When the dinner was ended grace was said, the washing of hands was repeated with the same ceremony as before, and their majesties withdrew. In the retiring-room they delivered their regalia to the Dean of Westminster, whose duty it was to keep such valuables under lock and key. One of King James's first acts after he ascended the throne was to release several thousand Roman Catholics and members of other churches who had been imprisoned for refusing to worship according to the prescribed laws of England. He also put a stop to the practice that had been permitted for many years of people informing against one another about their religious beliefs. As this was often {280}resorted to merely to gratify some personal spite, and had been the means of bringing many an innocent person to the stake, King James did well to abolish it; but he was fighting the prejudices of the people, and could more easily have taken an impregnable fortress, as he soon found to his cost. Many of his subjects were offended at the display James made of his own religion, particularly when he opened a Catholic chapel at Whitehall, and insisted on going there in state with his wife, attended by the high officers of their household, to receive the sacrament. His lord treasurer, the Earl of Rochester, pretended to be ill as an excuse for absenting himself. The Dukes of Norfolk and Somerset openly refused to attend. It was the duty of Lord Godolphin, the queen's chamberlain, to lead her majesty by the hand to her place in the chapel, and to the altar when she chose to receive the sacrament. Although a Protestant, the chamberlain was so charmed with her majesty's beauty and graceful manners that he would not forego his privilege. King James summoned parliament in June because the Duke of Argyle raised a rebellion in Scotland, while Monmouth did the same in England, and funds were required to suppress both. Monmouth had always been one of James's bitterest and most dangerous enemies, because he thought he had a claim to the throne; he therefore issued a proclamation, denouncing the king "as a usurper, a murderer, a traitor, and a tyrant." He accused James of burning the city of London, of murdering Godfrey,--both events are treated of in the last reign,--of cutting the throat of Essex, and of poisoning his brother, Charles II. He raised an army of ten thousand men, and received so much encouragement at Taunton that he proclaimed himself king, and set a price on the head of "the usurper, James, Duke of York." {281} [Illustration: 0287]