Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

eference to a "sudden blow" which was intended
in England about this time; and King James was
warned by a letter from the court of Henry IV to
beware of the fate of Henry III; and in the oration
pronounced at Rome in praise of Ravaillac, the
assassin of Henry IV, it was said that he (Henry
IV) was not only an enemy to the Catholic religion
in his heart, but that he had obstructed the glorious
enterprise of those who would have restored it in
England, and had caused them to be crowned with
martyrdom. It is not easy to see to what this can
refer if it be not to the Gunpowder Plot, and the
execution of the conspirators by which it was
followed. The proof of knowledge beforehand on
the part of the Popish authorities seemed to be
completed by the action of Pope Paul V, who
appointed a jubilee for the year 1605 -- the year
when the plot was to be executed for the purpose of
"praying for help in emergent necessities," and
among reasons assigned by the Pontiff for fixing
on the year 1605, was that it was to witness "the
rooting out of all the impious errors of the
heretics.[3] Copely says that "he could never meet
with any one Jesuit who blamed it."[4] Two of the
240