The secret professors of the ancient faith knew of places where a priest was concealed, and where Mass was sung or whispered with closed doors. There were five or six of these priests tried and condemned before the Middlesex magistrates. Thus John Welden in March 1587, William Hartley in 1588, Robert Walkinson in 1598 were tried and found guilty simply for being priests, _i.e._ because, “being subjects of the Queen, they were ordained by authority derived from the See of Rome, in contempt of the Crown and Dignity of the said Queen.” They were executed as traitors with the cruelties of detail which we know. Other persons were charged with receiving, comforting, and maintaining priests. Thus George Glover and Mary Baylie his wife maintained and comforted Thomas Tycheburne, clerk and priest, and they received the pardon of the Queen; Catharine Bellamy, wife of Richard Bellamy, gentleman, moved and seduced by instigation of the devil, received and entertained Robert Southwell—it does not appear whether she was punished for the offence; and Dorothea White, either sister or wife of Humphrey White of Westminster, gentleman, thus received and entertained William Tedder, priest. Dorothea was hanged—one supposes—because she did not make submission. If we inquire into the comparative importance of the recusants, it seems that it must have been too small to constitute a real danger. The number, 408, convicted in a quarter of a century over the whole of Middlesex—London not included—that is, no more than an average of sixteen in a year, at a time when the search after them was keen and untiring—hardly warrants the fears which were entertained by the Queen’s Council as to the power and numbers of the secret Catholics, or the hopes of support from the south which were entertained during the rising of the north; or the expectations at Rome and at the Court of Spain of a widespread insurrection all over England and a return to the ancient faith. At the same time it is reasonable to believe that there were many thousands who, while they adhered outwardly, went to church and heard the sermon, would have welcomed the return of the Mass and the Romish form. [Illustration: THE GUNPOWDER CONSPIRATORS From title-page of _Warhafftige Beschreibung der Verrätherei, etc._ (De Bry), Frankfurt, 1606.] Action in the case of the recusants was followed by the famous Gunpowder Plot. There can be no doubt that the Catholics were maddened by disappointment, by persecution, by the failure to obtain toleration, and by the fines to which they were subjected. The conspirators proposed, as is well known, to blow up the King, the Lords, and the Commons when the Parliament should assemble. This plot, like that of Raleigh, belongs to the history of the country. [Illustration: Gunpowder Treason. From a contemporary print. E. Gardner’s collection.]