Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723. — John Shaqi
Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.Phillimore, Lucy
History
Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.
Phillimore, Lucy
Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714 -- Biography; Wren family; Wren, Christopher, Sir, 1632-1723
'There I found but those three Lords, who causing me to sit down by
them, my Lord of Durham began to me: "Doctor, your Lord here will
have it so, I that am the unfittest person must be the speaker. But
thus it is. After you left us yesterday at Whitehall, we entering
into further discourses of those things which we foresee and
conceive will ere long come to pass, resolve to again to speak to
you before you went hence.
'"We must know of you, what your thoughts are concerning your
master the Prince. You have now been his servant above two years,
and you were with him in Spain. We know he respects you well; and
we know you are no fool, but can observe how things are like to
go." "What things, my Lord?" (quoth I). "In brief," said he, "how
the Prince's heart stands to the Church of England, that when God
brings him to the Crown we may know what to hope for."
'My reply was to this effect, that however I was most unfit of any
opinion herein, attending but two months in the year and then at a
great distance, only in the closet and at meals; yet, seeing they
so pressed me, I would speak my mind freely; so I said, "I know my
master's learning is not equal to his father's, yet I know his
judgement to be very right; and as for his affection in these
particulars which your Lordships have pointed at, for upholding
the doctrine and discipline and right estate of the Church, I have
more confidence of him than of his father, in whom they say (better
than I can) is so much inconstancy in some particular cases."
[_BISHOP ANDREWES' PROPHECY._]
'Hereupon my Lords of Durham and St. David's began to argue it with
me, and required me to let them know upon what ground I came to
think thus of the Prince. I gave them my reasons at large; and
after many replyings, (above an hour together,) then my Lord of
Winchester (who had said nothing all the while) bespake me these
words:--
'"Well, Doctor, God send you may be a good prophet concerning your
master's inclinations in these particulars, which we are glad to
hear from you. I am sure I shall be a true prophet: I shall be in
my grave, and so shall you, my Lord of Durham; but my Lord of St.
David's and you, Doctor, will live to see that day that your master
will be put to it, upon his head and his crown, without he will
forsake the support of the Church."
'Of these predictions made by that holy father,' adds the writer,
'I have now no witness but mine own conscience and the Eternal God
who knows I lie not; nobody else being present when this was spoken
but these three Lords.'
After this the four friends separated and Wren returned to Cambridge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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