Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/455

 I57I-] THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 441 ances of this kind were declared to be void, and the Crown was empowered to take possession of the estates of all persons who after sufficient notice refused to re- turn. But a distinction was introduced between those who were hatching treason and those who were in- fluenced by ' blind zeal ; ' and the Peers carried a special clause in favour of their own order. A Peer might recover his property at any time that he pleased by making his submission. 1 An Act of Attainder was carried against Westmore- land, Northumberland, and their companions. Their estates became the Crown's, to be sold or disposed of as the Queen might please; and the dispute with the Bishop of Durham, which the lawyers had left after all undetermined, was disposed of by an intimation that, except for the exertions of the Crown, the Bishop would have been swept out of existence, and had therefore no claim upon the forfeitures. 2 It had been discovered after the suppression of the insurrection that multitudes of seditious priests were continually going up and down the country in disguise or hiding in country houses as ' serving men.' The council proposed that all such persons, wherever found, should be treated as vagrants or Egyptians, that such priests should be pilloried, set in the stocks, or whipt at the cart's tail ; and that the gentlemen who entertained them should be deprived of their property. 3 This prac- 13 Elizabeth, cap. iii. 13 Elizabeth, cap. xvi. 3 Draft of an Act against Dis- guises of Priests, April 27, 1571 MSS. Domestic.