Catholicism.  He regretted the Reformation, and would have been best pleased to see the English Church in communion with Rome and in possession of “Anglican liberties” akin to those enjoyed by the Gallican Church.  Charles was also jealous of Louis the Fourteenth, and in many moods had no mind to play perpetually a second fiddle.  He longed for a navy to sweep the seas, for an army strong enough to keep his Parliament in check, and for liberty for himself and for all those of his subjects who were so minded, to hear Mass on Sundays.  Behind, and above, and always surrounding these desires and dislikes, was an ever-present, ever-pressing need for money.  Like a royal Becky Sharp, Charles might have found it easy to be a patriotic king on five millions a year.

The king was his own Foreign Minister, and being what he was, and swayed by the considerations I have imperfectly described, his foreign policy was necessarily tortuous and perplexing.  As Ranke says, “Charles was capable of proposing offensive alliances to the three neighbouring powers, to the Dutch against France, to the French against Spain and Holland, to the Spaniards against France to the detriment of Holland, but in these propositions two fundamental views always recur—­demands for money, and assurance of world-wide commerce for England."[183:1]

Charles first allowed Sir William Temple, a cool, prudent man, to form, in a famous five days’ negotiation, the defensive treaty with Holland, which, after Sweden had joined it, became known as the Triple Alliance (1668).  This alliance had for its objects mutual promises between the contracting parties to come to each other’s assistance by sea and land if attacked by any power (France being here intended), to force Spain to make peace with France on the terms already offered, and to compel France to keep those terms when agreed to by Spain.

The Triple Alliance was not only very popular in England, but was good diplomacy, for it was quite within the range of practical politics that France and Holland might have combined against England; nor could it easily be maintained that the alliance was hostile to France, as it provided that Spain should be forced to accept the terms France had already proposed.

What wrecked the Triple Alliance and prepared the way for the secret Treaty of Dover (1670), was the impossibility of settling those religious difficulties which, despite the Act of Uniformity, were more rampant than ever.  The king wanted to patch up peace, and to secure some working plan of comprehension or composure, under cover of which the Catholic religion should be tolerated and Presbyterianism formally recognised.  But, king though he was, he could not get his way.  The Church and the House of Commons, full as the latter was of his pimps and pensioners, were as obstinate as mules in this matter of toleration.  They would neither favour Papists nor Dissenters, protested against Indulgences as unconstitutional, and clamoured for