406 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 66. should be examined on the authority of the Pope ; and that those who would not swear without reserve to be loyal to the Queen, should be condemned as traitors. ' As many as should be thought requisite should suffer death ; ' others should be banished ' with judgment to be hanged if they returned ; ' others ' should be straitly imprisoned ' where they could infect no one with their doctrines ; ' while the charge of their diet ' was to be furnished out of the forfeitures of the recusants. 1 Under these instructions, seven priests Oxford con- verts most of them of the same race as Cam^ian, were immediately executed ; five at Tyburn and two at York. Each martyr's death was counted a victory of the faith; and spiritual triumphs, of which the Jesuits could not be deprived, were the more welcome as their secular pros- pects were again clouded. In the training of these happy or unhappy youths, Allen had been thoroughly successful. He had desired to compel Elizabeth into persecution, and he had provided willing victims who had forced her to sacrifice them. They perished as he hoped and intended, and their heroic deaths were now trumpeted over Europe with all the hideous details to stir rage and hatred against the Antichrist of England. The reproach was felt, felt the more keenly as Elizabeth had tried so hard to avoid giving occasion for it. So loud was the clamour, and so sensitive the Queen, that Burghley took pen to reply to it, and the publication of the libels was the occasion of an elaborate and noble 1 Memoranda of resolutions of Council, December 2, 1583. Burgbley's band : MSS. Domestic.
