prison. Nearly all the executions took place in 1642 and 1643.* These executions, deaths in jail, and banishments of priests, it is to be remembered, were the work of only four servants (messengers) of the Commonwealth, and their practice was confined to the capital. How many other practitioners may have been at work there and throughout the country, is unknown. One thing, however, is certain; that subsequently to 1643, the hangings and quarterings of Jesuits, and other ministers of religion, were 'few and far between." Banishment was preferred by the men then in power, to bloodshed, and some of them, Sir Henry Vane amongst others, were opposed altogether to persecution. In the time of the Protectorate, an old Catholic clergyman, who had been banished thirty-seven years before, and had returned in his old age to die in his own land, was dragged from his bed by Colonel Worsley, and cast into prison. On his trial, he admitted that he was a Catholic and in orders, and on his admission, judgment of death was pronounced, and Cromwell, notwithstanding the urgent solicitations of two of the foreign ambassadors, determined he should suffer. "It was not that Cromwell approved of sanguinary punishments in matters of religion, but that he had no objection to purchase the good will of the godly by shedding the blood of a priest." The aged priest suffered the usual punishment of traitors, June 23rd, 1654. For a year before Cromwell's death, "sleep had fled his pillow," fear possessed his soul, the dread of assassination. continually haunted his imagination. September the 2nd, 1658, an awful tempest swept over the country. Trees were uprooted, houses unroofed; the parks of London were greatly injured. The cavaliers were of opinion that the fiends" the princes of the air, were congregating over Whitehall, that they might pounce on the Protector's soul." The following day Cromwell died. Thurloe communicated the intelligence to the Deputy of Ireland-" He is gone to heaven, embalmed with the tears of his people, and upon the wings of the prayers of the saints." In the course of eighteen months, Charles II. was quietly seated on his throne. Lingard's History of England, Vol. x. p. 429. CHAPTER XIV. STATE OF THE ENGLISH CATHOLICS AND PENAL ENACTMENTS IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES .II. FROM 1660 To 1685. IN 1660 Charles II. was restored to the throne of his ancestors. The kingdom had passed through one of the cycles of civil strife and religious discord which the reformation was destined to make oft recurring epochs of its history. The nation, wearied of turmoil, wished for rest and concord. The Catholics expected toleration, but though fanaticism had nearly burned itself out, in its own violence and fury, the spirit of faction was not extinguished; the parliament of the Restoration kept the nation in disquiet and apprehension, and made the condition of the Catholics worse than it had been since the death of Elizabeth. One unsuccessful effort was made by one Venner, to revive the old regime of "the Saints," but the day was gone by for that species of spiritual insanity. The attempt resembled very much in its fanaticism and its results, that of the Canterbury apostle, Mr. Courtenay, in our own times.* In 1661, Venner, a Millenarian preacher, of a conventicle in Coleman Street, a furious zealot, at the head of about sixty of his disciples, sallied forth with arms in their hands. into the streets of London,-an army of saints, in their own idea, led on by the Lord of Hosts, against a king supposed to be popishly affected. They rushed unimpeded from street to street, proclaiming the new reign of the saints, killed many soldiers who dared to confront them, retired in good order to Caen-wood, returned anew to the city, terrified the citizens, and eventually intrenched themselves in a house, defended it, and refusing quarter a great many were killed; those who were taken were brought to trial and executed. * In 1660, Charles had married a Catholic princess, Cath Strange to sav, one of the former fanatics, whose violence was of a similar kind to Venner's, but who had been imprisoned immediately before his outbreak, was named Courtenay. arine, daughter of John IV. of Portugal. This "Popish alliance" had a great influence on all the subsequent events of his reign.* In July, 1661, the house of Commons, on the report of a committee appointed to enquire into the laws against heretics, Catholic priests, and their harbourers, resolved to abolish the writ, "De Hæretico Inquirendo, and to repeal all the statutes which imposed the penalties of treason on Catholic clergymen found within the realm, or those of felony on the harbourers of such clergymen, or those of premunire on all who maintained the authority of the Bishop of Rome."+ But this great measure of relief was frustrated by the animosity that was felt or feigned against the Jesuits: a motion made and carried, that members of that society should be excluded from the benefit of the new measure, led to discussions, strife, and vehement disputes, inside and outside the houses of parliament. The progress of the bill was suspended, the Jesuits were called on in several pamphlets and speeches by the friends of this measure of toleration, to resign their claims to the proposed benefits, and the bill, it was argued, though clogged with these exceptions, ought to be accepted. The Catholic peers most unwisely requested the suspension of the progress of this measure of relief. It was suspended and renewed no more. The Catholics, for their adherence to the royal cause in the late troubles, in conformity with the solemn engagement at Breda, had been promised by the king the free exercise of their religion. On the 6th December, 1662, Charles, in virtue of his dispensing power, issued a declaration of indulgence, in which he said he would endeavour to procure an act from the parliament in cases of recusants, conducting themselves peaceably, to relax the rigour of the laws against non-conformity. A remonstrance of both houses was immediately presented against all indulgence to papists. *Catharine resisted the efforts that were made after her arrival in England to dispense with the celebration of the marriage ceremony after the Catholic rite, according to the king's previous engagement. The marriage was celebrated in a private room at Portsmouth by the almoner of the princess, in the presence of six witnesses pledged to profound secrecy.-Lingard, Vol. xi. p. 255. + Lingard, Vol. xi. p. 220. Toleration, however, of any kind was now odious to all factions in England, and the people of the capital who are generally, though very falsely, supposed to represent the feelings of the nation, deriving their opinions solely from political leaders and from parliament, held every religion but their own as damnable and idolatrous. At the opening of the next session (February 18th, 1663) Charles, to the astonishment of the Catholics, "demanded the enactment of new laws to check the progress of popery," but recommended the relaxation of those in force against dissenters. This infamy was to vindicate himself from aspersions on the character of his protestantism. An address from both houses followed, praying for a royal proclamation, "ordering all Catholic priests to quit the kingdom under penalty of death. After a faint struggle the king acquiesced." The following July, an address to the king was presented, calling on him "to put in execution all the penal laws against Catholics, dissenters, and sectaries of every description."* The parliament, in open defiance of the king, and avowed opposition to his known wishes, which he had not the manliness to make one vigorous effort to carry into effect, in the next session (May 17th, 1664) passed the outrageous act which declared " all meetings of more than five individuals, besides those of the family, seditious and unlawful conventicles," on a penalty for the first offence of £.5 or imprisonment for three months; for the second of double the amount and the time; for the third of £.100, or transportation for seven years. This intolerant act affected equally Catholics and dissenters. But the unworthy king gave "his reluctant assent" to it. It was carried most rigorously into execution; fines, imprisonments, terror in families, breaking into private houses, the employment of spies, and informers, and swearers, followed its enforcement. Lingard, who can use very carefully measured language when he has to do with great enormities, speaking of this atrocious measure says, "the world seldom witnessed a more flagrant violation of a most solemn engagement."† * Lingard, Vol. xi. p. 267. +Ibid, p. 271. His restoration had been obtained on terms-toleration on one hand—the re-establishment of the protestant church on the other. The king basely violated the compact with the Catholics; instead of toleration, he gave the parties he contracted with persecution. The infamy of the act will rest on his memory while the history of his times is remembered. Within a period of eighteen months after this persecution and violation of faith, many calamities had fallen on the nation; the African slave-trade had been legalized by parliament, chartered by the king, and its nefarious interests were promoted at the expense of an unjust war with an ancient ally-the kingdom had been ravaged by the plague-two-thirds of the capital had been destroyed by fire. "A striking instance of the bigoted aversion," says Brown, "to the professors of the Catholic religion which prevailed in the times of which we are treating, was afforded in 1666, the memorable year of the fire of London. This dreadful conflagration, without the shadow of a pretence, against the evidence of facts, against every surmise of probability, was most illiberally attributed to the machinations of the catholics. And though, after a most deliberate parliamentary investigation, it did not appear that there was any ground to suspect the existence of such a plot as the prejudices of men had conjured up to their imaginations, I blush for the character of my countrymen, whilst I record that that part of the inscription on the monument, commemorative of this dreadful affliction, which ascribed its commencement to such a cause, though very properly removed by James, was restored at the revolution." The charge, however, answered its purpose. Another proclamation was issued against popery and popish clergy. Neither Hume nor Lingard have mentioned a fact that makes the infamous Bedloe an earlier actor and plot maker on the public stage than he is represented to have been in their pages. Five months previously to the fire, in the month of April, it came out in evidence on the trial of some persons for high treason, that the latter had formed a plot to set * Hume, c. 64. + Brown's Penal Laws, p. 110. |