At Windsor they walked on the terrace, from which Johnny saw the view, which was then considered only second to that of Greenwich, of the river and many pleasant hills and valleys, villages and fair houses, far and near. As they rode along, at every suitable opportunity, and at night after supper at the inns, the Jesuit explained to Johnny the position of public affairs. He told him that though the power of the King and the Archbishop was apparently at its greatest height, as the trial and condemnation of Laud’s traducers, Prynne, Baswick, and Burton had just been decided, and the trial of Hampden for refusal to pay ship-money was about to commence, yet nevertheless, the impossibility of governing without a Parliament was becoming so evident, and the violent and aggressive temper of the people was so marked, that he, and those like him, who possessed the best information of what was passing throughout all classes, and among all parties, however secret, considered that changes of a very remarkable character were imminent. The temper of the people, he said, was the more remarkable, because in the one case, libellers like Prynne would have been put to death without mercy in either of the preceding reigns, and no notice taken by the people; and the tax, called ship’s money, was so light and so fairly levied, as to be scarcely felt. The Archbishop, he said, was determined to force the service book upon the Scots; a most unwise and perilous proceeding at the present moment, and he was informed by the emissary priests then in the north of England and Scotland, that the resistance to it would be determined, and that the Scottish malcontents were supported by the Puritan party in the English Parliament. Under these circumstances, he explained to Johnny, that a change had taken place in the policy of some of the Roman Catholic party, who had formerly acted with Mr. Inglesant and Father St. Clare, and they had arrived at the conclusion that the Church of England was no longer worth the pains of humouring and conciliating. The Queen had been advised to attempt the perversion of the Parliamentary leaders, and several of the Catholic plotters had undertaken a similar enterprise. Father St. Clare told Johnny candidly, that he neither sympathised entirely with these views nor altogether with those of the party to which he had hitherto belonged. On the one hand, he had arrived at the conclusion that Laud was a true servant of the Church of England, and would never consent to submission to Rome, except on terms which could not be granted, but on the other, he had so long regarded the Church as the natural ally of Rome, and the uselessness of attempting to win over the Puritans was so apparent, that he had not entered warmly into these new schemes. He, however, was inclined to think that were a change to take place, and the Puritan party to gain the supreme power in the State, the re-action among the