“Granted,” says his Protestant biographer (Grosart, xlix.), “that in our Southwell’s years 1588 is included, and that the shadow of the coming of the Armada lay across England from the very moment of his arrival; granted that, in the teeth of their instructions, there were priests and members of the Society of Jesus who deemed they did God service by ‘plotting’ for the restoration of the old ‘faith and worship’ after a worldly sort; granted that politically and civilly the nation was, in a sense, in the throes of since-achieved liberties; granted that _Mary_, all too sadly, even tremendously, earned her epithet of ‘Bloody’; granted that the very mysticism, not to say mystery, of the ‘higher’ sovereignty claimed for him who wore the tiara, acted as darkness does with sounds the most innocent; granted nearly all that Protestantism claims in its apology as defence—it must be regarded as a stigma on the statesmanship and a stain on the Christianity of the reformed Church of England, as well as a sorrow to all right-minded and right-hearted, that the ‘convictions’ of those who could not in conscience ‘change’ at the bidding of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, or James were not respected; that ‘opinion,’ or, if you will, ‘error,’ was put down (or attempted to be put down) by force, and that the headsman’s axe and hangman’s rope were the only instrumentalities thought of. The State Trials remain to bring a blush to every lover of his country for the brutal and ‘hard’ mockery of justice in the higher courts of law whenever a priest was concerned—as later with the Puritans and Nonconformists.” FALSE BRETHREN AND THE MAN-HUNTER.