Ireland and Scotland, to the
House of Spain in case her son should not be converted to the Church.

And how deeply must the Court of Rome have felt itself injured by the
imposition of the Oath of Supremacy. A Pope of the Borghese family had
just been elected, Paul V, who was as deeply convinced of the truth of
the Papal principles, and as firmly resolved to enforce them, as any
of his predecessors; and who was surrounded by learned men and
statesmen who looked upon the maintenance of these principles as the
salvation of the world. Their religious pride was galled to the quick
by the imposition of such an oath as that exacted in England, by which
principles at that time zealously taught in Catholic schools were
described not only as objectionable but as heretical. They thought it
possible that the temporal power might prevail on the English
Catholics to accept this oath, as in fact the archpriest Blackwell who
had been appointed by Clement VIII took it, and advised others to do
the same. But by this act the supremacy of the King would be
practically acknowledged, and the connexion of the English Catholics
with the Papacy dissolved. Moved by these considerations, Paul V, in a
brief of September 1, 1606, declared that the oath contained much that
was contrary to the faith, and could not be taken by any one without
damage to his salvation. He expressed his anticipation that the
English Catholics, whose constancy had been tested like gold in the
fire of the persecutions, would show their firmness on this occasion
also, and that they would rather undergo all tortures, even death
itself, than insult the Divine Majesty. At first the archpriest and
the moderate Catholics, who did not consider that the political claims
referred to in the oath were the true principles of the Papacy,
declared that the brief was spurious; but after some time it was
confirmed in all due form, and an address appeared from the pen of the
most eminent apologist of the See of Rome, Cardinal Bellarmin, in
which he reminded the archpriest that the general apostolical
authority of the Pope could not be impugned even in a single iota of
the subtleties of dogma: how much less then in this instance, where
the question was simply whether men should look for the head of the
Church in the successor of Henry VIII, or in the successor of S.
Peter.

These statements however greatly irritated the King, both as a man of
learning and as a temporal potentate. He took