Note 604 — Chapter XXII
Reading edition
Dalrymple (Memoirs, iii. 92) remarks: "Charles' Declaration of Indulgence has been commonly imputed to the intrigues of France with Charles for the purpose of serving the interest of Popery. But Colbert's despatches show that France had not the least hand in it, that it was a scheme of Buckingham and Shaftesbury to gain the Dissenters, and that France was the cause of Charles' recalling it." The letters printed in Dalrymple indicate that Buckingham and Shaftesbury had strongly supported the Declaration, and show further that Charles wished Louis XIV. to believe that to please him he withdrew it. "He assured me," says Colbert, "that your Majesty's sentiments had always more power over him than all the reasonings of his most faithful Ministers." March 20, 1673.