70 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 63 to see that the laws must be enforced, and these itiner- ant incendiaries be put down before the whole realm was on fire. They were protected for the first six months by the Queen's extreme aversion to severity. As soon as Walsingham was permitted to exert himself, large captures were rapidly made. At the beginning December. J , of December seven or eight ol the young priests, Sherwin, Bryant, Pascal, Harte, Johnson, Kirby, and one or two more were arrested in various places and taken to the Tower. Harte's courage failed him ; he recanted and saved himself by becoming a spy. The rest when examined said frankly who and what they were English subjects in the service of the Pope, who was levying war against the Queen in Ireland. They were required to give the names of the gentlemen at whose houses they had been received, and to reveal the place of concealment of their leaders. They refused, and it was thought just and necessary to use other means to force them to speak. The Tower rack stood in the long vaulted dungeon below the armoury. Under a warrant signed by six of the council, and in the presence of the Lieutenant, whose duty was to direct and moderate the application of the pains, they were laid at various times, and more than once, as they could bear it, upon the frame, the Commissioners sitting at their side and re- peating their questions in the intervals of the winding of the winch. A practice which by the law was always forbidden could be palliated only by a danger so great that the nation had become like an army in the field. It was repudiated on the return of calmer times, and the
