Treason > Guy Fawkes, or The history of the gunpowder plot

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT.
end of that session of Parliament; and that
all such priests, or other religious persons, or¬
dained since the same time, should not come
into England, or remain there, under the pain
of suffering death as in case of treason.’ It
tvas also enacted by the same statute, ‘ that all
persons receiving or assisting such priests
should be guilty of a capital felony.’ When a
person professing the Popish religion was con-
ivicted in a court of law of absenting himself
from the Established Church, he was termed a
‘Jr Popish recusant convict \ such a person was
iljliable, by the 85 Eliz. c. 1, to be committed to
[{prison without bail until he conformed and
(jlmade submission; and if he did not, within
|i three months after conviction, submit and re-
||pair to the Established Church, he must abjure
lithe realm; and if he refused to swear, or did
I not depart upon his abjuration, or if he return-
led without licence, he was guilty of felony, and
i(|i might suffer death as a felon, without benefit
il) of clergy. No doubt, these rigorous laws were
*i not at all times enforced to their utmost ex-
A tent; but they placed the whole body of the
1 Catholics at the mercy of the Protestant
\l Government, who were enabled to crush or
I spare them at their discretion or caprice ; for
i them, therefore, there was no liberty, personal
| or religious, but such as the Privy Council
] thought proper to allow : and with reference
1 to their religion, the law gave them no rights,
J and afforded them no protection. When we
i remember that the victims of the laws above
i enumerated considered themselves to be the
majority of the gross population of the country ;
that the chief sufferers were the principal no¬
bility and gentry of the land, whose ancestors
Ik