**** Memoires do la Boderia, vol i p. 64,181, 195, 217, 302;
vol. ii p. 214, 278.

CHAPTER XLVI.

JAMES I.

{1604.} We are now to relate an event, one of the most memorable that
history has conveyed to posterity, and containing at once a singular
proof both of the strength and weakness of the human mind; its
widest departure from morals, and most steady attachment to religious
prejudices. It is the "gunpowder treason" of which I speak; a fact as
certain as it appears incredible.

The Roman Catholics had expected great favor and indulgence on the
accession of James, both as he was descended from Mary, whose life they
believed to have been sacrificed to their cause, and as he himself,
in his early youth, was imagined to have shown some partiality towards
them, which nothing, they thought, but interest and necessity had since
restrained. It is pretended, that he had even entered into positive
engagements to tolerate their religion as soon as he should mount the
throne of England; whether their credulity had interpreted in this sense
some obliging expressions of the king's, or that he had employed such an
artifice in order to render them favorable to his title.[*]

* State Trials, vol. ii. p. 201, 202, 203. Winwood, vol. ii.
p. 49.

Very soon they discovered their mistake; and were at once surprised and
enraged to find James on all occasions express his intention of strictly
executing the laws enacted against them, and of persevering in all the
rigorous measures of Elizabeth. Catesby, a gentleman of good parts and
of an ancient family, first thought of a most extraordinary method of
revenge; and he opened his intention to Piercy, a descendant of the
illustrious house of Northumberland. In one of their conversations
with regard to the distressed condition of the Catholics, Piercy having
broken into a sally of passion, and mentioned assassinating the king,
Catesby took the opportunity of revealing to him a nobler and more
extensive plan of treason, which not only included a sure execution of
vengeance, but afforded some hopes of restoring the Catholic religion in
England. "In vain," said he, "would you put an end to the king's life:
he has children, who would succeed both to his crown and to his maxims
of government. In vain would you extinguish the whole royal family:
the nobility, the gentry, the parliament are all infected with the same
heresy, and could raise to the throne another pri