[336] For a time the most gloomy apprehensions prevailed: but soon they began to subside.

There was good reason to believe that there was a point beyond which the King could not reckon on the support even of those Sheriffs who were members of his own Church.

Between the Roman Catholic courtier and the Roman Catholic country gentleman there was very little sympathy.

That cabal which domineered at Whitehall consisted partly of fanatics, who were ready to break through all rules of morality and to throw the world into confusion for the purpose of propagating their religion, and partly of hypocrites, who, for lucre, had apostatized from the faith in which they had been brought up, and who now over acted the zeal characteristic of neophytes.

Both the fanatical and the hypocritical courtiers were generally destitute of all English feeling.