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ferent religion. mine is not thine, as thou ofttimes avowest; how then, if we be not joined, may we pray together?" asked one. Another somewhat pointedly and powerfully put on record that "an aunciente body with a newe Head, must be a dead body—a meere corpse. Several prayed in secret, after the old manner, and observed the ancient rites, feast,* fast, and solemnity, as best they could. Migratory priests of the old rite came round occasionally to aid, and minister to, trusted families. Many of them," the Dean went on to inform Lord Burghley, "are married, if not by seminaries and Jesuits, by old Mass priests,† and by the words of the Mass Book (?) ‡; their children are not christened in the churches, neither do their

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* A remembrance of the Catholic festivals took some time to die out, as the following extract from the "Parochial Registers of Chearsly, Bucks," shows:-"1611 Domini anno, 23 day of May, Ihon parker, otherwise called Iohn Richardson, and Jane Woodebridge, were married together die Corporis Christi."

The race of "old Mass priests"-those, that is, who had been ordained under Queen Mary-were, in the current opinion of all English deans and dignitaries, of quite a different order to those recently appointed.

In Elizabeth's time the Salisbury Manual was used for baptisms by the clergy of the Old Faith; and a convenient abbreviated edition of the Sarum Missal, printed abroad-of which the Rev. W. J. Blew owns a rare copy-was carried about by the old clergy.

wives go there to return thanks for deliverance ; their education is in the same way, not being [brought] up in common or good schools, but at home and in secret; and with their nurses' milk they suck [in] dislike and disloyalty, and learn first to hate the Truth"-by which this grumbling worthy evidently means his own form of misbelief-" before they know it, which I wish was only a disease in the North": a very expressive and notable testimony of universal failure everywhere on the part of the authorities in State and Church, even with the aid of rack and gyves, spy and false witness, fine, pillory, floggings, and expatriation, to secure either regard or respect for their daring novelties and un-Catholic innovations.

*The previous dean, Dr. Toby Matthews, who afterwards became Bishop of Durbam, is said to have preached no less than five hundred and fifty sermons during twelve years-a remarkable homiletic feat in those days; but one which apparently had effected extremely little good, measured by the too accurate gauge of his outspoken successor.

CHAPTER V.

SUCH executions as those just recorded, they were still very numerous,-serve to place in a strong light both the personal bloodthirstiness of the Queen (passed over by Protestant historians) and the stern, cruel, and intolerant spirit of the age in which she ruled. The former is perfectly apparent when the actual influence which Elizabeth insisted on exercising is duly remembered. At her Council-board she was no mere dummy in diadem and diamonds; but, having a will and power of her own, constantly exercised them with authority and decision. She was always interested in the work of "Seminary-hunting," as it was termed; she listened with engrossed attention to Burghley's accounts of what had happened in the work of dismembering and disembowelling her religious opponents.

Of Topcliffe's secret dealings

with the poor prisoners in his keeping-to whom the well-born wretch showed no mercy-she often ordered that all the intricate cruelties of the torture-chamber should be either recorded on paper, or recounted in person, for her satisfaction. She herself was on "the side of the Lord Jesus Christ" she asserted, and would maintain at any cost "the Blessed Faith of the Blessed Gospel. The men who were imprisoned, tortured, hung, and disembowelled, were "ministers of Satan's synagogue," " wily slaves of Antichrist"; consequently there could be "no communion betwixt Christ and Belial," between those of the Old Religion and those of the New.* Her new prelates

* In the "Tablet" of February 17th, 1877, "An English Catholic" objects to members of the Church of England using Father Faber's beautiful hymn, "Faith of Our Fathers," and makes the following reasonable and pertinent remarks: :- "For three centuries and more, according to their opportunities and the progressive stages of opinion and civilisation, they [Anglicans] have burned and hanged us, ripped us up, confiscated our private property, seized our churches, universities, ecclesiastical titles and revenues, kept us out of Parliament, insulted our hierarchy, and in all possible ways made the exercise of the Christian faith difficult. Now, when the more refined part of these enjoyments is withdrawn from them they turn round, but without penitence or satisfaction, and take the fruits of our long centuries of desolation and endurance Which Faith' do the Protestant singers mean? Do they mean the Faith as professed before Cranmer, or as professed after him and after Parker? If after, they associate themselves with the pre

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had long ago proved from Scripture, as they maintained, that torture was reasonable, and that all Mass-mongers, being idolators, should be killed. Special tortures, as in Archbishop Heath's case, the Queen herself had sometimes recommended or personally enjoined; she was greatly irritated and disappointed that those who suffered because of Babington's plot could not have their death-sufferings made crueller and considerably prolonged; while, when clever and distinguished adherents of the Old Religion were the subjects of them, she frequently signed death-warrants with an expression of satisfaction from her lips or a twinkle of demoniacal delight in her eye. The cruel, whether women or men, are ever cowardly. And all the while Elizabeth was a pitiful coward. While dreading pain herself, and greatly fearing death, she frequently exhibited the most contemptible delight at the mental and physical sufferings of her victims. Occasionally, as in the case of Thomas Pormorte, who was executed on February 20th, 1592, she displayed the grossest and most cruel levity when affixing her sign

tended 'Martyrs' of Foxe, and to the statements of Cranmer, Jewel, Parker, and the rest of that company. If, however, they mean the Faith professed in the ancient Church of England, and retained by suffering Catholics ever since to this day, then the reply of the Church of Jesus Christ is -Nescio vos."