It is unnecessary to pursue the conversation further, or even to discuss how far Cranborne was serious when he expressed his intention of moderating the incidence of the laws which the Government had resolved to carry out. It is certain that they were not so moderated, and that the enforcement of law rapidly degenerated into mere persecution. What is important for our purposes is that the language I have just quoted leads us to the bed-rock of the situation. Between Pope and king a question of sovereignty had arisen, a question which could not be neglected without detriment to the national independence till the Pope either openly or tacitly abandoned his claim to excommunicate kings, and to release such subjects as looked up to him for guidance from the duty of obedience to their King. That the Pope should openly abandon this claim was more than could be expected; but he had not excommunicated James as his predecessor had excommunicated Elizabeth, and there was some reason to hope that he might allow the claim to be buried in oblivion. At all events, Clement VIII. had not only refused to excommunicate James, but had enjoined on the English Catholics the duty of abstaining from any kind of resistance to him. James had, however, wished to go further. Incapable--as most people in all ages are--of seeing the position with other eyes than his own, he wanted the Pope actively to co-operate with him in securing the obedience of his subjects. He even asked him to excommunicate turbulent Catholics, a thing to which it was impossible for the Pope--who also looked on these matters from his own point of view--to consent. In the meanwhile it was becoming evident that the Pope was not working for a Protestant England under a Protestant king, with a Catholic minority accepting what crumbs of toleration that king might fling to them, and renouncing for ever the right to resist his laws however oppressive they might be; but rather for a Catholic England under a Catholic King. This appeared in Clement's demand that Prince Henry should be educated in a religion which was not that of his father, and it appeared again in the reports of Lindsay, which had caused such a commotion at Whitehall. "His Holiness," wrote Lindsay, "hath commanded to continue to pray for your Majesty, and he himself stays every night two large hours in prayer for your Majesty, the Queen, and your children, and for the conversion of your Majesty and your dominions. This I may very well witness as one who was present."[254] We should have thought the worse of the Pope if he had done otherwise; but the news of it was hardly likely to be welcome to an English statesman. Who was to guarantee that, if the priests were allowed full activity in England a Roman Catholic majority would not be secured--or, that when such a majority was secured, the suspended excommunication would not be launched, and a rebellion, such as that of the League in France, encouraged against an obstinately Protestant