was to be
only one form of religion, and that all men were to think exactly alike.
But, although this was arranged two centuries and a half ago, and
although the arrangement was supported by much fining and imprisonment, I
do not find that it is quite successful, even yet.

His Sowship, having that uncommonly high opinion of himself as a king,
had a very low opinion of Parliament as a power that audaciously wanted
to control him. When he called his first Parliament after he had been
king a year, he accordingly thought he would take pretty high ground with
them, and told them that he commanded them 'as an absolute king.' The
Parliament thought those strong words, and saw the necessity of upholding
their authority. His Sowship had three children: Prince Henry, Prince
Charles, and the Princess Elizabeth. It would have been well for one of
these, and we shall too soon see which, if he had learnt a little wisdom
concerning Parliaments from his father's obstinacy.

Now, the people still labouring under their old dread of the Catholic
religion, this Parliament revived and strengthened the severe laws
against it. And this so angered ROBERT CATESBY, a restless Catholic
gentleman of an old family, that he formed one of the most desperate and
terrible designs ever conceived in the mind of man; no less a scheme than
the Gunpowder Plot.

His object was, when the King, lords, and commons, should be assembled at
the next opening of Parliament, to blow them up, one and all, with a
great mine of gunpowder. The first person to whom he confided this
horrible idea was THOMAS WINTER, a Worcestershire gentleman who had
served in the army abroad, and had been secretly employed in Catholic
projects. While Winter was yet undecided, and when he had gone over to
the Netherlands, to learn from the Spanish Ambassador there whether there
was any hope of Catholics being relieved through the intercession of the
King of Spain with his Sowship, he found at Ostend a tall, dark, daring
man, whom he had known when they were both soldiers abroad, and whose
name was GUIDO--or GUY--FAWKES. Resolved to join the plot, he proposed
it to this man, knowing him to be the man for any desperate deed, and
they two came back to England together. Here, they admitted two other
conspirators; THOMAS PERCY, related to the Earl of Northumberland, and
JOHN WRIGHT, his brother-in-law. All these met together in a solitary
house in the open fields which were then ne