The language of the _Grand Remonstrance_ and of many other contemporary documents leaves no doubt that there was a widespread belief in the existence of a plot managed by the "engineers and factors of Rome," of whom the Queen was one of the chief,[179] to capture the country and the Church of England. The signs in the national establishment which raised the hopes of the Catholics became a terror to the Puritans. It was no wonder. As Du Perron said from the other point of view, it was but a century since the schism, and the Anglican Church had not yet the stability which comes from time, so that the idea of its reconciliation to Rome was less chimerical than in later times. Nor had the attempts to make Protestantism co-extensive with the nation been altogether successful. It is probable that Richelieu overrated the importance of the English Catholics, but, nevertheless, the trouble he took to conciliate them bears witness to the light in which they were regarded in the best-informed circles on the Continent. Not a few of them were men of position and wealth, and their number was certainly considerable; it probably reached at least 150,000,[180] or three in every hundred,[181] and one Catholic reporter says that in Lancashire and Yorkshire as many as a third of the population adhered to the old faith.[182] The Archbishop of Embrun, who was in England in the latter days of James, is said to have confirmed in London as many as 10,000 persons. Another witness,[183] who had some opportunities for forming a judgment, believed that a third of the nation was either openly or secretly Catholic, and that another third, the Protestant part of the Church of England, only remained in schism from fear of the recusancy laws, and though this estimate is of course grossly exaggerated, it is significant as showing the opinions which were prevalent. The loudly expressed hopes of the Catholics reacted upon the fears of the Puritans, who saw in them not only the proof of the power of their open foes, but a confirmation of their worst suspicions regarding their more secret enemies in the Church of England. Laud, the most loyal of Anglican Churchmen, did not recognize his mistake until it was too late. Charles, who was always a good Protestant, or in modern parlance a High Churchman, perhaps never recognized his even when it led him to the scaffold.