Even When Peace With Spain Was Declared,
On The Accession Of James I., The Spies Of The Inquisition Were
Everywhere On The Alert To Find Some Slight Pretext For Arresting
Travellers And To Lure Them Into The Dilemma Of Renouncing Their Faith,
Or Being Imprisoned And Tortured.
There is a letter, for instance, to
Salisbury from one of his agents on the Continent, concerning overtures
made
To him by the Pope's nuncio, to decoy some Englishman of
note - young Lord Roos or Lord Cranborne - into papal dominions, where he
might be seized and detained, in hope of procuring a release for Baldwin
the Jesuit.[156] William Bedell, about to go to Italy as chaplain to Sir
Henry Wotton, the Ambassador to Venice, very anxiously asks a friend
what route is best to Italy. "For it is told me that the Inquisition is
in Millaine, and that if a man duck not low at every Cross, he may be
cast in prison.... Send me, I pray you, a note of the chief towns to be
passed through. I care not for seeing places, but to go thither the
shortest and safest way."[157]
Bedell's fears were not without reason, for the very next year occurred
the arrest of the unfortunate Mr Mole, whose case was one of the
sensations of the day. Fuller, in his Church History, under the year
1607, records how -
"About this time Mr Molle, Governour to the Lord Ross in his travails,
began his unhappy journey beyond the Seas.... He was appointed by
Thomas, Earl of Exeter, to be Governour in Travail to his Grandchilde,
the Lord Ross, undertaking the charge with much reluctance (as a presage
of ill successe) and with a profession, and a resolution not to passe
the Alpes.
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