york00orns

398 YORK.
indicted for holding their meetings in private houses.
This was often the case in York, where their numbers
were very large. Whole congregations were sometimes
seized, and the principal members fined and
occasionally imprisoned. Similar proceedings took
place at Leeds, Wakefield, and other places.
Deep feelings of indignation were aroused by these
vexatious acts, resulting in strong expressions of
antipathy on the part of the populace against the
clergy of the Minster. Mobs do not discriminate,
and a prohibition which was simply intended to promote
common decency within the walls of the
Minster was made the pretext for a violent and
unmanly attack upon one of its dignitaries. It was
then the custom—not quite extinct in some cathedrals
within living memory— for people to assemble and
walk up and down the nave on Sundays whilst service
was going on in the choir. Lake (aftenvards one of
the seven bishops sent to the Tower) was then a
Residentiary, and endeavoured to put a stop to this.
The perfenndtim ingetiium Ehoracensium was aroused
by this interference with their freedom of action ; the
mob attacked Lake's house, stripped off the tiling,
and it was thought might have actually murdered him
if his rescue had not been effected by the Deputy
Governor of the Castle.
The penal statutes against the Roman Catholics
were most rigorously enforced at this period. Real
or pretended plots were constantly supposed to be
discovered, and the result was the harshest possible
treatment. The houses of the gentry were searched
for horses and arms, and the oath of allegiance syste-