lty was gentleness itself; and those
modern writers who see in it cruelty and rigour must have little
knowledge of comparative history. Yet so far was this from stopping the
flow of treason, that a Jesuit mission entered England with the special
purpose of teaching the people that under the Bull of Pope Pius the
Queen stood excommunicated, and that it was a positive sin to obey her.
Their success was only too manifest. Men of all sorts and conditions,
from peers to peasants, were "reconciled" in numbers by their teaching.
If this were to go on, not only would Elizabeth's life be the forfeit,
but the Reformation settlement would be uprooted and undone, and the
blood of the Marian martyrs would have been shed for nought.

The laws were now made more stringent. By the Act of 1580 it had been
provided that every priest saying mass should be liable to a fine of two
hundred marks (133 pounds), with half that sum for every hearer, and
both to imprisonment for a year, or in the priest's case until the fine
was paid. Now, all Jesuits and priests ordained since the Queen's
accession were banished the kingdom, being allowed forty days after the
close of the session; and none were to enter it, on penalty of death.
All persons receiving or assisting such priests were held guilty of
felony. Recusants were to be imprisoned until they should conform, and
if they remained obstinate for three months, they must be banished.

These penal laws, however, were rarely enforced. They were kept as a
sword of Damocles, suspended over the heads of the unhappy Romanists,
and capable of being brought down on them at any moment. In the hands
of an unscrupulous Minister of the Crown they might be made an agency of
considerable vexation: yet no reasonable remonstrance could be offered
to the reminder that these penalties were inflicted by law, and it was
only of the Queen's clemency that they had not been earlier exacted. It
must also be admitted that the penal laws bore in reality much harder on
the Romanists than they seem to do in Protestant eyes. To deprive a
Protestant of the services of a clergyman is at most to incommode him;
to deprive a Papist of his priest is equivalent in his eyes to depriving
him of his salvation. To them, therefore, it was a matter of life and
death. And yet, it must not be forgotten, they had brought it on
themselves.

With the death of Elizabeth came a serious change. Revile her as they
might, under her the