The king opened the conference with dignity; he said “he was happier than his predecessors, who had to alter what they found established, but he only to confirm what was well settled.”  One of the party made a notable discovery, that the surplice was a kind of garment used by the priests of Isis.  The king observed that he had no notion of this antiquity, since he had always heard from them that it was “a rag of popery.”  “Dr. Reynolds,” said the king, with an air of pleasantry, “they used to wear hose and shoes in times of popery; have you therefore a mind to go bare-foot?” Reynolds objected to the words used in matrimony, “with my body I thee worship.”  The king said the phrase was an usual English term, as a gentleman of worship, &c., and turning to the doctor, smiling, said, “Many a man speaks of Robin Hood, who never shot in his bow; if you had a good wife yourself, you would think all the honour and worship you could do to her were well bestowed.”  Reynolds was not satisfied on the 37th article, declaring that “the Bishop of Rome hath no authority in this land,” and desired it should be added, “nor ought to have any.”  In Barlow’s narrative we find that on this his majesty heartily laughed—­a laugh easily caught up by the lords; but the king nevertheless condescended to reply sensibly to the weak objection.

“What speak you of the pope’s authority here? Habemus jure quod habemus; and therefore inasmuch as it is said he hath not, it is plain enough that he ought not to have.”  It was on this occasion that some “pleasant discourse passed,” in which “a Puritan” was defined to be “a Protestant frightened out of his wits.”  The king is more particularly vivacious when he alludes to the occurrences of his own reign, or suspects the Puritans of republican notions.  On one occasion, to cut the gordian-knot, the king royally decided—­“I will not argue that point with you, but answer as kings in parliament, Le Roy s’avisera"

When they hinted at a Scottish Presbytery the king was somewhat stirred, yet what is admirable in him (says Barlow) without a show of passion.  The king had lived among the republican saints, and had been, as he said, “A king without state, without honour, without order, where beardless boys would brave us to our face; and, like the Saviour of the world, though he lived among them, he was not of them.”  On this occasion, although the king may not have “shown his passion,” he broke out, however, with a naive effusion, remarkable for painting after the home-life a republican government.  It must have struck Hume forcibly, for he has preserved part of it in the body of his history.  Hume only consulted Fuller.  I give the copious explosion from Barlow:—­