They mocked
at the hope, in which men indulged themselves, of a change of religion
on the part of the King, who on the contrary was in their view an
irreclaimable Protestant, and assumed an air of clemency to the
Catholics, only to draw the rein tighter hereafter. A brief from the
Pope exhorted them to acquiesce: but even the Pope could not persuade
them to allow themselves to be sacrificed without further ceremony.
Some of the most resolute once more applied to the Spanish court at
this time as they had done before. But in that quarter not only had
peace been concluded, but the hope of effecting a close alliance with
England had been conceived. A deaf ear was turned to all their
applications.

While they were thus hard pressed and desperate, the thought of
helping themselves had, if not originated, at least ripened, in the
breast of one or two of the boldest of them. They conceived a plan
which in savage recklessness surpassed anything which was devised in
this epoch so full of conspiracies.

Among the families which sheltered the mission-priests on their
arrival in England, and who were moved by them to throw off their
reserve in the profession of Catholicism, the Treshams and Catesbys
were especially prominent in Northamptonshire. They belonged to the
wealthiest and most important families in that county; and the penal
laws had borne upon them with especial severity. The Winters of
Huddington, who also were very zealous Catholics, were related to
them. It is easy to understand, how the young men who were growing up
in this family, such as Thomas Winter and Robert Catesby,
acknowledging no duty to the Protestant government, retorted the
oppression which they experienced from it with bold resistance and
schemes of violence. In these they were joined by two brothers of the
same way of thinking, John and Christopher Wright, stout and
soldier-like men, belonging to a family which came originally from
York. They all participated in the attempt of the Earl of Essex, for
above all things they were eager for the overthrow of the existing
government: and Robert Catesby was set at liberty only on payment of a
heavy fine, which he could hardly raise by the sale of one of the most
productive of the family estates. They were among those who, when
Queen Elizabeth lay on her death-bed, proclaimed most loudly their
desire for a thorough change, and were arrested in consequence.[334]
They had expected toleration at least from the n