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]

To come to our Instructions for Travellers, as given in the reign of James I., they abound, as we would expect, in warnings against the Inquisition and the Jesuits.  Sir Robert Dallington, in his Method for Travell,[181] gives first place to the question of remaining steadfast in one’s religion: 

“Concerning the Traveliers religion, I teach not what it should be, (being out of my element;) only my hopes are, he be of the religion here established:  and my advice is he be therein well settled, and that howsoever his imagination shall be carried in the voluble Sphere of divers men’s discourses; yet his inmost thoughts like lines in a circle shall alwaies concenter in this immoveable point, not to alter his first faith:  for that I knowe, that as all innovation is dangerous in a state; so is this change in the little commonwealth of a man.  And it is to be feared, that he which is of one religion in his youth, and of another in his manhood, will in his age be of neither....

“I will instance in a Gentleman I knew abroade, of an overt and free nature Zealously forward in the religion hee carried from home, while he was in France, who had not bene twentie dayes in Italy, but he was as farre gone on the contrary Byas, and since his returne is turned againe.  Now what should one say of such men but as the Philosopher saith of a friend, ‘Amicus omnium, Amicus nullorum,’ A professor of both, a believer in neither.[182]

“The next Caveat is, to beware how he heare anything repugnant to his religion:  for as I have tyed his tongue; so must I stop his eares, least they be open to the smooth incantations of an insinuating seducer, or the suttle arguments of a sophisticall adversarie.  To this effect I must precisely forbid him the fellowship or companie of one sort of people in generall:  these are the Jesuites, underminders and inveiglers of greene wits, seducers of men in matter of faith, and subverters of men in matters of State, making of both a bad christian, and worse subject.  These men I would have my Travueller never heare, except in the Pulpit; for[183] being eloquent, they speake excellent language; and being wise, and therefore best knowing how to speake to best purpose, they seldome or never handle matter of controversie.”