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was Gregory Panzani,[14] an Oratorian, who arrived in England in 1634
and had several interviews with the king and queen. Whatever might
have been the hopes of inducing Laud and some of the leading bishops
to consider the question of returning to the Roman allegiance, the
main object the king had in view in permitting the residence of a
papal envoy in London and in sending English agents to Rome was to
secure the help of Urban VIII. for his nephew of the Palatinate, and
especially to induce the Pope to favour a marriage between this nephew
and the daughter of the King of Poland. Very little was obtained on
either side by these negotiations, nor did the papal agents in England
succeed in composing the differences between the clergy.

In 1640 Laud published the canons framed by Convocation for the
government of the English Church. With the object of clearing himself
of the charge of Papistry he ordered a new persecution to be begun,
but the king intervened to prevent the execution of this measure. At a
time when Charles was receiving large sums of money by way of
compensation for non-attendance at the Protestant services, and when
he foresaw that in the conflict that was to come he could rely on the
Catholic noblemen to stand loyally by him, he had no wish to
exasperate the Catholics in England, or to outrage Catholic feeling in
France and at Rome. In 1640, however, Parliament returned to the
charge. The presence of papal agents in England, the payment of
£10,000 by the Catholic noblemen to help the king in his expedition
against the Scots, and the enrolment of a Catholic army in Ireland by
Strafford, were urged as arguments to prove that the king's failure to
carry out the laws against Catholics was due to causes other than had
been alleged. Indeed both before and after the outbreak of the Civil
War (1642) the king's cause was damaged badly by his secret alliance
with Rome. As a matter of fact the Catholics did rally to the standard
of the king, but the persecution to which they had been subjected
wherever the Parliament had control made it impossible for them to act
differently. During the years that elapsed between 1642 and 1651,
twenty-one victims, including priests, both secular and regular, and
laymen, were put to death for their religion.[15] When at last
Parliament had triumphed a new persecution was begun. An Act was
passed in 1650 offering for the apprehension of priests rewards
similar to those paid for securing the arrest of highway robbers.
Informers and spies were set at work, and as a result of their labours
many priests were captured and confined in prison or transported. Yet,
though the opponents of the king made it one of their main charges
against him that he refused to shed the blood of the clergy, they
adopted a similar policy when they themselves were in power. During
the whole Protectorate of Cromwell only one priest was put to death in
England. But recourse was had to other methods for the extirpation of
the Catholic religion, imprisonment, transportation, and above all
heavy fines exacted off those Catholics who held property in the
country.

From Charles II. (1660-1685) Catholics had some reason to expect an
amelioration of their sad condition. They had fought loyally for his
father and had suffered for their loyalty even more than the
Protestant loyalists. In the hour of defeat they had shielded the life
of the young prince, and had aided him in escaping from enemies who
would have dealt with him as they had dealt with the king. Mindful of
their services and of promises Charles had made in exile, and well
aware that he had inherited from his mother, Queen Henrietta, a strong
leaning towards the Catholic Church, they hoped to profit by the
Declaration of Breda, which promised liberty of conscience to all his
subjects. But Charles, though secretly in favour of the Catholics on
account of their loyalty to his father and to himself, was not a man
to endanger his throne for the sake of past services, more especially
as his trusted minister, the Earl of Clarendon, was determined to
suppress Dissenters no matter what creed they might profess. A number
of Catholics, lay and cleric, met at Arundel House to prepare a
petition to the House of Lords (1661) for the relaxation of the Penal
Laws. The petition was received favourably, and as there was nobody in
the House of Lords willing to defend the infliction of the death
penalty on account of religion, it was thought that the laws whereby
it was considered treason to be a priest or to shelter a priest might
be abolished. But dissensions soon arose, even in the Catholic