"1. It was _death_ to make a new Catholic priest within the kingdom.--2. It was _death_ for a Catholic priest to come into the kingdom from abroad.--3. It was _death_ to harbour a Catholic priest coming from abroad.--4. It was _death_ to confess to such a priest.--5. It was _death_ for any priest to say mass. 6. It was _death_ for any one to hear mass. 7. It was _death_ to _deny_ or _not to swear_, if called on, that this woman was the head of the Church of Christ.--8. It was an offence (punishable by heavy fine) _not to go to the Protestant Church_. This fine was £20 _a lunar month_, or £250 a-year, and of our present money, £3,250 a year. Thousands upon thousands refused to go to the Law-Church; and thus the head of the Church sacked thousands upon thousands of estates! The poor conscientious Catholics who refused to go to the 'most tolerant' Church, and who had no money to pay fines, were crammed into the gaols, until the counties petitioned to be relieved from the expense of keeping them. They were then discharged, being first publicly whipped, and having their ears bored with a red-hot iron. But this very great 'toleration' not answering the purpose, an act was passed to banish for life all these non-goers to Church, if they were not worth twenty pounds; and, in case of return, they were to be punished with death. "I am, my Lord, not making loose assertions here; I am all along stating from Acts of Parliament, and the above form a small sample of the whole; and this your Lordship must know well. I am not declaiming, but relating undeniable facts; and with facts of the same character, with a _bare list_, made in the above manner, I could fill a considerable volume. The names of the persons put to death merely for _being Catholics_, during this long and bloody reign, would, especially if it were to include Ireland, form a list ten times as long as that of _our_ army and navy, both taken together. The usual mode of inflicting death was to hang the victim for a short time, just to benumb his or her faculties; then cut down and instantly rip open the belly, and _tear out the heart_, and hold it up, fling the bowels into a fire, then chop off the head, and cut the body into quarters, then _boil_ the head and quarters, and then hang them up at the gates of cities, or other conspicuous places. This was done, including Ireland, to many hundreds of persons, merely for adhering to the Church in which they had been born and bred. There were ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-SEVEN _ripped up and boiled_ in England in the years from 1577 to 1603; that is to say, in the last twenty-six years of Bess's reign; and these might all have been spared if they would have agreed to go to Church and _hear_ the Common Prayer! All, or