Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

up secret printing presses, and began to scatter over
the kingdom, pamphlets and books, written with
plausibility and at times with eloquence, attacking
Protestantism and instilling sedition; and these
works had the greater influence, that they had come
no man knew whither, save that they issued out of
a mysterious darkness.
The impatience of these men to see England a
Popish country would not permit them to wait the
realization of their hopes by the slow process of
instruction and perversion. Some of them carried
more powerful weapons for effecting their
enterprise than rosaries and catechisms. They came
armed with stilettos and curious poisons, and they
plunged into plot after plot against the queen's life.
These machinations kept her in continual
apprehension and anxiety, and the nation in
perpetual alarm. Their grand project, they felt, was
hopeless while Elizabeth lived; and not being able
to wait till age should enfeeble her, or death make
vacant her throne, they watched their opportunity
of taking her off with the poignard. The history of
England subsequent to 1580 is a continuous record
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