s, not only freedom of
religion in behalf of the future queen, but even relief for his
Catholic subjects in regard to the penal laws imposed by Parliament.
Yet he could have wished that they had contented themselves with his
simple promise. One of his envoys, Lord Nithisdale, was himself of
this opinion. On the other side it was remarked that perhaps the
Catholics, of whom he also was one, might be contented with a promise
from their sovereign, on whom their whole welfare depended, but that
the French government could not, as it must have a dispensation from
the Pope, which could not be obtained without a written assurance.
James I at first declared himself ready to give such a declaration in
a letter to the king of France, and La Vieuville, who was minister at
the time, expressed himself content with that. But after his fall and
Richelieu's accession to power this arrangement was rejected. It was
in vain that the King's ambassadors held out a prospect that the
letter should be signed by the Prince and by the chief Secretary of
State; the French insisted that the King should ratify not only the
treaty, but also a special engagement which they themselves wished to
frame and to lay before Urban VIII. The English plenipotentiaries at
the French court, Holland and Carlisle, were still refusing to agree
to this, when King James had already given way to the French
ambassador in England.

The agreement, in the form in which it was at last concluded, was in
some points more advantageous for England than that with Spain had
been. While the latter stipulated that the laws which had been passed,
or might hereafter be passed, in England against the Catholics were
not to be applied to the royal children, but that these on the
contrary were still to be secured in their right to the succession, an
agreement which, as was mentioned, opened a prospect of an alteration
in the religion of the reigning family; this supposition was avoided
in the contract with France. But it was agreed on the other hand that
the future queen was to conduct the education of her children, not
merely till their tenth year, as had been stipulated with Spain, but
till their thirteenth. She herself and her household were also to
enjoy a higher degree of ecclesiastical independence; the
superintendence of a bishop was even allowed them. It was the ambition
of the Pope to demand not much less from the French than his
predecessor had demanded from the Spaniards as