on, branded his proceedings with the reproach of piracy, and
loudly demanded restitution of the booty. Elizabeth wavered for some
time between admiration of the valiant Drake, mixed with a desire of
sharing in the profits of his expedition, and a dread of incensing the
king of Spain; but she at length decided on the part most acceptable to
her people,--that of giving a public sanction to his acts. During the
spring of 1581 she accepted of a banquet on board his ship off Deptford,
conferred on him the order of knighthood, and received him into favor.

Much anxiety and alarm was about this time occasioned to the queen and
her protestant subjects by the clandestine arrival in the country of a
considerable number of catholic priests, mostly English by birth, but
educated at the seminaries respectively founded at Douay, Rheims, and
Rome, by the king of Spain, cardinal Lorrain, and the pope, for the
express purpose of furnishing means for the disturbance of the queen's
government. Monks of the new order of Jesuits presided over these
establishments, who made it their business to inspire the pupils with
the most frightful excess of bigotry and fanaticism; and two of these
friars, fathers Parsons and Campion, coming over to England to guide and
regulate the efforts of their party, were detected in treasonable
practices; on account of which Campion, with some accomplices, underwent
capital punishment, or, in the language of his church, received the
crown of martyrdom.

In order to check the diffusion among the rising generation of doctrines
so destructive of the peace and good government of the country, a
proclamation was issued in June 1580, requiring that all persons who had
any children, wards, or kinsmen, in any parts beyond seas, should within
ten days give in their names to the ordinaries, and within four months
send for them home again.

Circular letters were also dispatched by the privy-council to the
bishops, setting forth, that whereas her majesty found daily
inconvenience to the realm by the education of numbers of young
gentlemen and others her subjects in parts beyond the seas;--where for
the most part they were "nourselled and nourished in papistry," with
such instructions as "made them to mislike the government of their
country, and thus tended to render them undutiful subjects;" &c. and
intending to "take some present order therein;" as well by prohibiting
that any but such as were known to be well affected in