For the first thirteen years of his reign Catholics looked for the advancement of their cause to the king. During the Civil War none had shown a more steadfast loyalty than they, and none hailed the Restoration with greater eagerness. Half a century earlier a considerable number of the squires of England had been Catholic. They were a class bound closely to the royal cause both by tradition and by personal inclination, and though the operation of the penal laws effectively prevented their ranks from swelling, they rendered conspicuous service to the crown in the day of trouble. With their strength further diminished by death and by confiscation of estates under the Commonwealth government, their hopes rose higher at the king’s return. There was much justification for their sanguine view. The promise of religious liberty contained in the declaration of Breda was known to be in accord with Charles’ own desires. He was the son of a Catholic mother and of a father suspected, however unjustly, of Catholic tendencies. He was himself not free from the same suspicion. He was under the deepest obligations to his Catholic subjects. They had risked their persons and squandered their fortunes for him. They had fought and intrigued for him, and succoured him in distress. He owed them life and liberty. They had done so much for him that it was not unreasonable to hope that, as it was not averse to his wishes, he would do something for them. The disappointment of the Catholic expectations was not long delayed. Whatever promises Charles had made, and whatever hopes he had fostered, were dependent upon others, and not upon himself, for fulfilment. The Restoration was a national work, and it was not in the power of the king to act openly in opposition to the nation that had restored him. Since he was not a Catholic, he was impelled to run no great risk for the interest of those who were. And it became increasingly clear that by far the greater part of the nation was in no mind to tolerate any change which would make for freedom of life and opinion for the maintainers of a religion which was feared and fiercely hated by the governing classes and by the church which aspired to govern in England. Fear of Roman Catholicism was a legacy of the dreadful days of Queen Mary and of her sister’s Protestant triumph. That legacy was a possession not of one sect or of one party alone. Cavaliers and Roundheads, Puritans and high churchmen shared it alike. So long as the Church of Rome was of a warring disposition, it was vain to expect that the English people would see in it other than an enemy. The Protestant religion was too insecurely established in the land and the memory of sudden changes and violent assaults too recent for Englishmen to harbour a spirit of liberal charity towards those who disagreed from them in matters of faith. The Catholic, who cried for present relief from an odious tyranny, appeared in their eyes as one who, were relief