o had long been hated by Tyrconnel
and Petre, had been discarded. The vacant place had been filled by an
Englishman named Warner, who had apostatized from the religion of his
country and had turned Jesuit. To the moderate Roman Catholics and to
the Nuncio this change was far from agreeable. By every Protestant it
was regarded as a proof that the dominion of the Jesuits over the royal
mind was absolute. [246] Whatever praises those fathers might justly
claim, flattery itself could not ascribe to them either wide liberality
or strict veracity. That they had never scrupled, when the interest of
their Order was at stake, to call in the aid of the civil sword, or to
violate the laws of truth and of good faith, had been proclaimed to
the world, not only by Protestant accusers, but by men whose virtue and
genius were the glory of the Church of Rome. It was incredible that
a devoted disciple of the Jesuits should be on principle zealous for
freedom of conscience: but it was neither incredible nor improbable that
he might think himself justified in disguising his real sentiments, in
order to render a service to his religion. It was certain that the King
at heart preferred the Churchmen to the Puritans. It was certain that,
while he had any hope of gaining the Churchmen, he had never shown the
smallest kindness to the Puritans. Could it then be doubted that, if
the Churchmen would even now comply with his wishes, he would willingly
sacrifice the Puritans? His word, repeatedly pledged, had not restrained
him from invading the legal rights of that clergy which had given such
signal proofs of affection and fidelity to his house. What security then
could his word afford to sects divided from him by the recollection of a
thousand inexpiable wounds inflicted and endured?

When the first agitation produced by the publication of the Indulgence
had subsided, it appeared that a breach had taken place in the Puritan
party. The minority, headed by a few busy men whose judgment was
defective or was biassed by interest, supported the King. Henry Care,
who had long been the bitterest and most active pamphleteer among the
Nonconformists, and who had, in the days of the Popish plot, assailed
James with the utmost fury in a weekly journal entitled the Packet of
Advice from Rome, was now as loud in adulation, as he had formerly been
in calumny and insult. [247] The chief agent who was employed by the
government to manage the Presbyterians was Vincen