nd the barking of dogs and the crowing of
cocks--all in a soft medley of human music that made my heart rejoice;
for in spite of my long exile abroad and my French and Italianate
manners, I counted myself always an Englishman.

Now the first design that I had in mind, and for which I had made my
dispositions, was to go straight to my lodging that had been secured for
me by my cousin Tom Jermyn, where he was to meet me, and where he too
would lie that night. It was with him that I was to present my letters
at Whitehall in a day or two, after I had bought my clothes and other
necessaries; in short he was to be my _cicerone_ for a while--for he was
a Catholic too, like myself--but he was not to be told that I had come
on any mission at all, until at anyrate I had well tested his
discretion.

* * * * *

Now the mission on which I had been instructed by the Cardinal Secretary
was in one sense a very light one, and in another a very difficult one;
for its express duties were of the smallest.

Affairs in England at this time were in a very strange condition. First,
the Duke of York, who was heir to the throne, was a declared Catholic;
and then the King himself was next door to one, in heart at anyrate.
Certainly he had never been reconciled to the Church, though the report
among some was that he had been, during his life in Paris: but in heart,
as I have said, he was one, and waited only for a favourable occasion to
declare himself. For he had been so bold seventeen years before, as to
send to Rome a scheme by which the Church of England was to be reunited
to Rome under certain conditions, as that the mass, or parts of it,
should be read in English, that the Protestant clergy who would submit
to ordination should be allowed to keep their wives, and other matters
of that kind. His answer from Rome, sent by word of mouth only, was that
no scheme could be nearer to the heart of His Holiness; but that he must
not be too precipitate. Let him first show that his subjects were with
him in his laudable desires; and then perhaps the terms of the matter
might be spoken of again. For the King himself, and indeed even the Duke
too at this time (though later he amended his life), Catholic in spirit,
were scarce Christian in life. The ladies of the Court then must not be
overlooked, for they as much as any statesman, and some think, more,
controlled the king and his brother very greatly at this time.

But