‘BUSTLING CHALCEDON IS DEAD IN THE NEST’

The second Viscount Montague died while his chaplains and relatives were fully engaged in an apocalyptic struggle with their enemies. This was a battle which, as we have seen, they lost. Bishop Richard Smith's opponents settled with him by denouncing him to the regime. After two proclamations, in 1628 and 1629, which pronounced him to be a traitor, Smith was forced to take refuge at the French embassy in London.

The enemies of the secular clergy leadership now gathered to press home their advantage. Sir George Calvert, Baron Baltimore, returned from his Newfoundland colony in 1630, and took control of the anti-Smith brigade. He raised again the issue and text of the ‘letter of the three gentlemen’. In March 1631 it was put out again – under a new title: ‘The Declaration of the Lay Catholics of England’. It was shown to the Catholic ambassadors resident in London and, in April, to Carlos Coloma as he was returning to Spain through Brussels. Coloma signed a statement which guaranteed that the documentation presented to him was accurate.

Smith's supporters struck back, mainly by trying to exploit their French contacts. The French ambassador Fontenay was, at first, reluctant to help them. But in late June 1631 he agreed to sign an amended version of a screed of 31 May which ended up being printed at Paris under the title Général Désadveu des Catholiques Lais d'Angleterre, contre une Déclaration qui a esté faussement publiée à leur nom.