The candid historian must admit that he was, after all, a better
man than his brother Charles II. He was a sincere and bigoted Catholic,
and was undoubtedly honest in the declaration, which he made in that
unlucky letter which Burnet ferreted out on the Continent, that he was
prepared to make large steps to build up the Catholic Church in England,
and, if necessary, to become a martyr in her cause. He was proud,
austere, and self-willed. In the treatment of his enemies he partook of
the cruel temper of his time. He was at once ascetic and sensual,
alternating between the hair-shirt of penance and the embraces of
Catharine Sedley. His situation was one of the most difficult and
embarrassing which can be conceived of. He was at once a bigoted Papist
and a Protestant pope. He hated the French domination to which his
brother had submitted; yet his pride as sovereign was subordinated to his
allegiance to Rome and a superstitious veneration for the wily priests
with which Louis XIV. surrounded him. As the head of Anglican heretics,
he was compelled to submit to conditions galling alike to the sovereign
and the man.
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