ho followed them found everywhere a rich harvest.[243] It was
arranged so that they arrived in the evening at the appointed houses
of their friends: there they heard confessions and gave advice to the
faithful. Early in the morning they preached, and then broke up again;
it was customary to provide them an armed escort to guard them from
any mischance.

Withal the forms of the church-service in England had been so arranged
that it might remain practicable for the Catholics also to take part
in it. How many had done so hitherto, perhaps with a rosary or a
Catholic book of prayers in their hands! The chief effort of the
seminarist priests, on their return to the country, was to put an end
to this: they dissuaded intercourse with the Protestants even on
indifferent matters. The Queen's statesmen were astonished to find how
much the number of recusants increased all at once; from secret
presses proceeded writings of an aggressive, and exceedingly
malignant, character; in many places Elizabeth was again designated as
illegitimate, a usurper, no longer as Queen. On this the repressive
system, which had been already set in motion in consequence of Pope
Pius V's bull, was made more stringent; this is what has brought on
the Queen's government the charge of cruelty. The Catholics too began
to compose their martyrologies. One of the first priests whose
execution they describe, Cuthbert Mayne, was condemned by the jury for
bringing the Bull with him into other people's houses together with
some _Agnus Dei_.[244] Young people were condemned for trying to make
their way to the foreign seminaries. On the wish of the missionaries
Pope Gregory XIII explained the bull so far, that the excommunication
pronounced in it against all who should obey the Queen's commands was
meant to be in suspense till it was possible to execute it against the
Queen herself on whom it continued to weigh.[245] This limitation
however rather increased the danger. The Catholics could remain quiet
till rebellion was possible, then it became a duty. The law-courts now
sought above all to make the accused priests declare themselves as to
the validity of the bull and its obligation. Men held themselves
justified in extreme severity against those who 'slip into the country
at the instigation of the great enemy, the Pope, and poison the hearts
of the subjects with pernicious doctrines.'[246] On this ground
Campion met his death; Parsons escaped. Assuredly there were