In December Charles thought he saw signs of a rebellion brewing. A few months later Danby drew up a memorandum in the Tower which clearly shewed that he was of the same opinion. He suggested that the king should take up his residence out of London and call Parliament to meet him away from the capital, the stronghold of his opponents’ power. Touch should be kept with the troops disbanded. All who had served against the king in the Civil War could be forced to register their names. The navy might be officered by men who would have influence on the sailors. Lastly and most significant, the Tower should be secured.[348] Such and so multifarious were the doings of members of the government. Yet they were members only. The head was the king’s, the policy his, and to him its ultimate failure or success must be ascribed. CHAPTER II THE CATHOLICS Of the five hundred Cavalier gentlemen who fell in the Civil War more than one-third were Catholics,[349] The remnant of the class that had once been the most dignified and the wealthiest in England was thrown by the Popish Plot into the fiercest persecution known to its history. For the first time a real attempt was made to put the penal laws into full force. All over the country the prisons were filled, houses of Roman Catholics searched for arms, their estates confiscated. Fourteen men were executed for high treason in the Plot, three for Godfrey’s murder. Eight Catholic priests suffered on account of their orders under the statute of Queen Elizabeth which made it treason for a subject to take orders from the Church of Rome and, returning to England, to remain there upwards of forty days. Five died in prison. Thirty more were condemned to death, but were reprieved, and of these sixteen died in confinement.[350] The actual figures are enough, but they do not complete the tale of suffering. Nothing is told by them of the persecution less than to death, the harrying of men and women for conscience’ sake, the cruel blight fallen on the lives of hundreds because of the crimes and follies of intriguers who turned religion to be an affair of politics. The odour of mystery and the fear of foreign assault which Catholic designs had for years aggravated had worked in the minds of Englishmen with so strong a ferment that, were there much or little of truth in the Plot, it needed only an opportunity for hardly concealed terror and hatred finally to burst restraint.[351] On all sides the lot of Catholics was pitiable. Those in London who were not imprisoned were banished from the capital. As many as thirty thousand were said to have fled. In the country fresh persecution awaited them. Justices of the peace had orders to execute strictly the laws against recusants, the Lord Chancellor to weed the commission of those who did not. Popish books and relics were diligently sought out, seized, and burnt. The library, papers, and vestments of Father