The early years of the reign of Charles I. were not marred by any enforcement of the more drastic penal laws. The fining of lay Catholics--of whom about eleven thousand were known--still provided the King with a handsome addition to the privy purse, and indeed it was necessary to disarm the sullen suspicion with which the more zealous Protestants watched the foreign queen and her spiritual court. No serious effort was made, however, to enforce the laws against the Jesuits, and they increased in numbers and resources. In 1628 they opened a second novitiate in London. In 1634 one of the secular clergy estimated that there were 360 Jesuits in England, and that they had 550 students in their colleges. This is evidently an exaggeration, as the _Annual Letters_ report a total of 335 members of the Province in the year 1645, and disclose the interesting fact that they had a collective income of 17,405 _scudi_ (about £35,000 in the value of modern money). It is stated by their clerical opponents that part of their income was derived from commerce. A certain soap was genially known in London as "the papist soap," and it is said that the Jesuits had, through their lay friends, shares in the factory which produced it. They were in a strong and comfortable position, and, had they been disposed to lay aside their corporate selfishness and co-operate generously with the other clergy, the story of religion in England might have entered upon a singular development. In the reign of Charles what we now know as the "High Church" held a strong position, under Archbishop Laud, in the Church of England, and there were indications of a disposition to return to the allegiance of Rome. The head of the English Benedictine monks, Dom Jones, was sent by the Vatican in 1634 to examine and direct the situation, and he and his successor, Panzani, did much to reconcile the secular and the regular clergy. The Jesuits, however, would not be reconciled, and Panzani's reports to the Vatican are full of bitter charges against them. In the Catholic England which they foresaw they were determined to have a dominant position. It was said that they induced wealthy and influential penitents to make a special vow of obedience to themselves, and they were even charged by the clergy with impeding the general restoration of Catholicism lest the new authorities should expel them from the kingdom. They retorted with a bitter attack on the papal agent. Virulent pamphlets were discharged from camp to camp, and the Jesuits represented Panzani as a secret agent of Richelieu, seeking to unite England and France in opposition to Spain. In spite of this intestine discord the Church of Rome continued to make progress until the shadow of the Civil War fell upon the land and the success of the Puritans once more stifled the hopes of the Catholics.