ry one who continued, during that time, absent from
church.[**] To utter slanderous or seditious words against the queen was
punishable, for the first offence, with the pillory and loss of ears;
the second offence was declared felony; the writing or printing of such
words was felony, even on the first offence.[***] The Puritans
prevailed so far as to have further applications made for reformation in
religion:[****] and Paul Wentworth, brother to the member of that name
who had distinguished himself in the preceding session, moved, that the
commons, from their own authority, should appoint a general fast
and prayers; a motion to which the house unwarily assented. For this
presumption they were severely reprimanded by a message from the queen,
as encroaching on the royal prerogative and supremacy; and they were
obliged to submit, and ask forgiveness.[v]

* Camden, p. 480.

** 23 Eliz. cap. 1.

*** 23 Eliz. cap. 2.

**** D'Ewes, p. 302.

v Camden, p. 477.

The queen and parliament were engaged to pass these severe laws against
the Catholics, by some late discoveries of the treasonable practices
of their priests. When the ancient worship was suppressed, and the
reformation introduced into the universities, the king of Spain
reflected, that as some species of literature was necessary for
supporting these doctrines and controversies, the Romish communion
must decay in England, if no means were found to give erudition to the
ecclesiastics; and for this reason he founded a seminary at Douay, where
the Catholics sent their children, chiefly such as were intended for the
priesthood, in order to receive the rudiments of their education. The
cardinal of Lorraine imitated this example, by erecting a like seminary
in his diocese of Rheims; and though Rome was somewhat distant, the pope
would not neglect to adorn, by a foundation of the same nature, that
capital of orthodoxy. These seminaries, founded with so hostile an
intention, sent over, every year, a colony of priests, who maintained
the Catholic superstition in its full height of bigotry; and being
educated with a view to the crown of martyrdom, were not deterred,
either by danger or fatigue, from maintaining and propagating their
principles. They infused into all their votaries an extreme hatred
against the queen, whom they treated as a usurper, a schismatic, a
heretic, a persecutor of the orthodox, and one solemnly and publicly
anathematized by