Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

the English Jesuits were left with the two bulls of
Clement VIII, and the good wishes of Philip II, as
their only weapons for carrying out their great
enterprise of restoring their Church to its former
supremacy in England. They did not despair,
however. Thrown on their own resources, they
considered the means by which they might give
triumph to their cause.
The Order of Jesus is never more formidable
than when it appears to be least so. It is when the
Jesuits are stripped of all external means of doing
harm that they devise the vastest schemes, and
execute them with the most daring courage.
Extremity but compels them to retreat yet deeper
into the darkness, and arm themselves with those
terrible powers wherein their great strength lies,
and the full unsparing application of which they
reserve for the conflicts of mightiest moment. The
Jesuits in England now began to meditate a great
blow. They had delivered an astounding stroke at
sea but a few years before; they would signalize the
present emergency by a nearly as astounding stroke
on land. They would prepare an Armada in the
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