166.

Nalson, vol.i.p.

749.
He escaped with his life; but it seems more probable, that he was overlooked amidst affairs of greater consequence, than that such unrelenting hatred would be softened by any consideration of his courage and generosity.
For some years Con, a Scotchman, afterwards Rosetti, an Italian, had openly resided at London, and frequented the court, as vested with a commission from the pope.

The queen's zeal, and her authority with her husband, had been the cause of this imprudence, so offensive to the nation.[*] But the spirit of bigotry now rose too high to permit any longer such indulgences.[**] Hayward, a justice of peace, having been wounded, when employed in the exercise of his office, by one James, a Catholic madman, this enormity was ascribed to the Popery, not to the frenzy of the assassin; and great alarms seized the nation and parliament.[***] A universal conspiracy of the Papists was supposed to have taken place; and every man for some days imagined that he had a sword at his throat.

Though some persons of family and distinction were still attached to the Catholic superstition, it is certain that the numbers of that sect did not amount to the fortieth part of the nation: and the frequent panics to which men, during this period, were so subject on account of the Catholics, were less the effects of fear, than of extreme rage and aversion entertained against them.
* It is now known from the Clarendon papers, that the king had also an authorized agent who resided at Rome.