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in England as reflected by Parliament was intensely hostile to
toleration. On the one hand the Puritan party, who had grown
considerably despite the repressive measures of Elizabeth and James
I., was determined to bring the Church into line with Calvinism, while
on the other hand a body of able and learned men within the Anglican
Church itself longed for a closer approximation towards Catholic
beliefs and practices. With both the Bible was still in a sense the
sole rule of faith, but the Puritan party would have the Bible and
nothing but the Bible, while the High Church men insisted that the
Scriptures must be interpreted in the light of the traditional usages
of the Christian world, and that in matters of doctrine and practices
some jurisdiction must be conceded to the teaching authorities of the
Church. The opponents of the latter stirred the people against them by
raising the cry of Arminianism and Papistry, and by representing them
as abettors of Rome and as hostile to the religious settlement that
had been accomplished. As a result of this controversy, in which the
king sided with Laud and the High Church party against the
Presbyterians and Calvinists,[10] Parliament, which supported the
Puritans, clamoured incessantly for the execution of the penal laws.

In the first Parliament, opened the day after Queen Henrietta's
arrival in England (1625) a petition was presented to the king praying
for the strict enforcement of the penal laws. Yielding to this
petition Charles issued a proclamation ordering the bishops and
officials to see that the laws were put into execution, but at the
same time he took care to let it be known that the extraction of fines
from the wealthy laymen and the imprisonment or transportation of
priests would be more agreeable to him than the infliction of the
death penalty. Louis XIII. and the Pope protested warmly against this
breach of a solemn agreement. Charles replied that he had bound
himself not to enforce the penal laws merely as a means of lulling the
suspicions of Rome and of securing a dispensation for his
marriage.[11] Still, though the queen's French household was
dismissed, the king did everything he could to prevent the shedding of
blood. The Parliamentarians, who were fighting for civil liberty for
themselves, were annoyed that any measure of liberty should be
conceded to their Catholic fellow-countrymen. They presented a
petition to Charles at the very time they were safeguarding their own
position by the Petition of Rights (1628) demanding that priests who
returned to England should be put to death, and that the children of
Catholic parents should be taken from their natural guardians and
reared in the Protestant religion.[12] Charles defended his own policy
of toleration on the ground that it was calculated to secure better
treatment for Protestant minorities in other countries, yet at the
same time he so far abandoned his policy of not shedding blood as to
allow the death penalty to be inflicted on a Jesuit and a layman
(1628).[13] So long however as he could secure money from the
Catholics he was not particularly anxious about their religious
opinions. Instead of the fines to which they had been accustomed, he
compounded with them by agreeing not to enforce their presence at the
Protestant service on condition that they paid an annual sum to be
fixed by his commissioners according to the means of the individual
recusants.

The appointment of a bishop to take charge of the English Mission
(1623) did not unfortunately put an end to the regrettable
controversies that divided the Catholic party. On the death of Dr.
Bishop, Dr. Richard Smith was appointed to succeed him (1625), and was
consecrated in France. For a time after his arrival affairs moved
smoothly enough, but soon a more violent controversy broke out
regarding the respective rights and privileges of seculars and
regulars, and the obligation on confessors of obtaining episcopal
approbation. The dispute became public, and in a short time numerous
pamphlets were published in England and in France by the literary
champions of both parties. As the Puritans resented strongly the
presence of a bishop in England, Dr. Smith was obliged to go into
hiding, and ultimately made his escape to France, where he died in
1665. The Pope found it difficult to apportion the blame or to put an
end to the strife, but an opportunity was afforded him of learning the
facts of the case when an English agent deputed by the queen arrived
in Rome (1633). In return Urban VIII. determined to send an envoy into
England mainly to settle the controversy between the regulars and the
seculars, but also to discover the real sentiments of the court and
the country towards Rome. The person selected for this difficult work