whom the heretic and rebellious Hollanders and the Protestant princes of
Germany relied as on their saviour escape the unutterable wrath and the
patient vengeance of a power that never forgave?

In England the jealousy of the Republic and of France as co-guardian and
protector of the Republic was even greater than in France. Though placed
by circumstances in the position of ally to the Netherlands and enemy to
Spain, James hated the Netherlands and adored Spain. His first thought
on escaping the general destruction to which the Gunpowder Plot was to
have involved himself and family and all the principal personages of the
realm seems to have been to exculpate Spain from participation in the
crime. His next was to deliver a sermon to Parliament, exonerating the
Catholics and going out of his way to stigmatize the Puritans as
entertaining doctrines which should be punished with fire. As the
Puritans had certainly not been accused of complicity with Guy Fawkes
or Garnet, this portion of the discourse was at least superfluous. But
James loathed nothing so much as a Puritan. A Catholic at heart, be
would have been the warmest ally of the League had he only been permitted
to be Pope of Great Britain. He hated and feared a Jesuit, not for his
religious doctrines, for with these he sympathized, but for his political
creed. He liked not that either Roman Pontiff or British Presbyterian
should abridge his heaven-born prerogative. The doctrine of Papal
superiority to temporal sovereigns was as odious to him as Puritan
rebellion to the hierarchy of which he was the chief. Moreover,
in his hostility to both Papists and Presbyterians, there was much of
professional rivalry. Having been deprived by the accident of birth of
his true position as theological professor, he lost no opportunity of
turning his throne into a pulpit and his sceptre into a controversial
pen.