the midst of regal pomp and splendour, sunk in the lowest state of melancholy and despair, the unrelenting persecutor of her Roman Catholic subjects. CHAPTER XII. IN PENAL MEASURES AGAINST ROMAN CATHOLICS IN ENGLAND, WITH the death of Elizabeth, persecution unfortunately did not die. James I. found "the Reformation" established. The Catholics, it might have been thought, had been crushed sufficiently in the previous reign, to have rendered unnecessary any new attempts to exterminate them. New measures of severity, however, from time to time, as the bigotry of the times became urgent, were wrung from the timid king. He had neither moral nor political courage, but it is very evident that his zeal for the Protestant church had more to do with a hatred of the Puritans than of popery, and that he had a hankering after all for the old religion which his mother belonged to, and had been persecuted by the fanatics of Scotland for adhering to.* His sentiments regarding the doctrines of the Catholic church, we find pretty plainly stated in a letter addressed to his sons in Spain, in 1622. "I have fully instructed them (the chaplains sent with the young princes) so as all their behaviour and sense shall, I hope, prove decent and agreeable to the purity of the primitive church, and yet as near the Roman form as can lawfully be done, for it hath ever been my way to go with the church of Rome usque απ aras."+ In his first speech from the throne, in reference to the Catholics, he said, "I hope that those of that profession within this kingdom, have a proof since my coming, that I was so far from increasing their burthens with Rehoboam, Hume states, that his principles would have led him to earnestly desire a unity of faith and of the churches which had been separated. + Hardwicke, State Papers. Ap. Brown, Penal Laws, p. 45. as I have so much as either time, occasion, or law could permit, lightened them." Concerning those who had been educated from their youth in the Catholic religion, and lived peaceably under his government, he further said, "I would be sorry to punish their bodies for the errors of their minds, the reformation whereof, must only come of God, and the true Spirit."* The parliament, however, throughout the whole of this reign, manifested a spirit of hostility to the Catholics, as determined as it was unchristian and revengeful. 66 'Tie up all that are now recusants ;† let Jesuits and seminaries condemned, be hanged; those not condemned, be judged ;‡ no band can hold them but a band of imprisonment, a band of banishment, or a band of death." These were commonplace words. James soon found it necessary to propitiate the favour of his new subjects. "And to leave no doubt on their minds of the sincerity of his intentions, a law was passed in the first year of his reign, confirming the statutes of Elizabeth, and enacting, that the two-thirds of the estates seized should be retained after the convict's death, until all arrears of the penalties are paid, and then delivered over to the heir, provided he be no recusant. The onethird, however, left for his support, is not to be liable to seizure for the penalties. Persons going beyond sea, to any Jesuit seminary, or not returning within one year after the end of the next session of parliament, were rendered, as it respects themselves, incapable of purchasing or enjoying any lands or goods, &c. Women also, and children under twenty-one, are restrained from passing over the seas without licence from the king, or six of his privy council. The penalty of one hundred pounds, levied by 27 Eliz. c. 2. on those who send any child, or other person under their obedience, out of the realm, during her life, is here made perpetual. Persons likewise, who keep school, otherwise than in some university, public grammarschool, or in the houses of noblemen or gentlemen, not * Journal of the House of Commons, die Jovis 22 Martii, 1603. Mr. Brook, Debate on Priests and Masses, die Veneris 25 Maii 1610, Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. i. p. 433. Mr. Chancellor, ib. § Mr. Hook, Debate on report of a conference with the Lords, Veneris 7 die Februarii 1607. Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. i. p. 265. being recusants, without leave from the bishop, together with those who retain or maintain them, forfeit forty shillings for every day they so wittingly offend. The one half of these fines is for the king, the other for the informer."* In 1604, the discovery of the gunpowder plot, “the Popish plot," as it was called, involved the Catholics in new troubles. Hume attributes this treason to the wide spread disappointment of the Roman Catholics. When James, who was believed "to have entered even into positive engagements with them to tolerate their religion, so soon as he should mount the throne of England,"t took the earliest opportunity after his accession, to express his resolution "to execute strictly the laws enacted against Catholics, and to persevere in all the rigorous measures of Elizabeth." 66 James allowed his ministers to keep his word for him; vast numbers of recusants were presented, the houses and noble mansions of Catholics were at the mercy of the miscreants, who hung about the public offices. Their wives' and daughters' religion was enquired into, and the recusancy of women visited on their families with heavy fines. Great disappointment, undoubtedly, was felt by his Catholic subjects, and some Catholics unquestionably were implicated in this conspiracy, and figured too as the authors of it. But that many Catholics were privy to it, and that those who were put forward as the originators were the real authors of it, are matters which admit of much doubt. One of the most infamous public acts of James throughout his reign, was the pretence set up by him that his past forbearance in the case of recusants did not prejudice his claim to the exaction of the penalties of recusancy. He had merely granted time for the payment, in the hope of the indulgence leading them to conform to the true reli gion. To the dismay of the unfortunate Catholic gentry, the fine for non-attendance on Protestant worship, of £.20 a month, was demanded, "and not only for the time to come, but for the whole period of the suspension; a demand which, by crowding thirteen payments into one, reduced *Brown's Penal Laws, p. 53. + History of England, vol. vi., ch. 47, p. 30. many families of moderate incomes to a state of absolute beggary.' To satisfy the wants of his needy countrymen, by whom he was surrounded, he transferred to them his claims on the rich recusants, with a legal right to proceed by law for the recovery of the several amounts. Among the sufferers was Robert Catesby, a son of Sir Robert Catesby, a gentleman of Warwickshire, once of considerable property. The father had been imprisoned frequently on charges of recusancy; the son had abandoned his religion, again returned to it, and had taken part in Essex's conspiracy. Hume says, the secret of the conspiracy, which had been communicated to above twenty persons, was religiously kept during the space of a year and a half. The secret was at length revealed; an anonymous letter to Lord Monteagle, a Catholic, son to Lord Morley, warning him to keep away from the opening of parliament, apparently led to the discovery. This letter bears the evident internal evidence of a subtle purpose, far removed from the mere object of cautioning a friend to avoid impending danger. The letter contained unnecessary revelations of the nature of the agency, intended for the destruction of the king and parliament, such as the intimation of “ a terrible blow," concealed authors, a danger past, no appearance of any stir," and "they shall not see who hurts them.' 66 It was evident that gunpowder was to be the agent of this threatened catastrophe. The principal conspirators were said to be "Piercy, a descendant of the illustrious house of Northumberland;" "Catesby, a gentleman of good parts and of ancient family;" "Sir Everard Digby, as highly esteemed and beloved as any man in England, and who had been particularly honoured with the good opinion of Queen Elizabeth."+ Also two Jesuits, Tesmond and Garnet, superior of his order in England. Are these the kind of men to have originated a plot of the most diabolical character, the successful execution of which even could lead to no reasonable hope of triumphing over the Protestant feeling then dominant throughout the country; and to have associated themselves, of their * Lingard's History of England, vol. 1. ch. 1. own motion, with a desperado of a reckless character in a rash, bloody, and merciless design? The master-hand of a subtle state villain, of the stamp of Walsingham, in a preceding reign, or of a Cecil in that of James, or of Shaftesbury in a succeeding one, is discoverable in the skilfully woven meshes of treason, in which the obnoxious Catholic gentlemen, then justly irritated at the perfidious conduct of the king towards them, were entangled. Hume acknowledges that the mystery of the machination of this plot had never been cleared up.' * James, in his speech to the parliament in reference to the plot, spoke generously of the criminality of involving all the Catholics in the guilt of the conspirators. "Nothing," he said, "can be more hateful than the uncharitableness of the puritans, who condemn alike to eternal torments even the most inoffensive partizans of popery. For his part," he added, "that conspiracy, however atrocious, should never alter, in the least, his plan of government; while with one hand he punished guilt, with the other, he would support and protect innocence."t The professed intentions of the monarch were not in accordance with the views of the parliament. Its deliberations were unhappily guided by the demon of revenge and of persecution. The following notice of the enactments of it against Catholics are chiefly taken from Brown's " Penal Laws." By one of their statutes, it is enacted, that popish recusants conforming, within the first year, and once within every year afterwards, shall take the sacrament according to the rites of the church of England, in the parish church, or in the one next adjoining, under forfeiture for the first year of twenty pounds, the second of forty, and for every "A true and impartial Narrative of the Dissenters' new Plot; with a large Relation of all their old ones, by one who was deeply concerned therein;" (originally published soon after the Revolution, 1691, and reprinted in Somers's State Tracts, Collection 3, vol. 3. p. 56,) contains the following passage,-"The succeeding reign of King James would afford a very large field, and tempt to expatiate on their plots therein. As their sham plot of the gunpowder treason, thrown upon the Catholics to render them odious, albeit they have so frequently, when thereon interrogated, assured the world it was a mere trick of Cecil's, (their religion not permitting them to equivocate or lie), with others truly innumerable." + Hume, c. 46, § 14. 3 James 1, c. 4. |