La note figure à cette phrase :

« He may well have exaggerated also the strength of Presbyterianism, which was not as important

in church or state affairs as Pepys and many of his contemporaries thought. »

« Il a pu aussi bien exagérer la puissance du presbytérianisme qui n’était pas aussi important dans le monde

de l’Église et de l’État que Pepys et bon nombre de ses contemporains le pensaient. »

La note :

« Not even in the Revolution had it been as strong or united a movement (or, to use the word in its exact ecclesiastical sense, as Presbyterian a movement) as it appeared to be. Its name and cause had covered a variety of political and ecclesiastical beliefs of the centre, and most lay Presbyterians quickly and easily moved rightwards at the Restoration. But it was Presbyterian clerics who had been the dominant influence in the Cambridge of Pepys’s student days ; it was with the Presbyterian political interest that the Montagus had allied, and it was among Presbyterian merchants and shopkeepers of the city that Pepys had come to spend his working life. He was thus easily prompted, by the catchwords of the time and by the accident of his acquaintance, to mistake the nature of the movement. Clarendon himself was in similar case. In the early years of the Restoration he treated the Presbyterians gently and sympathetically, since they were then a force to be reckoned with. Composing his memoirs a decade later, he could write them off as a faction. »