In becoming General, Oliva inherited the suffering inflicted on the Society by the English persecutions which had been inaugurated by Elizabeth and continued by James I. A lull had occurred during the reign of Charles I, probably because the queen, Henrietta Maria, was a Catholic; and in 1634 there were as many as one hundred and sixty Jesuits in the British dominions; but Cromwell was true to his instincts, and, between the time of the Long Parliament and the Restoration of the Stuarts, twenty-four Catholics died for the Faith. Naturally, the Jesuits came in for their share. Thus Father James Latin was put in jail on August 3, 1643, and was never heard of afterwards. "From which," says O'Reilly, "it is easy to conjecture his fate." William Boyton was one of the victims in a general massacre that took place in 1647, in the Cashel Cathedral; and two years afterwards, John Bathe and Robert Netterville were put to death by the Cromwellians in Drogheda. Bathe was tied to a stake and shot, while Netterville, who was an invalid, was dragged from his bed, beaten with clubs and flung out on the highway. He died four days afterwards. The Stuarts were restored in 1660, but the easy-going Charles II made no serious effort to erase the laws against Catholics from the statute-book, and from time to time proclamations were issued ordering all priests and Jesuits out of the realm. Two occasions especially furnished pretexts for these expulsions. One was the "Great Plague," and the other was the "Great Fire," for both of which the Jesuits were held responsible. No one knew what was going to happen next, when there appeared in England an individual to whom Crétineau-Joly devotes considerable space, but who receives scant notice from English writers. He announced himself as Hippolyte du Chatelet de Luzancy. He was the son of a French actress, and was under indictment for forgery in his native country; added to these attractions, founded or not, he claimed to be an ex-Jesuit. Of course, he was received with great enthusiasm by the prelates of the Established Church, for he let it be known he was quite willing to accept any religious creed they might present to him. The Government officials also welcomed him. His first exploit was to accuse Father Saint-Germain, the Duchess of York's confessor, of entering his apartment with a drawn dagger and threatening to kill him. Whereupon all England was startled and the House of Lords passed a bill consigning all priests and Jesuits to jail. Saint-Germain was the first victim. Luzancy was then called before the privy council and told a blood curdling story of a great conspiracy that was being hatched on the Continent. It implicated the king and the Duke of York. The story was false on the face of it, but Luzancy was taken under the protection of the Bishop of London; he was given the degree of Master of Arts by Oxford and was installed as the Vicar of Dover Court, Essex. A most unexpected defender