Withal the forms of the church-service in England had been so arranged that it might remain practicable for the Catholics also to take part in it. How many had done so hitherto, perhaps with a rosary or a Catholic book of prayers in their hands! The chief effort of the seminarist priests, on their return to the country, was to put an end to this: they dissuaded intercourse with the Protestants even on indifferent matters. The Queen's statesmen were astonished to find how much the number of recusants increased all at once; from secret presses proceeded writings of an aggressive, and exceedingly malignant, character; in many places Elizabeth was again designated as illegitimate, a usurper, no longer as Queen. On this the repressive system, which had been already set in motion in consequence of Pope Pius V's bull, was made more stringent; this is what has brought on the Queen's government the charge of cruelty. The Catholics too began to compose their martyrologies. One of the first priests whose execution they describe, Cuthbert Mayne, was condemned by the jury for bringing the Bull with him into other people's houses together with some _Agnus Dei_.[244] Young people were condemned for trying to make their way to the foreign seminaries. On the wish of the missionaries Pope Gregory XIII explained the bull so far, that the excommunication pronounced in it against all who should obey the Queen's commands was meant to be in suspense till it was possible to execute it against the Queen herself on whom it continued to weigh.[245] This limitation however rather increased the danger. The Catholics could remain quiet till rebellion was possible, then it became a duty. The law-courts now sought above all to make the accused priests declare themselves as to the validity of the bull and its obligation. Men held themselves justified in extreme severity against those who 'slip into the country at the instigation of the great enemy, the Pope, and poison the hearts of the subjects with pernicious doctrines.'[246] On this ground Campion met his death; Parsons escaped. Assuredly there were not so many executed as the Catholic world wished to reckon, but yet probably more than the statesmen of England admitted. They persisted that it was not a persecution for religion: and in fact the controverted questions lay mainly in the region of the conflict between Papacy and Monarchy: those executed were not so much martyrs of Catholicism as of the idea of the Papal supremacy over monarchs. But how closely connected are these ideas with each other! The priests for their part believed that they were dying for God and the Church. But the effect which the English government had in view was, with all its severity, not produced. We are assured on Catholic authority that in 1585 there were yet several hundred priests actively engaged. From their reports it is clear that they were still always counting on a complete victory.