Though a determined Protestant, by principle as well as inclination, he had entertained no violent horror against Popery: and a little humanity, he thought, was due by the nation to the religion of their ancestors.

That degree of liberty which is now indulged to Catholics, though a party much more obnoxious than during the reign of the Stuarts, it suited neither with Charles's sentiments nor the humor of the age to allow them.

An abatement of the more rigorous laws was all he intended; and his engagements with France, notwithstanding that their regular execution had never been promised or expected, required of him some indulgence.

But so unfortunate was this prince, that no measure embraced during his whole reign, was ever attended with more unhappy and more fatal consequences.
The extreme rage against Popery was a sure characteristic of Puritanism.
The house of commons discovered other infallible symptoms of the prevalence of that party.

They petitioned the king for replacing such able clergy as had been silenced for want of conformity to the ceremonies.[*] They also enacted laws for the strict observance of Sunday, which the Puritans affected to call the Sabbath, and which they sanctified by the most melancholy indolence.[**] It is to be remarked, that the different appellations of this festival were at that time known symbols of the different parties.
The king, finding that the parliament was resolved to grant him no supply, and would furnish him with nothing but empty protestations of duty,[***] or disagreeable complaints of grievances, took advantage of the plague,[****] which began to appear at Oxford, and on that pretence immediately dissolved them.