Note 449 — Chapter IX

In regard of the history, one line was consistently adopted. The Church of England in its calendar marked November 5th, as the Papists' Conspiracy, and in the collect appointed for the day the king and estates of the realm were described as being "by Popish treachery appointed as sheep to the slaughter, in a most barbarous and savage manner, beyond the examples of former ages." Similarly, preachers and writers alike concurred in saying little or nothing about the actual conspirators, but much about the iniquity of Rome; the official character of the Plot, and its sanction, even its first suggestion, by the highest authorities of the Church, being the chief feature of the tale hammered year after year into the ears of the English people. The details of history supplied are frequently pure and unmixed fables.[449]