174

HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

CHAP.

II.

Persecu-tion of

I he Puri-ans.

one day. The dominant party exultingly reminded the suf-ferers that the Long Parliament, when at the height of power,had turned out a still greater number of Royalist divines. Thereproach was but too well founded: but the Long Parliamenthad at least allowed to the divines whom it ejected a provisionsufficient to'keep them from starving; and this example theCavaliers, intoxicated with animosity, had not the justice andhumanity to follow.

Then came penal statutes against Nonconformists, statutesfor which precedents might too easily be found in the Puritanlegislation, but to which the King could not give his a'ssentwithout a breach of promises publicly made, in the most im-portant crisis of his life, to those oirwhom his fate depended.The Presbyterians, in extreme distress and terror, fled tothe foot of the throne, and pleaded their recent services andthe royal faith solemnly and repeatedly plighted. The Kingwavered. He could not deny his own hand and seal. Hecould not but be conscious that he owed much to the peti-tioners. He was little in the habit of resisting importunate soli-citation. His temper was not that of a persecutor. He dis-liked the Puritans indeed; but in him dislike was a languidfeeling, very little resembling the energetic hatred which hadburned in the heart of Laud. He was, moreover, partial tothe Roman Catholic religion; and he knew that it would beimpossible to grant liberty of worship to the professors of thatreligion without extending the same indulgence to Protestantdissenters. He therefore made a feeble attempt to restrainthe intolerant zeal of the House of Commons; but that Housewas under the influence of far deeper convictions, and farstronger passions than his own. After a faint struggle heyielded, and passed, with the show of alacrity, a series ofodious acts against the separatists. It was made a crime toattend a dissenting place of worship. A single justice of thepeace might convict without a jury, and might, for the third