from the court of England.

In order to remove all obstacles, James despatched Digby, soon after
created earl of Bristol, as his ambassador to Philip IV., who had lately
succeeded his father in the crown of Spain. He secretly employed Gage as
his agent at Rome, and finding that the difference of religion was the
principal, if not the sole difficulty, which retarded the marriage, he
resolved to soften that objection as much as possible. He issued public
orders for discharging all Popish recusants who were imprisoned; and
it was daily apprehended that he would forbid, for the future, the
execution of the penal laws enacted against them. For this step, so
opposite to the rigid spirit of his subjects, he took care to apologize;
and he even endeavored to ascribe it to his great zeal for the reformed
religion. He had been making applications, he said, to all foreign
princes, for some indulgence to the distressed Protestants; and he was
still answered by objections derived from the severity of the English
laws against Catholics.[*] It might indeed occur to him, that if the
extremity of religious zeal were ever to abate among Christian sects,
one of them must begin; and nothing would be more honorable for England,
than to have led the way in sentiments so wise and moderate.

* Franklyn p. 69. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 63.

Not only the religious Puritans murmured at this tolerating measure of
the king; the lovers of civil liberty were alarmed at so important
an exertion of prerogative. But, among other dangerous articles of
authority, the kings of England were at that time possessed of the
dispensing power; at least, were at the constant practice of exercising
it. Besides, though the royal prerogative in civil matters was then
extensive, the princes, during some late reigns, had been accustomed
to assume a still greater in ecclesiastical. And the king failed not
to represent the toleration of Catholics as a measure entirely of that
nature.

By James's concession in favor of the Catholics, he attained his end.
The same religious motives which had hitherto rendered the court of
Madrid insincere in all the steps taken with regard to the marriage,
were now the chief cause of promoting it. By its means, it was there
hoped the English Catholics would for the future enjoy ease and
indulgence; and the infanta would be the happy instrument of procuring
to the church some tranquillity, after the many severe persecutions
which it ha