English Travellers of the Renaissance by Clare Howard
page 70 of 231 (30%)
page 70 of 231 (30%)
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office, practise no profession. Neither law nor medicine, nor parliament
nor the army, nor the university, was open to him. Banished from London and the Court, shunned by his contemporaries, he lurked in some country house, now miserably lonely, now plagued by officers in search of priests. At last, generally, he went abroad, and wandered out his life, an exile, despised by his countrymen, who met him hanging on at foreign Courts; or else he sought a monastery and was buried there. To be sure, the laws against recusants were not uniformly enforced; papistry in favourites and friends of the king was winked at, and the rich noblemen, who were able to pay fines, did not suffer much. But the fact remains that for the average gentleman to turn Romanist generally meant to drop out of the world. "Mr Lewknor," writes Father Gerard to Father Owen,[203] "growing of late to a full resolution of entering the Society (of Jesus), and being so much known in England and in the Court as he is, so that he could not be concealed in the English College at Rome; and his father, as he considered, being morally sure to lose his place,[204] which is worth unto him £1000 a year, he therefore will come privately to Liege, where I doubt not but to keep him wholly unknown." * * * * * CHAPTER V THE INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH ACADEMIES The admonitions of their elders did not keep young men from going to |
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