Note 585 — Chapter XI

Clarendon, in his Life, p. 149, says, that the king "had received the presbyterian ministers with grace; and did believe that he should work upon them by persuasions, having been well acquainted with their common arguments by the conversation he had had in Scotland, and was very able to confute them." This is one of the strange absurdities into which Clarendon's prejudices hurry him in almost every page of his writings, and more especially in this continuation of his Life. Charles, as his minister well knew, could not read a common Latin book (Clarendon State Papers, iii. 567), and had no manner of acquaintance with theological learning, unless the popular argument in favour of popery is so to be called; yet he was very able to confute men who had passed their lives in study, on a subject involving a considerable knowledge of Scripture and the early writers in their original languages.