eveloped monarchy were revolting when it had
grown to its radiant perfection. The one thing wanting was the
Revocation, to abolish the memory of an age in which a king whose
throne was insecure conceded to turbulent and disloyal subjects that
which the sovereign of a loyal and submissive people would do well to
revoke. To fulfil the ideal of royalty, the monument of the weakness
of royalty and the strength of revolution must be ingeniously hidden
away. The ardour of rising absolutism is the true cause of the
Revocation.

William III explained it in another way. He said that the purpose was
to sow suspicion and dissension between Protestant and Catholic
Powers, by showing that the Catholics at heart, desired to extinguish
the Protestant religion. Such a suspicion, properly fanned, would
make alliances and coalitions impossible between them. The Waldenses
then survived in one or two valleys of Piedmont, much assimilated to
the Swiss Calvinists. Lewis required that they should be put down by
force, and, when the Duke of Savoy hesitated, offered to supply the
necessary troops. This extraordinary zeal, indicating that the spirit
of persecution was common to all, and was not stimulated by causes
peculiar to France, supplies the only evidence we have to sustain
William's interpretation.

It is well to be rational when we can, and never, without compulsion,
to attribute motives of passion, or prejudice, or ignorance as a
factor in politics. But it is necessary to remember that the Plot was
only six years old. The French government knew all about it, and was
in the secret of the papers destroyed by Coleman. To them it must
have appeared that the English were turned into ferocious assassins by
the mere force of their religious belief. There was no visible reason
why such things should be in England and not in France, why a majority
should be more easily carried away than a minority, or why High Church
Anglicans should be more prone to murder a priest or a friar than
extreme Calvinists, with whom it was a dogmatic certainty that
Catholics were governed by Antichrist.

The Gallican clergy were divided. Several bishops condemned the
action of the government, then or afterwards. The great majority
promoted or encouraged it, not all by a revival of the persecuting
spirit, but partly in the belief that the barriers were falling, and
that the Churches were no longer irreconcilable. They were impressed
by the fact that