earl of Northumberland was
fined thirty thousand pounds, and detained several years prisoner in
the Tower, because, not to mention other grounds of suspicion, he had
admitted Piercy into the number of gentlemen pensioners without his
taking the requisite oaths.[**]

The king, in his speech to the parliament, observed that, though
religion had engaged the conspirators in so criminal an attempt, yet
ought we not to involve all the Roman Catholics in the same guilt, or
suppose them equally disposed to commit such enormous barbarities. Many
holy men, he said, and our ancestors among the rest, had been seduced to
concur with that church in her scholastic doctrines, who yet had
never admitted her seditious principles concerning the pope's power of
dethroning kings, or sanctifying assassination. The wrath of Heaven is
denounced against crimes, but innocent error may obtain its favor; and
nothing can be more hateful than the uncharitableness of the Puritans,
who condemn alike to eternal torments even the most inoffensive
partisans of Popery. For his part, he added, that conspiracy, however
atrocious, should never alter in the least his plan of government: while
with one hand he punished guilt, with the other he would still
support and protect innocence.[***] After this speech he prorogued the
parliament till the twenty-second of January.[****]

* Digby, after his condemnation, said, in a letter to his
wife, "Now for my intention, let me tell you, that if I had
thought there had been the least sin in the plot, I would
not have been of it for all the world; and no other cause
drew me to hazard my fortune and life, but zeal to God's
religion." He expresses his surprise to hear that any
Catholics had condemned it. Digby's Papers, published by
Secretary Coventry.

* Camden, in Kennet, p. 692.

* King James's Works, p. 503, 504.

* The parliament this session passed an act obliging every
one to take the oath of allegiance; a very moderate test,
since it decided no controverted points between the two
religions, and only engaged the persons who took it to
abjure the pope's power of dethroning kings. See King
James's Works p. 250.

The moderation, and, I may say, magnanimity of the king immediately
after so narrow an escape from a most detestable conspiracy, was nowise
agreeable to his subjects. Their animosity against Popery, even before
this prov