were led by many cireumstances to look forward with hope to the sueeession of James. They remembered that he was born of Catholic parents, and that he had been baptized by a Catholic archbishop; they relied upon the feelings of dislike with which they supposed that he must regard the party who had caused the execution of his mother; they knew that several of the ordinanees of the Roman Church were approved by him; and they had heard and believed that he had, on more than one occasion, expressed a willingness to be reconciled to the Apostolie See. But, besides these general presumptions of a disposition favourable to their party, the leading Catholics were attached to the cause of James, by the express assurances of a toleration for their religion, which were generally reported to them from various quarters, and, in particular, by individuals despatched to Edinburgh for the purpose of ascertaining his intentions upon that subject.
But the fond hopes and expectations of the Catholics were dissipated and destroyed before six inonths of James' Government had passed away. Symptoms of an anti-Catholic disposition appeared as soon as he felt himself firmly seated on the throne. De Beaumont says, that 'within a month after his arrival in London, he answered an objeetion made in conversation to the appointment of Lord Henry Howard to a seat in the Privy Council, on account of his being a Catholic.' The same authority farther reports, that 'he maintained openly at table that the Pope was the true Antichrist, with other like blasphemies worthy of his doctrine'. A proclamation, dated February 22, 1603-4, in which the King com-
