What Gunpowder Plot Was Part 6

The last question necessary to deal with relates to the unimportant point where Fawkes was when he was arrested.

"To say nothing," writes Father Gerard, "of the curious discrepancies as to the date of the warning, it is clearly impossible to determine the locality of Guy's arrest. The account officially published in the 'King's Book,' says that this took place in the street. The letter to the amba.s.sadors a.s.signs it to the cellar and afterwards to the street; that to Parry to the cellar only. Fawkes himself, in his confession of November 5, says that he was apprehended neither in the street nor in the cellar, but in his own room in the adjoining house. Chamberlain writes to Carleton, November 7, that it was in the cellar. Howes, in his continuation of Stowes' _Annals_, describes two arrests of Fawkes, one in the street, the other in his own chamber. This point, though seemingly somewhat trivial, has been invested with much importance.

According to a time-honoured story, the baffled desperado roundly declared that had he been within reach of the powder when his captors appeared, he would have applied a match and involved them in his own destruction."[210]

This pa.s.sage deserves to be studied, if only as a good example of the way in which historical investigation ought not to be conducted, that is to say, by reading into the evidence what, according to preconception of the inquirer, he thinks ought to be there, but is not there at all. In plain language, the words 'cellar' and 'street' are not mentioned in any one of the doc.u.ments cited by Father Gerard. There is no doubt a discrepancy, but it is not one between these two localities. The statements quoted by Father Gerard in favour of a capture in the 'cellar' merely say that it was effected 'in the place.' The letter of the 9th says 'in the place itself,'[211] and this is copied from the draft of the 6th. Chamberlain says[212] that Fawkes was 'taken making his trains at midnight,' but does not say where. Is it necessary to interpret this as meaning the 'cellar'? There was, as we know, a door out of the 'cellar' into the pa.s.sage, and probably a door opposite into Percy's house. If Fawkes were arrested in this pa.s.sage as he was coming out of the cellar and going into the house, or even if he had come out of the pa.s.sage into the head of the court, he might very well be said to have been arrested 'in the place itself,' in contradistinction to a place a few streets off.

The only real difficulty is how to reconcile this account of the arrest, with Fawkes's own statement on his first examination on November 5, when he said:--

"That he meant to have fired the same by a match, and saith that he had touchwood and a match also, about eight or nine inches long, about him, and when they came to apprehend him he threw the touchwood and match out of the window in his chamber near the Parliament House towards the waterside."

Fawkes, indeed, was not truthful in his early examinations, but he had no inducement to invent this story, and it may be noted that whenever the accounts which have reached us go into details invariably they speak of two separate actions connected with the arrest. The draft to Parry, indeed, only speaks of the first apprehension, but the draft of the narrative which finally appeared in the King's Book[213] says that Knyvet 'finding the same party with whom the Lord Chamberlain before and the Lord Monteagle had spoken newly, come out of the vault, made stay of him.' Then Knyvet goes into the vault and discovers the powder.

"Whereupon the caitiff being surely seized, made no difficulty to confess, &c."[214] The letter to the amba.s.sadors[215] tells the same story. Knyvet going into the vault 'found that fellow Johnson newly come out of the vault, and without asking any more questions stayed him.'

Then after the search 'he perceived the barrels and so bound the caitiff fast.' The King's Book itself separates at least the 'apprehending' from the searching.

"But before his entry into the house finding Thomas Percy's alleged man standing without the doors,[216] his clothes and boots on at so dead a time of the night, he resolved to apprehend him, as he did, and thereafter went forward to the searching of the house ...

and thereafter, searching the fellow whom he had taken, found three matches, and all other instruments fit for blowing up the powder ready upon him."

All these are cast more or less in the same mould. On the other hand, a story, in all probability emanating from Knyvet, which Howes interpolated in a narrative based on the official account, gives a possibility of reconciling the usual account of the arrest with the one told by Fawkes. After telling, after the fas.h.i.+on of the King's Book, of Fawkes' apprehension and Knyvet's search, he bursts on a sudden into a narrative of which no official doc.u.ment gives the slightest hint:--

"And upon the hearing of some noise Sir T. Knyvet required Master Edmond Doubleday, Esq.[217] to go up into the chamber to understand the cause thereof, the which he did, and had there some speech of Fawkes, being therewithal very desirous to search and see what books or instruments Fawkes had about him; but Fawkes being wondrous unwilling to be searched, very violently griped M[aster]

Doubleday by his fingers of the left hand, through pain thereof Ma[ster] Doubleday offered to draw his dagger to have stabbed Fawkes, but suddenly better bethought himself and did not; yet in that heat he struck up the traitor's heels and therewithal fell upon him and searched him, and in his pocket found his garters, wherewith M[aster] Doubleday and others that a.s.sisted they bound him. There was also found in his pocket a piece of touchwood, and a tinder box to light the touchwood and a watch which Percy and Fawkes had bought the day before, to try conclusions for the long or short burning of the touchwood, which he had prepared to give fire to the train of powder."

Surely this life-like presentation of the scene comes from no other than Doubleday himself, as he is the hero of the little scene. Knyvet plainly had not bound Fawkes when he 'stayed' or 'apprehended' him. He must have given him in charge of some of his men, who for greater safety's sake took him out of the pa.s.sage or the court--whichever it was--into his own chamber within the house. Then a noise is heard, and Knyvet, having not yet concluded the examination, sends Doubleday to find out what is happening, with the result we have seen. When Knyvet arrives on the scene, he has Fawkes more securely bound than with a pair of garters.

The only discrepancy remaining is between Fawkes's statement that he threw touchwood and match out of window, and Doubleday's that the touchwood at least was found in his pocket. Perhaps Doubleday meant only that the touchwood thrown out came from Fawkes's pocket. Perhaps there is some other explanation. After all, this is too trivial a matter to trouble ourselves about.

Wearisome as these details are, they at least bring once more into relief the hesitancy which characterises every action of the Government till the powder is actually discovered. Though Fawkes has been seen by Suffolk in the afternoon, no preparations are made for his arrest.

Knyvet does not even bring cord with him to tie the wrists of a possible conspirator, and when Doubleday at last proceeds to bind him, he has to rely upon the garters found in his pocket. It is but one out of many indications which point to the conclusion that the members of the Government had nothing to guide their steps but an uncertain light in which they put little confidence. Taken together with the revelations of their ignorance as to the whereabouts of the plotters after Fawkes's capture had been effected, it almost irresistibly proves that they had no better information to rest on than the obscure communication which had been handed to Monteagle at Hoxton. As I have said before, the truth of the ordinary account of the plot would not be in the slightest degree affected if Salisbury had known of it six weeks or six months earlier. I feel certain, however, that he had no such previous knowledge, because, if he had, he would have impressed on the action of his colleagues the greater energy which springs from certainty. It is strange, no doubt, that a Government with so many spies and intelligencers afoot, should not have been aware of what was pa.s.sing in the Old Palace of Westminster. It was, however, not the first or the last time that governments, keeping a watchful eye on the ends of the earth, have been in complete ignorance of what was pa.s.sing under their noses.

CHAPTER VI

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CATHOLICS

Having thus disposed of Father Gerard's a.s.saults on the general truth of the accepted narrative of the Plot, we can raise ourselves into a larger air, and trace the causes leading or driving the Government into measures which persuaded such brave and constant natures to see an act of righteous vengeance in what has seemed to their own and subsequent ages, a deed of atrocious villainy. Is it true, we may fairly ask, that these measures were such as no honourable man could in that age have adopted, and which it is therefore necessary to trace to the vilest of all origins--the desire of a half-successful statesman to root himself in place and power?

It would, indeed, be difficult to deny that the feeling of advanced English Protestants towards the Papal Church was one of doctrinal and moral estrangement. They held that the teaching of that church was false and even idolatrous, and they were quite ready to use the power of the state to extirpate a falsity so pernicious. On the other hand, the priests, Jesuits, and others, who flocked to England with their lives in their hands, were filled with the joy of those whose work it is to disseminate eternal truths, and to rescue souls, lost in heresy, from spiritual destruction.

The statesman, whether in his own person aggressively Protestant or not, was forced to consider this antagonism from a different point of view.

The outbreak against Rome which had marked the sixteenth century had only partially a doctrinal significance. It meant also the desire of the laity to lower the authority of the clergy. Before the Reformation the clergy owed a great part of their power to the organisation which centred in Rome, and the only way to weaken that organisation, was to strengthen the national organisation which centred in the crown. Hence those notions of the Divine Right of Kings and of _Cujus regio ejus religio_, which, however theoretically indefensible, marked a stage of progress in the world's career. The question whether, in the days of Elizabeth, England should accept the authority of the Pope or the authority of the Queen, was political as much as religious, and it is no wonder that Roman Catholics when they burnt Protestants, they placed the religious aspect of the quarrel in the foreground; nor that Protestants when they hanged and disembowelled Roman Catholics, placed the political aspect in the foreground. As a matter of fact, these were but two sides of the s.h.i.+eld. Protestants who returned to the Papal Church not merely signified the acceptance of certain doctrines which they had formerly renounced, but also accepted a different view of the relations between Church and State, and denied the sufficiency of the national Government to decide finally on all causes, ecclesiastical and civil, without appeal. If the religious teaching of the Reformed Church fell, a whole system of earthly government would fall with it.

To the Elizabethan statesman therefore the missionary priests who flocked over from the continent const.i.tuted the gravest danger for the State as well as for the Church. He was not at the bottom of his heart a persecutor. Neither Elizabeth nor her chief advisers, though, even in the early part of the reign, inflicting sharp penalties for the denial of the royal supremacy, would willingly have put men to death because they held the doctrine of transubstantiation, or any other doctrine which had found favour with the Council of Trent; but after 1570 they could not forget that Pius V. had excommunicated the Queen, and had, as far as his words could reach, released her subjects from the bond of obedience. Hence those excuses that, in enforcing the Recusancy laws against the Catholic laity, and, in putting Catholic priests to death as traitors, Elizabeth and her ministers were actuated by purely political motives. It was not exactly the whole truth, but there was a good deal more of truth in it than Roman Catholic writers are inclined to admit.

It was in this school of statesmans.h.i.+p that Sir Robert Cecil--as he was in Elizabeth's reign--had been brought up, and it was hardly likely that he would be willing to act otherwise than his father had done. It was, indeed, hard to see how the quarrel was to be lifted out of the groove into which it had sunk. How could statesmen be a.s.sured that, if the priests and Jesuits were allowed to extend their religious influence freely, the result would not be the destruction of the existing political system? That Cecil would have solved the problem is in any case most unlikely. It was, perhaps, too difficult to be as yet solved by any one, and Cecil was no man of genius to lead his age. Yet there were two things which made for improvement. In the first place, the English Government was immensely stronger at Elizabeth's death than it had been at her accession, and those who sat at the helm could therefore regard, with some amount of equanimity, dangers that had appalled their predecessors forty-five years before. The other cause for hope lay in the accession of a new sovereign; James had never been the subject of Papal excommunication as Elizabeth had been, and was consequently not personally committed to extreme views.

James's character and actions lend themselves so easily to the caricaturist, and so much that he did was the result either of egotistic vanity or of a culpable reluctance to take trouble, that it is difficult to give him credit for the good qualities that he really possessed. Yet hazy as his opinions in many respects were, it is easy to trace through his whole career a tolerably consistent principle. He would have been pleased to put an end, not indeed to the religious dispute, but to the political antagonism between those who were divided in religion, and would gladly have laid aside the weapon of persecution for that of argument. The two chief actions of his reign in England were the attempt to secure religious peace for his own dominions by an understanding with the Pope, and the attempt to secure a cessation of religious wars in Europe by an understanding with the King of Spain. In both cases is revealed a desire to obtain the co-operation of the leader of the party opposed to himself. Of course it is possible, perhaps even right, to say that this line of action was hopeless from the beginning, as involving too sanguine an estimate of the conciliatory feelings of those for whose co-operation he was looking. All that we are here concerned with is to point out that James brought with him ideas on the subject of the relations between an English--and, for the matter of that, a Scottish--king and the papacy, which were very different from those in which Cecil had been trained.

On the other hand, James's ideas, even when they had the element of greatness in them, never lifted him into greatness. He looked upon large principles in a small way, usually regarding them through the medium of his own interests. The doctrine that the national government ought to be supreme, took in his mind the shape of a belief that his personal government ought to be supreme. When in Scotland he sought an understanding with the Pope, his own succession to the English Crown occupied the foreground, and the advantage of having the English Catholics on his side made him eager to strike a bargain. On the other hand, he refused to strike that bargain unless his own independent position were fully recognised. When, in 1599, he despatched Edward Drummond to Italy, he instructed him to do everything in his power to procure the elevation of a Scottish Bishop of Vaison to the Cardinalate, in order that he might advocate his interests at Rome. Yet he refused to write directly to the Pope himself, merely because he objected to address him as 'Holy Father.'[218] It was hardly the precise objection that would have been taken by a man of greater practical ability.

Nor was it only on niceties of this sort that James's desire to come to some sort of understanding with the Pope was likely to be wrecked. His correspondence with Cecil during the last years of Elizabeth, shows how little he had grasped the special difficulties of the situation, whilst on the other hand it throws light on the shades of difference between himself and his future minister. In a letter written to Cecil in the spring of 1602, James objects to the immediate conclusion of a peace with Spain on three grounds, the last being that the 'Jesuits, seminary priests, and that rabble, wherewith England is already too much infected, would then resort there in such swarms as the caterpillars or flies did in Egypt, no man any more abhorring them, since the Spanish practices was the greatest crime that ever they were attainted of, which now by this peace will utterly be forgotten.'

"And now," he proceeds, "since I am upon this subject, let the proofs ye have had of my loving confidence in you plead for an excuse to my plainness, if I freely show you that I greatly wonder from whence it can proceed that not only so great a flock of Jesuits and priests dare both resort and remain in England, but so proudly do use their functions through all the parts of England without any controlment or punishment these divers years past: it is true that for remedy thereof there is a proclamation lately set forth, but blame me not for longing to hear of the exemplary execution thereof, _ne sit lex mortua_. I know it may be justly thought that I have the like beam in my own eye, but alas, it is a far more barbarous and stiffnecked people that I rule over. St.

George surely rides upon a towardly riding horse, where I am daily bursting in daunting a wild unruly colt, and I protest in G.o.d's presence the daily increase that I hear of popery in England, and the proud vauntery that the papists makes daily there of their power, their increase, and their combined faction, that none shall enter to be King there but by their permission; this their bragging, I say, is the cause that moves me, in the zeal of my religion, and in that natural love I owe to England, to break forth in this digression, and to forewarn you of these apparent evils."

To this Cecil replied as follows:--

"For the matter of priests, I will also clearly deliver your Majesty my mind. I condemn their doctrine, I detest their conversation, and I foresee the peril which the exercise of their function may bring to this island, only I confess that I shrink to see them die by dozens, when (at the last gasp) they come so near loyalty, only because I remember that mine own voice, amongst others, to the law (for their death) in Parliament, was led by no other principle than that they were absolute seducers of the people from temporal obedience, and consequent persuaders to rebellion, and which is more, because that law had a retrospective to all priests made twenty years before. But contrary-wise for that generation of vipers (the Jesuits) who make no more ordinary merchandise of anything than of the blood and crowns of princes, I am so far from any compa.s.sion, as I rather look to receive commandment from you to abstain than prosecute."

This plain language drove James to reconsider his position.

"The fear," he replied, "I have to be mistaken by you in that part of my last letter wherein I discover the desire I have to see the last edict against Jesuits and priests put in execution; the fear, I say, of your misconstruing my meaning hereon (as appears by your answer), enforceth me in the very throng of my greatest affairs to pen by post an answer and clear resolution of my intention. I did ever hate alike both extremities in any case, only allowing the midst for virtue, as by my book now lately published doth plainly appear. The like course do I hold in this particular. I will never allow in my conscience that the blood of any man shall be shed for diversity of opinions in religion, but I would be sorry that Catholics should so multiply as they might be able to practise their old principles upon us. I will never agree that any should die for error in faith against the first table, but I think they should not be permitted to commit works of rebellion against the second table. I would be sorry by the sword to diminish their number, but I would also be loth that, by so great connivance and oversight given unto them, their numbers should so increase in that land as by continual multiplication they might at least become masters, having already such a settled monarchy amongst them, as their archpriest with his twelve apostles keeping their terms in London, and judging all questions as well civil as spiritual amongst all Catholics. It is for preventing of their multiplying, and new set up empire, that I long to see the execution of the last edict against them, not that thereby I wish to have their heads divided from their bodies, but that I would be glad to have both their heads and bodies separated from this whole island and safely transported beyond seas, where they may freely glut themselves upon their imaginated G.o.ds. No! I am so far from any intention of persecution, as I protest to G.o.d I reverence their Church as our Mother Church, although clogged with many infirmities and corruptions, besides that I did ever hold persecution as one of the infallible notes of a false church. I only wish that such order might be taken as the land might be purged of such great flocks of them that daily diverts the souls of many from the sincerity of the Gospel, and withal, that some means might be found for debarring their entry again, at least in so great swarms. And as for the distinction of their ranks, I mean between the Jesuits and the secular priests, although I deny not that the Jesuits, like venomed wasps and firebrands of sedition, are far more intolerable than the other sort that seem to profess loyalty, yet is their so plausible profession the more to be distrusted that like married women or minors, whose vows are ever subject to the controlment of their husbands and tutors,[219] their consciences must ever be commanded and overruled by their Romish G.o.d as it pleases him to allow or revoke their conclusions."[220]

The agreement and disagreement between the two writers is easily traced in these words. Both are averse to persecute for religion. Both are afraid lest the extension of the firmly organised Roman Church should be dangerous to the State as well as to religion. On the other hand, whilst Cecil is content to plod on in the old ways, James vaguely adumbrates some scheme by which the priests, being banished, might be kept from returning, and thus the chance of a dangerous growth of their religion being averted, it would be possible to protect the existing forms of government without having recourse to the old persecuting laws. We feel, in reading James's words, that we are reading the phrases of a pedant who has not imagination enough to see how his scheme would work out in real life; but at all events we have before us, as we so often have in James's writings, a glimpse of new possibilities, and a desire to escape from old entanglements.

With such ideas floating in his mind, and with a strong desire to gain the support of the English Catholics to his succession, James may easily have given a.s.surances to Thomas Percy of an intention to extend toleration to the English Catholics, which may have overrun his own somewhat fluid intentions, and may very well have been interpreted as meaning more than his words literally meant. James's engagement to Percy's master, Northumberland, was certainly not devoid of ambiguity.

"As for the Catholics," he wrote, "I will neither persecute any that will be quiet and give but an outward obedience to the law, neither will I spare to advance any of them that will by good service worthily deserve it."[221]

When James reached England in 1603 he seemed inclined to carry out his intentions. He is reported, at least, to have told Cecil in June that the fines were not to be levied, adding that he did not wish to make merchandise of consciences, nor to set a price on faith. Yet, in spite of this, the meshes of the administrative system closed him in, and the fines continued to be collected.[222] The result was the conspiracy of Copley and others, including Watson, a secular priest. This foolish plot was, however, betrayed to the Government by some of the Roman Catholic clergy, who were wise enough to see that any violence attempted against James would only serve to aggravate their lot.

The discovery that there were those amongst the priests who were ready to oppose disloyalty quickened James to carry out his earlier intention.

On June 17 he informed Rosny, the French amba.s.sador, of his intention to remit the recusancy fines, and, after some hesitation, he resolved to put his engagement in execution. On July 17, 1603, he allowed a deputation from the leading Catholics to be heard by the Privy Council in his own presence, and a.s.sured them that as long as they remained loyal subjects their fines would be remitted. If they would obey the law--in other words, if they would soil their consciences by attending church--the highest offices in the State should be open to them.[223]

The a.s.surance thus given was at once carried out as far as possible. The 20_l._ fines ceased, and the greater part of the two-thirds of the rents of convicted recusants were no longer required. If some of the latter were still paid, it is probable that this was only done in cases in which the rents had been granted to lessees on a fixed payment to the Crown by contracts which could not be broken.

Obviously there were two ways in which attempts might be made to obviate danger from Catholic disloyalty. Individual Catholics might be won over to confidence in the Government by the redress of personal grievances, or the Pope, as the head of the Catholic organisation, might be induced to prohibit conspiracies as likely to injure rather than to advance the cause which he had at heart. It is unnecessary to say that the latter was a more delicate operation than the former.

An opening, indeed, had been already given. When James refused to sign a letter to Pope Clement VIII., on the ground that he could not address him as 'Holy Father,'[224] his secretary, Elphinstone, surrept.i.tiously procured his signature, and sent it off without his knowledge.[225]

Clement, therefore, was under the impression that he had received a genuine overture from James, and replied by a complimentary letter, which he intrusted to Sir James Lindsay, a Scottish Catholic then in Rome. In 1602 Lindsay reached Scotland, and delivered his letter. As he was to return to Rome, James instructed him to ask Clement to excuse him for not writing in reply, and for being unable to accept some proposal contained in the Pope's letters, the reasons in both cases having been verbally communicated to Lindsay. Finally, Lindsay was to a.s.sure Clement that James was resolved to observe two obligations inviolably. In the first place he would openly and without hypocrisy declare his opinion, especially in such matters as bore upon religion and conscience. In the second place, that his opinion might not be too obstinate where reason declared against it, he would, laying aside all prejudice, admit whatever could be clearly proved by the laws and reason.[226]

It is no wonder that James had rejected the Pope's proposal, as Clement had not only offered to oppose all James's compet.i.tors for the English succession, but had declared his readiness to send him money on condition that he would give up his eldest son to be educated as Clement might direct.[227] That such a proposal should have been made ought to have warned James that it was hopeless to attempt to come to an understanding with the Pope on terms satisfactory to a Protestant Government. For a time no more was heard of the matter. Lindsay was taken ill, and was unable to start before James was firmly placed on the English throne.

The announcement to the lay Catholics that their fines would be remitted had been preluded by invitations to James to come to terms with the authorities of the Papal Church. Del Bufalo, Bishop of Camerino, the Nuncio at Paris, despatched a certain Degl' Effetti to England in Rosny's train, to feel the way, and the Nuncio at Brussels sent over his secretary, Sandrino, to inquire, though apparently without the sanction of the Pope himself, whether James would be willing to receive a '_legate_,'[228] which may probably be interpreted merely as a negotiator, not as a 'legate' in the full sense of the term. On July 11/21, Del Bufalo, writing to Cardinal Aldobrandino, reports that the strongest argument used by James against toleration for the Catholics was, that if they were allowed to live in Catholic fas.h.i.+on they must obey the Pope, and consequently disobey the King; whilst those who were favourable to toleration were of opinion that this argument would be deprived of strength if James could be a.s.sured that the Pope might remove this impediment by commanding Catholics under the highest possible penalty, to make oath of fidelity and obedience to his Majesty.

When this reached Rome the following note was written on it in the Pope's hand:--

"It is rather heresy which leads to disobedience. The Catholic religion teaches obedience to Princes, and defends them. As to reaching the King's ears, we shall be glad to do so, and we wish him to know with what longing for the safety[229] and quiet of himself and his kingdom we have proceeded and are proceeding. It is our conscientious desire so to proceed as we have written to one king and the other."[230]

As the letter referred to must have been the one in which Clement asked to have the education of Prince Henry, this note does not sound very promising. Nor was James's language, on the other hand, such as would be counted satisfactory at Rome. After his return from England Rosny informed Del Bufalo that James had a.s.sured him that he would not persecute the Catholics as long as they did not trouble the realm, and had praised the Pope as a temporal sovereign, adding that if he could find a way of agreeing with him he would gladly adopt it, provided that he might remain at the head of his own Church.[231]

A letter written on August 8/18, by Barneby, a priest recently liberated from prison, to Del Bufalo, throws further light on the situation. From this it appears that what the Nuncio at Brussels had proposed was not the sending of a fully authorised legate to England, but merely the appointment of someone who, being a layman, would, without offending James's susceptibility, be at hand to plead the cause of the Catholics and to give account of anything relating to their interests. We are thus able to understand how it was that the Nuncio had made the proposal without special orders from the Pope. More germane to the present inquiry is the account given by Barneby of James's own position:--

"For though," he writes, "it is certain that his Majesty conscientiously follows a religion contrary to us, and will therefore, as he says, never suffer his subjects to exercise lawfully and freely any other religion than his own--and that, both on account of his civil position, as on account of certain reasons and considerations relating to his conscience--nevertheless he openly promises to persecute no one on the ground of religion. And this he has so far happily begun to carry out with great honour to himself, and with the greatest joy advantage and pleasure to ourselves, though some of our most truculent enemies revolt, desiring that nothing but fine and sword may be used against us.

What will happen in the end I can hardly imagine before the meeting of Parliament.[232]"

As far as it is possible to disengage James's real intentions from these words, it would seem that he had positively declared against liberty of wors.h.i.+p, but that he would not levy the legal fines for not going to church on those who remained obedient subjects. Did he mean to wink at the Ma.s.s being said in the private houses of the recusants, or at the activity of the priests in making converts? These were the questions he would have to face before he was out of his difficulties.

On the other side of the channel Del Bufalo was doing his best to convey a.s.surances to James of the Pope's desire to keep the English Catholics in obedience. With this view he communicated with James's amba.s.sador in Paris, Sir Thomas Parry, who on August 20, gave an account of the matter to Cecil:--