His position as a Papist had disposed him to intrigue, while his position as one proscribed by religious hostility, had disposed him to be a Papist.

Thousands are made men of activity, and even of importance, by persecution and proscription, who would pass through life quietly and unnoticed, if the meddling hand of human forethought did not force them into situations that awaken their hostility, and quicken their powers.

This gentleman was a firm believer in all the traditions of his church, though his learning extended little beyond his missal; and he put the most implicit reliance on the absurd, because improbable, fiction of the Nag's Head consecration, without having even deemed it necessary to look into a particle of that testimony by which alone such a controversy could be decided.

In a word, he was an instance of what religious intolerance has ever done, and will probably for ever continue to do, with so wayward a being as man.
Apart from this weakness, Sir Reginald Wychecombe had both a shrewd and an inquiring mind.

His religion he left very much to the priests; but of his temporal affairs he assumed a careful and prudent supervision.