The purport of this association was to defend the queen, to revenge her death, or any injury committed against her, and to exclude from the throne all claimants, what title soever they might possess, by whose suggestion or for whose behoof any violence should be offered to her majesty,[***] The queen of Scots was sensible that this association was levelled against her; and to remove all suspicion from herself, she also desired leave to subscribe it.
* Camden, p.

499.
** Strype, vol.lii.p.

246.
*** State Trials, vol i.p.122, 123.
Elizabeth, that she might the more discourage malecontents, by showing them the concurrence of the nation in her favor, summoned a new parliament; and she met with that dutiful attachment which she expected.
The association was confirmed by parliament; and a clause was added by which the queen was empowered to name commissioners for the trial of any pretender to the crown, who should attempt or imagine any invasion, insurrection, or assassination against her: upon condemnation pronounced by these commissioners, the guilty person was excluded from all claim to the succession, and was further punishable as her majesty should direct.
And for greater security, a council of regency, in case of the queen's violent death, was appointed to govern the kingdom, to settle the succession, and to take vengeance for that act of treason.[*] A severe law was also enacted against Jesuits and Popish priests: it was ordained, that they should depart the kingdom within forty days; that those who should remain beyond that time, or should afterwards return, should be guilty of treason; that those who harbored or relieved them should be guilty of felony; that those who were educated in seminaries, if they returned not in six months after notice given, and submitted not themselves to the queen, before a bishop or two justices, should be guilty of treason; and that if any, so submitting themselves, should, within ten years, approach the court, or come within ten miles of it, their submission should be void.[**] By this law, the exercise of the Catholic religion, which had formerly been prohibited under lighter penalties, and which was in many instances connived at, was totally suppressed.

In the subsequent part of the queen's reign, the law was sometimes executed by the capital punishment of priests; and though the partisans of that princess asserted that they were punished for their treason, not their religion, the apology must only be understood in this sense, that the law was enacted on account of the treasonable views and attempts of the sect, not that every individual who suffered the penalty of the law was convicted of treason.[***] The Catholics, therefore, might now with justice complain of a violent persecution; which we may safety affirm, in spite of the rigid and bigoted maxims of that age, not to be the best method of converting them, or of reconciling them to the established government and religion.
* 27 Eliz.cap.

1.
* 27 Eliz.cap.