spirit. An Act was passed ordering that the laws framed during the
late reign against Jesuits, seminary priests, and recusants should be
rigidly enforced; all persons studying in foreign colleges who did not
return and conform within one year, as well as all students who should
go abroad for instruction in future should be declared incapable of
inheriting, purchasing, or enjoying any lands, chattels, or annuities
in England; all owners or masters of vessels who should convey such
passengers from the country were to be punished by confiscation of
their vessel and imprisonment, and if any person should dare to act as
tutor in a Catholic family without having got a licence from the
bishop of the diocese, both the teacher and his employer should be
fined £2 for every day he violated the law.[4] Lord Montague, having
ventured to speak his mind openly in the House of Lords against such a
measure, was arrested for his "scandalous and offensive speech," and
was committed to the Fleet. The old penal laws and the new ones were
enforced with unusual severity. Courts were everywhere at work drawing
up lists of recusants and assessing fines. Never before, even in the
worst days of Elizabeth, were the wealthy Catholics called upon to pay
so much. Numbers of priests were seized and conveyed to the coasts for
banishment abroad; one priest was put to death simply because he was a
priest, and two laymen underwent a like punishment because they had
harboured or assisted priests.

English Catholics were incensed at such pitiless persecution. Had it
been inflicted by Elizabeth from whom they expected no mercy, it would
have been cruel enough; but coming from a king, to whom they had good
reason to look for toleration, and who before he left Scotland and
after his arrival in London had promised an improvement of their
condition, it was calculated to stir up very bitter feeling. Forgetful
of the warnings of the Pope conveyed to the archpriest and the