The laws, as they stood at present, protected the church but they exposed the Catholics to the utmost rage of the Puritans; and these unhappy religionists, so obnoxious to the prevailing sect, could not hope to remain long unmolested. The voluntary contribution, which they had made, in order to assist the king in his war against the Scottish Covenanters, was inquired into, and represented as the greatest enormity.[*] By an address from the commons, all officers of that religion were removed from the army, and application was made to the king for seizing two thirds of the lands of recusants; a proportion to which by law he was entitled, but which he had always allowed them to possess upon easy compositions. The execution of the severe and bloody laws against priests was insisted on; and one Goodman, a Jesuit, who was found in prison, was condemned to a capital punishment. Charles, however, agreeably to his usual principles, scrupled to sign the warrant for his execution; and the commons expressed great resentment on the occasion.[**] There remains a singular petition of Goodman, begging to be hanged, rather than prove a source of contention between the king and his people.[***]
* Rush, vol. v. p. 160.
** Rush. vol. v. p. 158, 159. Nalson, vol. i. p. 739.
*** Rush. vol. v. p. 166. Nalson, vol. i. p. 749.
He escaped with his life; but it seems more probable, that he was overlooked amidst affairs of greater consequence, than that such unrelenting hatred would be softened by any consideration of his courage and generosity.
For some years Con, a Scotchman, afterwards Rosetti, an Italian, had openly resided at London, and frequented the court, as vested with a commission from the pope. The queen’s zeal, and her authority with her husband, had been the cause of this imprudence, so offensive to the nation.[*] But the spirit of bigotry now rose too high to permit any longer such indulgences.[**]
Hayward, a justice of peace, having been wounded, when employed in the exercise of his office, by one James, a Catholic madman, this enormity was ascribed to the Popery, not to the frenzy of the assassin; and great alarms seized the nation and parliament.[***] A universal conspiracy of the Papists was supposed to have taken place; and every man for some days imagined that he had a sword at his throat. Though some persons of family and distinction were still attached to the Catholic superstition, it is certain that the numbers of that sect did not amount to the fortieth part of the nation: and the frequent panics to which men, during this period, were so subject on account of the Catholics, were less the effects of fear, than of extreme rage and aversion entertained against them.
* It is now known from the Clarendon papers, that the king
had also an authorized agent who resided at Rome. His name
was Bret, and his chief business was to negotiate with the
pope concerning indulgences to the Catholics, and to engage
the Catholics, in return, to be good and loyal subjects. But
this whole matter, though very innocent, was most carefully
kept secret. The king says, that he believed Bret to be as
much his as any Papist could be. See p. 348, 354.
** Bush. vol. v. p. 301.
*** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 249 Rush. vol. v. p. 57.
The queen mother of France, having been forced into banishment by some court intrigues, had retired into England; and expected shelter, amidst her present distresses, in the dominions of her daughter and son-in-law, But though she behaved in the most inoffensive manner, she was insulted by the populace on account of her religion, and was even threatened with worse treatment. The earl of Holland, lieutenant of Middlesex, had ordered a hundred musketeers to guard her; but finding that they had imbibed the same prejudices with the rest of their countrymen, and were unwillingly employed in such a service, he laid the case before the house of peers, for the king’s authority was now entirely annihilated. He represented the indignity of the action, that so great a princess, mother to the king of France and to the queens of Spain and England, should be affronted by the multitude. He observed the indelible reproach which would fall upon the nation, if that unfortunate queen should suffer any violence from the misguided zeal of the people. He urged the sacred rights of hospitality, due to every one, much more to a person in distress, of so high a rank, with whom the nation was so nearly connected. The peers thought proper to communicate the matter to the commons, whose authority over the people was absolute. The commons agreed to the necessity of protecting the queen mother; but at the same time prayed that she might be desired to depart the kingdom, “for the quieting those jealousies in the hearts of his majesty’s well-affected subjects, occasioned by some ill instruments about that queen’s person, by the flowing of priests and Papists to her house, and by the use and practice of the idolatry of the mass, and exercise of other superstitious services of the Romish church, to the great scandal of true religion.”[*]
Charles, in the former part of his reign, had endeavored to overcome the intractable and encroaching spirit of the commons, by a perseverance in his own measures, by a stately dignity of behavior, and by maintaining at their utmost height, and even perhaps stretching beyond former precedent, the rights of his prerogative. Finding, by experience, how unsuccessful those measures had proved, and observing the low condition to which he was now reduced, he resolved to alter his whole conduct, and to regain the confidence of his people by pliableness, by concessions, and by a total conformity to their inclinations and prejudices. It may safely be averred, that this new extreme into which the king, for want of proper counsel or support, was fallen, became no less dangerous to the constitution, and pernicious to public peace, than the other, in which he had so long and so unfortunately persevered.
The pretensions with regard to tonnage and poundage were revived, and with certain assurance of success, by the commons.[**]
* Rush, vol. v. p. 267.
* It appears not that the commons, though now entirely
masters, abolished the new impositions of James, against
which they had formerly so loudly complained; a certain
proof that the rates of customs settled by that prince, were
in most instances just, and proportioned to the new price of
commodities. They seem rather to have been low. See Journ.
10th Aug. 1625.