But In
Spain And In Italy, Backed By Their Impressive Environment And
Surrounded By The Visible Power Of The Roman Church, They Were Much More
Potent.
The English Jesuits in Rome - Oxford scholars, many of
them - engaged the attentions of such of their university friends
Or
their countrymen who came to see Italy, offering to show them the
antiquities, to be guides and interpreters.[175] By some such means the
traveller was lured into the company of these winning companions, till
their spiritual and intellectual power made an indelible impression on
him.[176]
How much the English Government feared the influence of the Jesuits upon
young men abroad may be seen by the increasing strictness of licences
for travellers. The ordinary licence which everyone but a known merchant
was obliged to obtain from a magistrate before he could leave England,
in 1595 gave permission with the condition that the traveller "do not
haunte or resorte unto the territories or dominions of any foreine
prince or potentate not being with us in league or amitie, nor yet
wittinglie kepe companie with any parson or parsons evell affected to
our State."[177] But the attempt to keep Englishmen out of Italy was
generally fruitless, and the proviso was too frequently disregarded.
Lord Zouche grumbled exceedingly at the limitations of his licence. "I
cannot tell," he writes to Burghley in 1591, "whether I shall do well or
no to touch that part of the licence which prohibiteth me in general to
travel in some countries, and companioning divers persons.... This
restraint is truly as an imprisonment, for I know not how to carry
myself; I know not whether I may pass upon the Lords of Venis, and the
Duke of Florens' territories, because I know not if they have league
with her Majesty or no."[178] Doubtless Bishop Hall was right when he
declared that travellers commonly neglected the cautions about the
king's enemies, and that a limited licence was only a verbal
formality.[179] King James had occasion to remark that "many of the
Gentry, and others of Our Kingdom, under pretence of travel for their
experience, do pass the Alps, and not contenting themselves to remain in
Lombardy or Tuscany, to gain the language there, do daily flock to Rome,
out of vanity and curiosity to see the Antiquities of that City; where
falling into the company of Priests and Jesuits ... return again into
their countries, both averse to Religion and ill-affected to Our State
and Government."[180]
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