the alleged 

 Royal Convert. It is strange that so remarkable 

 a production should have escaped hitherto the re- 

 searches of all bibliographers, as well as the bio- 

 graphers of the poet. The former merely add it to 

 tlie general list of his works, without giving either 

 the date or the size of it, and the latter alTord us 

 no information whatever of its contents. 



Having been lately engaged in verifying the 

 various works of Francis Quaries, I think I have 

 succeeded in bringing to the light this unlucky 

 anti-Puritanical tract, the publication of wiiich is 



said to have cost him both his fortune and his life. 

 In that extraordinary (possibly imique) collection 

 of pamphlets, relating exclusively to the period of 

 the Great Rebellion, which was originally formed by 

 Thomason, a contemporary bookseller of London, 

 and subsequently presented to the nation by King 

 George IV., is an anonymous one entitled The 

 Loyall Convert; heretofore attributed to Dr. 

 Henry Hammond, but which bears both external 

 and internal evidence of having been the produc- 

 tion of Quarles. Before, however, describing the 

 tract itself, I will attempt to disprove, in as few 

 words as possible, the claims of Hammond to its 

 authorship. In the first place, no biographer of 

 that eminent theologian refers to it. Bishop Fell 

 enumerates all his works, and particularly those 

 which he composed in his forced retirement in 

 Oxford. Secondly, when " the Doctor gave way 

 to the publishing of several tracts, which he had 

 written upon heads that were then most perverted 

 by popular error," he had fully anticipated by nearly 

 twelve months (in his tract Upon Resisti?!g the Laru- 

 fiill Magistrate iqwn Color of Religion) the very 

 same arguments employed by the Loyall Convert. 

 Lastly, Hammond had never called in question 

 the prerogatives of the sovereign, or, as the " Con- 

 vert" penitently confesses, " brought some faggots 

 to this national combustion," or " wavered in his 

 conscience ; " but, on the contrary, had continued 

 throughout the contest betwixt Charles and his 

 Parliament a consistent and most zealous royalist. 



The Loyall Convert was published in small 4to. 

 (pp. 20.) at Oxford, on 9th April, 1644, or about 

 six months only before the death of Quarles. The 

 date of its appearance, therefore, very well accords 

 both with the time of his last visit to that city, 

 and the circumstances related in connexion with 

 his fatal sickness. I believe the only authority 

 for attributing the tract to Hammond is Thoma- 

 son, who has inscribed the date of publication on 

 the face of it, and the name of the author whom 

 he supposed to have written it. There is no evi- 

 dence whatever (so far as I can learn) that the 

 bookseller was personally acquainted with the 

 Doctor, much less that he enjoyed any portion of 

 his confidence : in this instance, therefore, his judg- 

 ment may be fairly called in question. 



The tract opens with a short epistle "to the 

 honest-hearted reader," and although the writer 

 professes to be "no Papist, no Sectarie, but a true 

 Lover of Pieformation and Peace," the arguments 

 which follow, it must be confessed, are little cal- 

 culated to assuage the angry passions of those to 

 whom he particularly addresses himself. Thus: 

 the entire body of Parliamentarians is styled "a 

 viperous generation ; " he points out Hampden, 

 Ld. Brooke, and others, " who either fell in battle, 

 or lost their honor," as so many monuments of 

 God's righteous judgment; terms Cromwell, "a 

 profest defaccr of churches and Kifeler of the 



