to her credit, for he was a bad enough
member of a bad family.

To return to the Catholics. There arose
two orders of priests, who were very busy in
England, and who were much dreaded. These
were the JESUITS (who were every where, in
all sorts of disguises), and the SEMINARY
PRIESTS. The people had a great horror of
the first, because they were known to have
taught that murder was lawful if it were
done with an object of which they approved;
and they had a horror of the second because
they came to teach the old religion, and to be
the successors of " Queen Mary's priests," as
those yet lingering in England were called,
when they should die out. The severest laws
were made against them, and were most
unmercifully executed. Those who sheltered
them in their houses often suffered heavily for
what was an act of humanity; and the rack,
that cruel torture which tore men's limbs
asunder, was constantly kept going. What
these unhappy men confessed, or what was
ever confessed by any one under that agony,
must always be received with great doubt,
is it is certain that people have frequently
owned to the most absurd and impossible
crimes, only to escape such dreadful suffering.
But I cannot doubt it to have been proved
by papers, that there were many plots, both
among the Jesuits, and with France, and
with Scotland, and with Spain, for the
destruction of Queen Elizabeth, for the
placing of Mary on the throne, and for the
revival of the old religion.

If the English people were too ready to
believe in plots, there were, as I have said,
good reasons for it. When the massacre of
Saint Bartholomew was yet fresh in their
recollection, a great Protestant Dutch hero,
the PRINCE OF ORANGE, was shot by an
assassin, who confessed that he had been
kept and trained for the purpose in a college
of Jesuits. The Dutch, in this surprise and
distress, offered to make Elizabeth their
sovereign, but she declined the honour, and sent
them a small army instead, under the
command of the Earl of Leicester, who, although
a capital Court favourite, was not much of a
general. He did so little in Holland, that his
campaign there would probably have been
forgotten, but for its occasioning the death of
one of the best writers, the best knights, and
the best gentlemen, of that or any age.
This was SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, who was wounded
by a musket ball in the thigh as he mounted a
fresh horse, after having had his own killed
under him. He had to ride back, wounded, a
long distance, and was very faint with fatigue
and loss of blood, when some water, for which
he had eagerly asked, was handed to him.
But he was so good and gentle even then,
that seeing a poor badly wounded common
soldier lying on the ground, looking at the
water with longing eyes, he said, " Thy necessity
is greater than mine," and gave it up to
him. This touching action of a noble heart
is perhaps as well known as any incident in
history—is as famous far and wide as the
blood-stained Tower of London, with its axe,
and block, and murders out of number. So
delightful is an act of true humanity, and so
glad are mankind to remember it.

At home, intelligence of plots began to
thicken every day. I suppose the people
never did live under such continual terrors
as those by which they were possessed now,
of Catholic risings, and burnings, and poisonings,
and I don't know what. Still, we must
always remember that they lived near and
close to awful realities of that kind, and
that with their experience it was not so
difficult to believe in any enormity. The
government had the same fear, and did not
take the best means of discovering the truth;
for besides torturing the suspected, it
employed paid spies, who will always lie
for their own profit; and it even made
some of the conspiracies it brought to light,
by sending false letters to disaffected people,
inviting them to join in pretended plots,
which they too readily did.

But, one great real plot was at length
discovered, and it ended the career of Mary,
Queen of Scots. A seminary priest named
BALLARD, and a Spanish soldier named
SAVAGE, set on and encouraged by certain
French priests, imparted a design to one
ANTONY BABINGTON—a gentleman of fortune
in Derbyshire, who had been for some time
a secret agent of Mary's—for murdering the
Queen. Babington then confided the scheme
to some other Catholic gentlemen who were
his friends, and they joined in it heartily.
They were vain weak-headed young men,
ridiculously confident, and preposterously
proud of their plan; for they got a gimcrack
painting made, of the six choice spirits who
were to murder Elizabeth, with Babington
in an attitude for the centre figure. Two of
their body, however, one of whom was a priest,
kept Elizabeth's wisest minister, SIR FRANCIS
WALSINGHAM, acquainted with the whole
project from the first. The conspirators were
completely deceived to the final point, when
Babington gave Savage, because he was
shabby, a ring from his finger, and some
money from his purse, wherewith to buy
himself new clothes in which to kill the
Queen. Walsingham, having then full
evidence against the whole band, and two letters
of Mary's besides, resolved to seize them.
Suspecting something wrong, they stole out
of the city, one by one, and hid themselves
in St. John's Wood, and other places which
really were hiding places then; but they
were all taken, and all executed. When they
were seized, a gentleman was sent from
Court to inform Mary of the fact, and of her
being involved in the discovery. Her friends
have complained that she was kept in very
hard and severe custody. It does not appear
very likely, for she was going out a hunting
that very morning.