Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/229

Rh the oath of allegiance to James as King. Blackwell, the Arch-priest, was actually removed from his position because he recommended his co-religionists to take this oath of allegiance, and a new Arch-priest, George Birkhead, was appointed in his stead, with instructions to endeavour to intimidate all Roman Catholics into denying the regal prerogative of James I. This senseless action on the part of the Pope (Paul V.) was the forerunner of fresh disasters for the wretched Roman Catholics in England, for it produced a schism amongst them, divided as they now were into two parties—the one ready to acknowledge James and abjure the Deposing Power of the Pope; the other refusing to acknowledge James, and ready to exalt the doctrine of the Deposing Power into the position of an obligatory Article of Faith. For the loyal English Roman Catholic gentry, therefore, there was no hope of peace. They were attacked on both sides—from Canterbury and from Rome. If they did not profess an outward belief in Protestantism by attending at their parish church, they were ruined with fines; if they acknowledged James as their King, they were condemned by the Head of that very Faith for which they had sacrificed so much. Meanwhile, that eventful date, the fifth of November, was not allowed to be forgotten by the public. A special service of thanks to Heaven