Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/170

156 yoke of Rome; and the pope, on his part, would not comply with Charles's request to exert his influence with catholic Austria for the restoration of his sister and her son in the Palatinate so long as they continued protestants. Laud was therefore relieved from his temptation to receive the cardinal's hat by the resolve of the king to yield not one jot of his spiritual or political power, and a Scotch catholic being at Rome, named Conn, was mentioned as candidate for the purple instead. He came to England, and was graciously received not only by the queen, but the king too. He resided in England three years, but without the cardinal's hat, and was succeeded by count Rossetti, as the pope's envoy; and the rumours of the offers of the scarlet hat to Laud, and the residence of these papal envoys in London, exceedingly excited the jealousy of the people, and added immensely to Charles's impopularity; for no one felt sure of his real faith.



As Laud, however, could not array himself in scarlet as a cardinal, he determined to make the Anglican church as popish and himself as much of a pope as possible. Before reaching the primacy he had gone a good way. The spoliation of the church by Henry VIII. and Edward VI., and their greedy nobility, had deprived it of the means of keeping the ecclesiastical buildings in repair. The catholic church in England had appropriated the property of the establishment to three objects: one, the maintenance of the clergy and religious orders; the second to the maintenance of the buildings of the churches and cathedrals; and the