i86 THE CECILS
Salisbury himself defines his views in a letter to Sir Henry Wotton (June i6th, 1606). l
" So clear and apparent," he writes, " is now the hatred of almost all those of that profession to the present government of this Church and Commonwealth, and so envious are they of the long blessings of peace and plenty which God hath bestowed upon our nation these many years in the true profession of the Gospel, as they have not only sought by all overt means to practise the destruction thereof, but their masters and rabbins, the Jesuits, who are now become the only fire-brands of Christendom, have and do continually seek to corrupt the very souls and consciences of his Majesty's simpler sort of subjects with this detestable doctrine, that they may not stick at rebellion and conspiracy, when they are summoned to it for the good of the Church."
On the Continent Salisbury was looked upon as the special enemy of the Catholics, owing to the malicious reports of the Jesuits. " Among the Duke of Lerma's pages of the Chamber," writes Sir Charles Cornwallis from Madrid, this same year " a common table talk it is, what an extreme persecutor your lordship is of the Catholics in England. Hereupon every man wishes that their hands might give you the Pugnaladoll, that your cruelty deserveth " ; to which Salisbury replies with dignity, that he commends himself to God's protection, and that " the more danger is laid before me, the more zealous it makes me of God's and my country's service." 2
1 Court and Times of James I., I. 65.
2 Winwood's Memorials, II. 236, 253. See also, for other Jesuit plots II. 202, III. 49
�� �
