t frantic attempt
to break through it, as it had triumphed in every similar case since
the time of Henry VII.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1606.]

It was perhaps the most remarkable feature in this last, that it was
directed especially against the Parliament. During the Wars of the
Roses, it had only been necessary to drive the then reigning prince
out of the field, or to chase him away, in order to create a new
parliamentary rule. The attempts against Queen Elizabeth rested on the
hope of producing a similar result by her death: but it was apparent
in her last years that her death would be useless, and the
comparatively free elections after that event returned a Parliament of
the same character as the preceding. Even under the new reign the
Protestant party secured their ascendancy in the elections; and the
only possibility of an alteration for the future was to be found in
the annihilation of the Parliament, not so much of the institution--at
least this was not mooted--but of the men who composed it and gave it
its character. The violent attempt on the Parliament is a proof of its
power. The Gunpowder Plot was directed against the King, not in his
personal capacity as monarch, but as head of the legislative
authority. It was felt that this power itself with all its component
parts must be destroyed without scruple or mercy, if an order of
things in the State corresponding to the views of the hierarchical
party was ever again to obtain a footing.

The necessary and inevitable result of the conspiracy was that
Parliament, which did not enter on the session until January 1606,
still further increased the existing severity of its laws. The great
body of Catholics had not in any way participated in the plot; but
yet, as it had originated among them, and was intended for the redress
of their common grievances, they were all affected by the reaction
which it produced. The Catholic recusants were to be subjected to the
former penalties: they were sentenced to exclusion from the palace and
from the capital; they were forbidden to hold any appointment in the
public service either in the administration of justice, or as
government officials, or even as physicians; they were obliged to open
their houses at any moment for examination; the solemnisation of their
marriages and the baptism of their children were henceforth to be
legal only if performed by Protestant clergymen. It is evident that
the Papal See would have preferred to restrain