Andrew Lang

“ Who de la Cloche really was it is impossible to discover, but he was a bold and successful swindler, who took in, not only the general of the Jesuits, but Lord Acton and a generation of guileless historians. ”

“ Oliva is to give James all the money he needs, and Charles will later make an ample donation to the Jesuits. He acknowledges a debt to Oliva of £800, to be paid in six months. The reader will remark that the king has never paid a penny to James or to Oliva, and that Oliva has never communicated directly with Charles. The truth is that all of Charles’s letters are forgeries. This is certain because in all he writes frequently as if his mother, Henrietta Maria, were in London, and constantly in company with him. Now she had left England for France in 1665, and to England she never returned. ”

“ He is most anxious that Christina should not meet James; if she knows Charles’s design of changing his creed she will not keep it secret, and Charles will infallibly lose his life. With this letter there is another, written when the first had been sealed. Charles insists that James must not be accompanied, as novices were, when travelling, by a Jesuit socius or guardian. Charles’s wife and mother have just heard that this is the rule, but the rule must be broken. James, who is to travel as “Henri de Rohan,” must not come by way of France. Oliva will supply him with funds. ”