him for his behaviour in France, "where by his pious living, constant praying, and preaching, he reduced some recusants to, and confirmed more doubters in, the protestant religion. Many were his encounters with Jesuits and priests, defeating the suspicions of his foes, and exceeding the expectation of his friends, in the success of such disputes." And later, in his Worthies of England, after handsomely admitting the injustice of his former account of the Smart affair, Fuller speaks of Cosin, in terms which were heightened, perhaps, by the sense of reparation due to an injured man, as "the Atlas of the Protestant Religion, supporting the same with his piety and learning, confirming the waverers therein, yet daily adding proselytes (not of the meanest rank) thereto."

How or when exactly Cosin reached France is not quite clear; but it was no fortuitous wandering that led him to Paris. The King had definitely appointed him as royal chaplain "to attend upon her Majesty for the constant service of that part of her household, the number of her Protestant servants being much superior to those who were Catholics." " And Henrietta Maria, having escaped the Parliamentary fleet which chased her out of Falmouth, had been honourably received by the Queen-Regent of France, Anne of Austria, and had been assigned quarters in the Louvre with a pension of 1,200 francs a day.

Here, then, Cosin settled in circumstances which were, at first, fairly prosperous. During

1 Clarendon's Hist. of Great Rebellion, xiii. 43.

Charles I.'s lifetime the Queen scrupulously observed her husband's wishes by recognising Cosin's official position. He secured, at any rate, a competence, quarters in the Louvre, and a free hand to carry on his ministrations to the flock which had been committed to his charge. A suitable room was provided, and decently furnished, for the recitation of the Daily Offices; whilst on Sundays he officiated in the chapel in the house of the English Resident (or Ambassador), Sir Richard Browne. This Embassy Chapel might have been described at that time as the headquarters of the English Church,' and Cosin is reported to have " supported the honour of the Church of England in that popish country to admiration in an open chapel at Paris with the solemnity of a cathedral service."

It will be as well to notice here his ordinary pastoral work. Several of the sermons which he preached in Paris during this period are extant. They are, inevitably, somewhat controversial in tone and are mainly directed against popish innovations; but they are not devoid of attacks against the other extreme, for Romanists must be shown the Catholic quality of English Churchmen. Thus, Evelyn speaks of Cosin as "perstringing those of Geneva for their irreverence of the Blessed Virgin" in a sermon preached at Paris in 1651. But passages can be found in which the preacher set himself

"In the various controversies, both with papists and sectaries, our divines used to argue for the visibility of the Church from this chapel and congregation."-Evelyn's Diary. 2 Dean Granville's Letters, Part II. viii. (Surtees Society).

rather to build up the faithful and to enhearten his fellow-Churchmen. Preaching, for instance, on Ps. cxxix. 5, he said:

"Let it not seem strange to us that such enemies there are; for Sion will never be without them, and the best men on earth have been put to their trial with them. It is some adversity that we suffer from them; but it is sors sanctorum, it hath been the lot of many a saint of God before us, and of far more worth and dignity than any we are, to be in adversity, to be persecuted, afflicted, tormented, to be robbed of goods, and lands, and lives, and all. Nor did they love Sion, either Church or kingdom, ever a whit the worse for it all the while. Sion God loved and favoured very high; yet, how dear soever Sion is in His sight, it had no promise made but that such kind of enemies it should otherwhiles meet withal. . . . Let not this make us stumble either in our religion or loyalty, but that we may be firm to our trial and constant to our profession; still, above all, loving the gates of Sion, that is, of our religion, more than all our other dwellings in Jacob; which, by the grace of God, may be a fair means to bring us back again both to one and to the other, there, if it be His blessed will, to serve Him in peace and piety all the days of our life, that so serving Him we may, in the end of our days, be translated from our dwellings here below to His everlasting tabernacles above." 1

...

Besides his Sunday duty and the saying of the Daily Offices, Cosin seems to have compiled a special service of intercession, a copy of which

1 Works, i. 204 f.

exists in the British Museum and has been reprinted in an Appendix at the end of this volume.1 This service was held weekly on Tuesdays, after the death of Charles I.; and apparently that part of the Court which was in actual attendance on the younger Charles at The Hague similarly observed the same day of the week, being that "on which King Charles was barbarously murdered.”

Writ

As the official champion of Anglicanism, Cosin was soon plunged into active controversy, much of which can be traced in his own letters. ing some years later to Dr. Morley, he describes a controversy on the validity of Anglican orders with Father Robinson, Prior of the English Benedictines in France, who was trying to pervert a lady at Court.

"At my first coming into France (which was about five years since), I found many of the Roman profession (both priests and others) very busy and industrious in persuading them of our religion that attended at the English Court to turn Papists. . . . When notice had been taken of my being in town, and of my coming to some other places, where I was better known in the Queen of England's Court, and where I endeavoured to defend our own religion against divers others that were sent and brought thither to oppose it, I had a special message brought me from the same person, very earnestly desiring that I would take the pains, at my first leisure, to come to the Court, where there was a business to be imparted to me of a near concernment. When I came, all the proceeding that 1 Appendix B, p. 365.

were at large And I found that the

the Prior had formerly had made known unto me. promise had been received and given to the Prior in these terms (the same day that I was sent for) If I may entreat the Dean of Peterborough, who hath been commended to me for this purpose, to have a conference with you, and if in that conference he cannot defend the validity of his own sacred orders and give me satisfaction in what you have to say against it, I will and do promise you to quit my present profession, and to be reconciled by you to yours the very next morning after.' Whereupon, being demanded whether I would admit and undertake that conference, or no-when I had first declared my dislike of the promise (which I said was too rashly and inconsiderately made, for the weight of this cause ought not to depend upon me or any other particular man), yet, being importuned and urged thereunto, and being desirous to preserve that person in our own communion, I yielded to the conference.'

Next day the two disputants met and debated, before seven or eight auditors, for three or four hours, Robinson's point being that the English Ordination Service had neither the matter nor the form of a valid ordination-neither the delivery of the paten and chalice nor the commission to offer sacrifice. Cosin's rejoinder, of course, was that neither that particular matter nor that particular form was essential to the validity of Orders; and he claims in his letter that the Prior was put to silence and those present satisfied. But Robinson afterwards suggested that they should continue the debate on