last his vexed and troubled life was over, his dead body might not be buried among the graves of his forefathers in the parish churchyard. [Sidenote: Administration of the law.] [Sidenote: Lingard, viii, 189, cites Rymer, xxii, 13; Hardwicke Papers, 1446, and a private letter.] The administration of this law was attended by many aggravations. The pursuivants took the very cattle and household goods of the poor; from the rich they exacted large payments, failing which, they pounced on valuable plate and jewels, which they seized under pretense that these were articles of superstition or the concealed property of Jesuits. It is said that James derived a revenue of thirty-six thousand pounds a year from the fines of lay Catholics. To the several Scotch favorites of the king were assigned certain rich recusants from whom they might squeeze whatever could be got by the leverage of the law. [Sidenote: Influence of foreign policy.] [Sidenote: 1583, reprinted 1688.] [Sidenote: 1609, sm. 4to, pp. 112.] [Sidenote: Ellis Collection, first series, iii, 128.] [Sidenote: Neal, ii, ch. ii. Rapin, 215, 2d ed.] Very embarrassing to the foreign policy of England was the severity of English laws against Catholics, and Lord Treasurer Burleigh found it needful to publish in Elizabeth's time, for circulation in all the courts of Europe, a treatise on The Execution of Justice in England and the Maintenance of Public Order and Christian Peace; and in the following reign James himself turned pamphleteer and published an Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance. There were periods when pressure from abroad softened the administration of the law. But it was only irregularly and intermittently that the Government could be brought to grant indulgences that roused the pious wrath of Puritans and reduced the revenue of the king and his favorites. If Spain, and afterward France, made it a condition precedent to a marriage treaty that the penal laws against English recusants should be relaxed, Parliament, resenting foreign dictation, demanded of the king a renewal of the severities against papists. Twenty-four Catholics suffered capitally in James's reign, before 1618; and when in 1622 it was necessary to condone Catholicism in order to conciliate Spain, it is said that four hundred Jesuits and priests were set free on bail at one time. The number of Catholics, lay and cleric, released in this year is put at four thousand, but this may be an exaggeration. XII. [Sidenote: Catholic emigration small.] [Sidenote: Harl. Miscell., ii, 492, and following, where passages from contemporary writers are quoted.]