to the fact that their oath was faithfully observed.

While these unfortunate controversies were weakening and disheartening
the Catholics the penal laws were enforced with great severity. One
martyr suffered in 1607, three in 1608, five in 1610, two in 1616, and
five in 1618. Great numbers of priests were confined in prison or
transported abroad. Laymen were ruined by imprisonment, and especially
by the high fines required by the king to meet his own expenses.
According to his own statement he received from the fines of Popish
recusants a net income of £36,000 a year. Parliament and the
Protestant party generally were anxious about the marriage of Prince
Charles, the heir to the throne, and of the princess Elizabeth his
sister. If they were married into Protestant families the religious
difficulty, it was thought, might disappear; but, if, on the contrary,
they were united to the royal houses of France or Spain the old battle
might be renewed. Hence the marriage of Elizabeth to the Elector
Frederick of the Palatinate, one of the foremost champions of
Protestantism in Germany, gave great satisfaction at the time, though
later on it led to serious trouble between the king and Parliament,
when Elizabeth's husband was driven from his kingdom during the Thirty
Years' War.

Regardless of the wishes of his Parliament the king was anxious to
procure for Prince Charles the hand of the Infanta Maria, second
daughter of Philip III. of Spain. To prepare the way for such a step
both in Spain and at Rome, where it might be necessary to sue for a
dispensation, something must be done to render less odious the working
of the penal laws. Once news began to leak out of the intended
marriage with Spain and of the possibility of toleration for Catholics
Parliament petitioned (1620) the king to break off friendly relations