ts printed abroad
for distribution in England, some of them indeed seditious, but many of
them purely controversial and hortatory, and with other devotional
articles and books such as it was difficult to obtain in England, and
might not be exposed for public sale in booksellers' shops: Agnus Deis,
beads, hallowed incense and crosses were being sent in large numbers from
abroad, and were eagerly sought after by the Papists in all directions.
It was remarkable that while threatening clouds appeared to be gathering
on all sides over the Catholic cause, yet the deepening peril was
accompanied by a great outburst of religious zeal. It was reported to the
Archbishop that "massing" was greatly on the increase in Kent; and was
attributed, singularly enough, to the Northern Rebellion, which had ended
in disaster for the Papists; but the very fact that such a movement could
take place at all probably heartened many secret sympathisers, who had
hitherto considered themselves almost alone in a heretic population.

Sir Nicholas came in one day to dinner in a state of great fury. One of
his couriers had just arrived with news from London; and the old man came
in fuming and resentful.

"What hypocrisy!" he cried out to Lady Maxwell and Mistress Margaret, who
were seated at table. "Not content with persecuting Catholics, they will
not even allow us to say we are persecuted for the faith. Here is the
Lord Keeper declaring in the Star Chamber that no man is to be persecuted
for his private faith, but only for his public acts, and that the Queen's
Grace desires nothing so little as to meddle with any man's conscience.
Then I suppose they would say that hearing mass was a public act and
therefore unlawful; but then how if a man's private faith bids him to
hear mass? Is not that meddling with his private conscience to forbid him
to go to mass? What folly is this? And yet my Lord Keeper and her Grace
are no fools! Then are they worse than fools?"

Lady Maxwell tried to quiet the old man, for the servants were not out of
the room; and it was terribly rash to speak like that before them; but he
would not be still nor sit down, but raged up and down before the hearth,
growling and breaking out now and again. What especially he could not get
off his mind was that this was the Old Religion that was prescribed. That
England for generations had held the Faith, and that then the Faith and
all that it involved had been declared unlawful, was to him