approving the treasonable attempt, that they addressed a letter to the general body, in which they dissuaded the catholics from disturbing the peace of the country, and employing force against the enemies of their religion.

On the trial of Mary, the unfortunate queen of Scots, strong suspicions were entertained that Babington's conspiracy, though not actually contrived, was artfully fomented and regulated by Cecil and Walsingham, with a view to involve Mary in its guilt, and thereby accomplish her ruin. The subsequent discussions of Mary's alleged criminality by Mr. Goodall, Mr. Tytler, Dr. Gilbert Stuart, Mr. Archdeacon Whitaker, and Mr. Chalmers, seem to render this highly probable; and the light in which an ingenious writer, Mr. d'Israeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, has lately placed the characters of Babington and his associates, adds to the probability of the hypothesis. The argument in support of Mary's innocence are most powerfully summed up by Dr. Milner, towards the end of the sixth Letter to a Prebendary, which we have so often cited.

Still, great names,-Hume, Robertson, and Laing, must be ranked among the accusers of Mary; but, it must be admitted, that if some great names may be cited against her, some strong argument may be urged for her; that some circumstances raise a legitimate prejudice in her favour; and others, a legitimate prejudice against her persecuting relative. The subject ramifies into such a multiplicity of topics, that few possess both time and ability for a proper discussion of them. It is much to be

wished, that some gentleman, gifted with adequate leisure and talent, would favour the public with a literary history of the antient and modern controversy on this interesting subject; stating succinctly, its rise, progress, and variations, and the principal arguments by which each party supports its opinion.

XX. 6.

The Result.

SUCH then, are the plots against queen Elizabeth, with which the catholics are charged. Even if all that is said of their supposed guilt were completely true, how very small a proportion of the body would it criminate? Would it be just to implicate the universal body of the catholics,-consisting, at that time, of two-thirds of the whole population of England,-in the crime of twenty or thirty at the utmost, of its members? Had the number been considerably greater, could it be a matter of just surprise? Would it be allowable to assign any other cause for it than the ordinary feelings and passions of human nature ?

Warmly attached to their faith, which had twice rescued their country from paganism; and under which, during a long series of centuries their ancestors had enjoyed every spiritual and temporal blessing; they now beheld it proscribed, its tenets reviled, its sacred institutions abolished, its holy edifices levelled with the ground, its altars profaned, all, who professed it, groaning under the severest

inflictions of religious persecution; imaginary plots incessantly imputed to them; the subtlest artifices used to draw them into criminal attempts; "coun"terfeit letters*, privately left in their houses;

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spies sent up and down the country to notice their "discourses, and lay hold of their words; informers "and reporters of idle stories against them coun"tenanced and credited;" and even "innocence "itself," (to use Camden's own words), "though accompanied by prudence, no guard to them." They had constantly before their eyes the racks, the gibbets, the fires and the cauldrons, by which their priests had suffered, and they saw other gibbets, other racks, and other fires, preparing for them; they saw the presumptive heir to the crown brought to the block, because she was of their religion, and because, as she was formally told by lord Buckhurst, "the established religion was thought not to be "secure whilst she was in being;" they knew the universal indignation which this enormity had raised in every part of Europe against their remorseless persecutor; that Pius the fifth, the supreme head of their church, had excommunicated her, had deposed her, had absolved them from their allegiance to her, and implicated them in her excommunication, if they continued true to her; they knew that Sixtus, the reigning pope, had renewed the excommunication, had called on every catholic prince to execute the sentence, and that Philip the second, by far the most powerful monarch of the time, had

Carte's History, vol. iii. p. 585.

undertaken it; had lined the shores of the continent with troops, ready at a moment's notice, for the invasion of England, and had covered the sea with an armament, which was proclaimed to be invincible. In this awful moment, when England stood in need of all its strength, and the slightest diversion of any part of it might have proved fatal, the worth of a catholic's conscientious loyalty was fully shown. What catholic in England did not do his duty? What catholic forgot his allegiance to the queen? or was not eager to sacrifice his life and his whole fortune in her cause?"Some," says Hume, "equipped ships at their own charge, and the command of them to protestants; others were active in animating their tenants, and their "vassals, and neighbours, in defence of their country; "some," (says the writer of an intercepted letter printed in the second volume of the Harleian

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gave

Miscellany, p. 64), "by their letters to the coun"cil, signed with their own hand, offered, that they "would make adventures of their own lives in de"fence of the queen, whom they named their un"doubted sovereign lady, and queen, against all foreign foes, though they were sent from the pope,

or at his commandment; yea, some did offer that they would present their bodies in the foremost "ranks." Lord Montagu, a zealous catholic, and the only temporal peer who ventured to oppose the act for the queen's supremacy, in the first year of her reign, brought a band of horsemen to Tilbury, commanded by himself, his son, and his grandson: thus periling his whole house in the expected

conflict. The annals of the world do not present a more glorious or a more affecting spectacle than the zeal shown on this memorable occasion, by the poor and persecuted, but loyal, but honourable catholics!-Nor should it be forgotten, that in this account of their loyalty, all historians are agreed.

Will not then the reader feel some indignation when he is informed, that this exemplary, may it not be called heroic conduct, procured no relaxation of the laws against the catholics? That through the whole remainder of the reign of Elizabeth, the laws against them continued to be executed with unabated, and even with increased rigour? That between the defeat of the Armada, and the death' of Elizabeth, more than one hundred catholics were hanged and embowelled for the exercise of their religion; and that, when some catholics presented to the queen a most dutiful and loyal address, praying, in the most humble terms, a mitigation of the laws against them, no other attention was shown it, than that Mr. Shelley, by whom it was presented to the queen, for presuming, as it was said, to present an address to the queen, without the knowledge and consent of the lords of the council, was sent to the Marshalsea, and kept in it a close prisoner till his death ?+

Surely, when he peruses this treatment of the catholics, the reader must feel some indignation. But, will not he himself justly excite something

*Osborne's Secret History, ed. 1811, p. 22.

+ Doctor Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests, p. 169.