laws against the catholics. This, the king, in his answer, generally promised; and by a proclamation, which immediately followed, he ordered to England, all the children of catholic recusants, who had been sent abroad for foreign education, or on any other account; and enjoined the archbishops of both provinces to proceed strictly against such recusants by excommunication, and the other censures of the church. Their arms were taken from them †, and they were commanded not to stir above five miles from their own houses ‡.

In the following year, the commons presented a petition against the catholics expressed in the strongest language; it mentioned, among other grievances, the names of several persons in places of government or authority, who, they affirm, were popish recusants, or suspected of being such §:the king dissolved the parliament without returning any answer to the petition.

The alarm increasing, a conference was held between the lords and commons; and they joined in a petition to the king, for putting the laws, which

* Parl. Hist. vol. vi. p. 380.

+ Rushworth, vol. i. p.195, mentions the orders of council to the marquis of Winchester, lord St. John his son, lord viscount Montague, lord viscount Colchester, lord Petre, the earl of Castlehaven, lord Morley, lord Vaux, lord Eures, lord Arundell of Wardour, lord Teynham, lord Herbert and lord Windor, requiring them" to render their arms and the "furniture thereunto belonging, together with all their habili"ments of war."

Rushworth, vol. i. p. 406.

§ Parl. Hist. vol. vii. p. 286.

have been mentioned, into execution. Sir Edward Coke took a leading part in this business; he brought into full view the spiritual œconomy of the secular and regular clergy of the English catholics, their ecclesiastical agencies, and their establishments abroad. In his answer to the petition, his majesty promised to give "life, motion and execution" to the laws*. Proclamations hostile to the catholics were accordingly issued, and an act passed for "restraining the "sending over of any to be popishly bred beyond "the seas;" it adopted and aggravated the severe penalties of the act passed in the first year of James against foreign education. On other occasions, the commons proceeded in a manner that shewed their hostility to the catholics. Some priests having been condemned and their execution staid, the commons made it a subject of severe inquiry.-It having appeared that some persons had been tried before lord chief justice Richardson for being priests; that no proof of their having been guilty of that offence was produced, except the discovery of some sacerdotal vestments in the house in which they were apprehended, and that the chief justice, conceiving this evidence insufficient, had directed the jury to find them "not guilty," saying, that the question was priests or no priests,-and that they were en"titled to have justice done them;" this was made a subject of complaint.-" Never was the like ex"ample," said sir Robert Phillips; "if the judges give us not better satisfaction, they themselves

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Parl. Hist. vol. vii. p. 387, 391.

"will be parties*." One is sorry to find that the report made to the commons on this subject was brought up by Mr. Selden t.

A committee for religion was then formed; it appears by the articles for their instruction, that Arminianism was now an object of great terror to the house.

But the contention between the monarch and the commons now rose so high, that, on the 10th day of March in the fourth year of his reign,—(1629), -he dissolved the parliament, with expressions of great displeasure. On the 10th of the same month, he published "His declaration to all his loving "subjects of the cause, which had moved him to "dissolve it." It is written with perspicuity, force and elegance. On the subject of religion he says, "We call God to record, before whom we stand, "that it is, and always has been our heart's desire, "to be found worthy of that title, which we account "the most glorious in all our crown,--Defender of "the Faith.-Neither shall we ever give way to

* Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p. 306.

+ What had become of his noble motto, Пeg warlos ter Sλsvengiar?" You will find," Mr Fox said to the writer of these pages," much fewer real friends of religious liberty " than you expect; but you may always depend on Fitzwil"liams and Petty.

Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p. 319.-In the debates upon the duke of Buckingham, one of his advocates expatiated in the great pains taken by him to convert his mother from the catholic religion; to confirm his wife, "whom he found not firm,” in the protestant religion; and to discountenance the Arminians. Ib. p. 217.

"the authorizing of any thing, whereby any inno"vation may steal or creep into the church; but "to preserve that unity of doctrine and discipline, "established in the time of queen Elizabeth, whereby the church of England hath stood and "flourished ever since.

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"And, as we were careful to make up all "breaches and rents in religion at home, so did we,

by our proclamation and commandment for the "execution of laws against priests and popish re"cusants, fortify all ways and approaches against "that foreign enemy; in which, if we have not "succeeded according to our intention, we must

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lay the fault, where it is, on the subordinate offi"cers and ministers in the country, by whose re"missness, jesuits and priests escape without appre"hension, and recusants from those convictions "and penalties, which the law and our command"ment would have inflicted on them."

It is impossible not to be aware of the strong feelings of self degradation, which the monarch must have had, when he used these expressions.

From March 1629, no parliament was called till April 1639. A parliament was then convened; it was dissolved after sitting a few months: but, in September in the next year, a new parliament was summoned to meet in the following November, "a parliament which" say the authors of the Parliamentary History*, "many, before that time, thought "would never have had a beginning, and after* Vol. viii. p. 505.

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"wards, that it would never have had an end." From its long duration, it has been called the Long Parliament.

To the early part of the period between the accession of the monarch, and the meeting of the long parliament, we must assign the mitigated execution of the laws against the catholics, which is mentioned in our extracts from father Leander and Panzani.

A work of the celebrated Prynne*, shews equally the amiable disposition of the monarch to gentleness and mercy, and his culpable timidity.-It contains" several letters of grace, protection, and "warrants of discharge, granted by him to noto"rious popish recusants, priests and jesuits, to ex"empt them from all prosecutions and penal laws against them, signed with his own hand;" and

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a note of the names of those recusants, against "whom process had been stayed by his privy "signet." By a certificate produced by Mr. Prynne, under the hand of Mr. John Pulford, the officer employed in these prosecutions, it appears that the number of recusants convict in the twenty-nine counties, within the southern division of England, from the first till the sixteenth year of the reign of his majesty, amounted to 11,970. A list follows of

"The Popish Royall Favourite: or a full Discovery of "his Majestie's extraordinary Favours to and Protections "of notorious Papists, Priests, Jesuits, against all prosecutions "and penalties of the laws enacted against them, &c. Col"lected and published by authority of Parliament, by William "Prynne, of Lincoln's-Inn, esq. 4to. 1643."