White's name, but for which Sir Kenelm is given the main credit, can hardly
now be sifted. White, at all events, was not a prudent friend for an envoy
to the Holy See. Digby "grew high and hectored with his holinesse, and gave
him the lye. The pope said he was mad." Thus Aubrey. Henrietta Maria sent
him once more on the same errand; but the Roman Curia continued to look on
him as a "useless and restless man, with scanty wisdom." Before returning,
however, he paid a round of visits to Italian courts, making everywhere a
profound impression by his handsome person and his liveliness. He had to
hasten back to England on his own business. His fortunes were desperate;
and he desired to compound for his estates.

A week or so after the King's death he is proved by his correspondence to
be in France, having fled after one more pronouncement of him as a
dangerous man. He went into exile this time with a sad heart; and it was
not only the loyalist in him that cried out. The life of an English country
gentleman would never have satisfied him; yet he longed for it now it had
become impossible. He writes from Calais to a friend: "Those innocent
recreations you mention of tabors and pipes, and dancing ladies, and
convenient country houses, shady walks and close arbours, make one sigh to
be again a spectator of them, and to be again in little England, where time
slides more gently away than in any part of the world. _Quando sia mai ch'a
rividerti io torno_?"

He went this time knowing better than his fellow royalists the meaning of
events. He was still a rank, but at least an intelligent, conspirator.
English correspondents at Rouen and Caen report him in the company of one
Watson, an Independent; and that he is proposing "to join the interests of
all the English papists with the bloody party that murdered the king." Dr.
Winsted, an English doctor in Rouen, asked him with indignation how he
could meditate going back to England, "considering the abomination of that