Page:VCH Buckinghamshire 1.djvu/375

Rh House did sit' ; and he carried it by 115 votes to too, showing how strong was the Puritan element in Parliament already. Both Peter and Paul Wentworth gave information at different times against re- cusants who came under their notice.'

Of the more moderate reformers who really desired to keep the old forms of Church government there are no conspicuous examples in this county. It is indeed true that the great Hooker was for a year or so rector of Drayton Beauchamp, just after that ill-assorted marriage by which he ' was drawn from the tranquillity of his college, from that garden of piety, of pleasure, of peace and of sweet conversa- tion, into the thorny wilderness of a busy world ; into those corroding cares that attend a married priest and a country parsonage.' a But the county of Buckingham cannot claim much share in his glory ; it is probable indeed that had he not obtained some other preferment his genius would have been unknown to history ; the Ecclesiastical Polity could scarcely have been written in the short and uncertain intervals between the tending of sheep and the rocking of cradles.

Of the third section, the recusants of Buckinghamshire, there is a fairly clear record, although they were not very numerous. On this difficult subject, to which modern historical methods have not yet been searchingly applied, it is impossible as yet to attempt a revision of popular notions ; but a very short study of the records shows that such revision is very necessary. There is still, for instance, a rough distinction often drawn between two classes of Roman Catholics in England during the half century we are now considering ; that is to say, between the loyal and high-minded, who held their convictions fast as a matter of conscience, and yet hated and disowned the thought of making their religion an excuse for plots against the queen and the State ; and the disloyal, the dark conspirators, the secret assassins, who thought all means lawful if only they could secure the triumph of their cause. In the first class would be placed the majority of the recusant county gentry ; in the second, nearly all the Jesuits and seminary priests. It will be found, however, that in practice this distinction is extremely difficult to maintain. As a matter of fact those who were never under any suspicion of treason, and those on whose lives a price was always set, were in close and familiar intercourse ; so that either the loyal must have been much less loyal, or the traitors much less traitorous,