vited to make common cause with the Roman Catholics against the
Church of England.

This change in the language of the court poet was indicative of a great
change in the policy of the court. The original purpose of James
had been to obtain for the Church of which he was a member, not only
complete immunity from all penalties and from all civil disabilities,
but also an ample share of ecclesiastical and academical endowments,
and at the same time to enforce with rigour the laws against the Puritan
sects. All the special dispensations which he had granted had been
granted to Roman Catholics. All the laws which bore hardest on the
Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, had been for a time severely
executed by him. While Hales commanded a regiment, while Powis sate at
the Council board, while Massey held a deanery, while breviaries and
mass books were printed at Oxford under a royal license, while the host
was publicly exposed in London under the protection of the pikes and
muskets of the footguards, while friars and monks walked the streets of
London in their robes, Baxter was in gaol; Howe was in exile; the Five
Mile Act and the Conventicle Act were in full vigour; Puritan writers
were compelled to resort to foreign or to secret presses; Puritan
congregations could meet only by night or in waste places, and Puritan
ministers were forced to preach in the garb of colliers or of sailors.
In Scotland the King, while he spared no exertion to extort from the
Estates full relief for Roman Catholics, had demanded and obtained
new statutes of unprecedented severity against the Presbyterians. His
conduct to the exiled Huguenots had not less clearly indicated his
feelings. We have seen that, when the public munificence had placed
in his hands a large sum for the relief of those unhappy men, he, in
violation of every law of hospitality and good faith, required them to
renounce the Calvinistic ritual to which they were strongly attached,
and to conform to the Church of England, before he would dole out to
them any portion of the alms which had been entrusted to his care.

Such had been his policy as long as he could cherish, any hope that the
Church of England would consent to share ascendency with the Church of
Rome. That hope at one time amounted to confidence. The enthusiasm with
which the Tories had hailed his accession, the elections, the dutiful
language and ample grants of his Parliament, the suppression of the
Western ins