ments for the conduct of county elections. He soon found that they were not inclined to throw away the esteem of their neighbours, and to endanger their beads and their estates, by rendering him an infamous and criminal service. Several of them refused to be Sheriffs. Of those who accepted the shrievalty many declared that they would discharge their duty as fairly as if they were members of the Established Church, and would return no candidate who had not a real majority.[1]
If the King could place little confidence even in his Roman Catholic Sheriffs, still less could he rely on the Puritans. Since the publication of the Declaration several months had elapsed, months crowded with important events, months of unintermitted controversy. Discussion had opened the eyes of many Dissenters: but the acts of the government, and especially the severity with which Magdalene College had been treated, had done more than even the pen of Halifax to alarm and to unite all classes of Protestants. Most of those sectaries who had been induced to express gratitude for the Indulgence were now ashamed of their error, and were desirous of making atonement by casting in their lot with the great body of their countrymen.
- ↑ About twenty years before this time a Jesuit had noticed the retiring character of the Roman Catholic country gentlemen of England. "La nobilta Inglese, senon se è legata in servigio, di Corte, ò in opera di maestrato, vive, e gode il più dell' anno alla campagna, ne' suoi palagi e poderi, dove son liberi e padroni; e ciò tanto più sollecitamente I Cattolici quanto più utilmente, si come meno osservati colà." — L'Inghilterra descritta dal P. Daniello Bartoli. Roma, 1667.
"Many of the Popish Sheriffs," Johnstone wrote, "have estates, and declare that whoever expects false returns from them will be disappointed. The Popish gentry that live at their houses in the country are much different from those that live here in town. Several of them have refused to be Sheriffs or Deputy Lieutenants." Dec. 8. 1687.
Ronquillo says the same. "Algunos Catolicos que fueron nombrados per sherifes se han excusado," Jan. 9/19. 1688. He some months later assured his court that the Catholic country gentlemen would willingly consent to a compromise of which the terms should be that the penal laws should be abolished and the test retained. "Estoy informado," he says, "que los Catolicos de las provincias no lo reprueban, pues no pretendiendo oficios, y siendo solo algunos de la Corte los provechosos, les parece que mejoran su estado, quedando seguros ellos y sus descendientes en la religion, en la quietud, y en la seguridad de sus haciendas." July 23/Aug 2 1688.
