the hatred of Popery had increased.... The King was suspected by many of a leaning towards Rome. His brother and heir-presumptive was known to be a bigoted Roman Catholic. The first Duchess of York had died a Roman Catholic. James had then, in defiance of the remonstrances of the House of Commons, taken to wife the Princess Mary of Modena, another Roman Catholic. If there should be sons by this marriage, there was reason to fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, and that a long succession of princes hostile to the established faith might sit on the English throne. The constitution had recently been violated for the purpose of protecting the Roman Catholics from the penal laws. The ally by whom the policy of England had during many years been chiefly governed, was not only a Roman Catholic, but a persecutor of the Reformed Churches. Under such circumstances, it is not strange that the common people should have been inclined to apprehend a return of the times of her whom they called Bloody Mary.” Such was the unhappy state of affairs at this period, and though its effect is soon shown in the advertisement columns of the papers, one would think times were piping and peaceful indeed to read the following, extracted from the London Gazette of October 15-19, 1674:—
WHITEHALL, October 17.—A square Diamond with his Majesty’s Arms upon it having been this day lost out of a seal in or about Whitehall, or St James’s Park or House; Any person that shall have found the same is required to bring it to William Chiffinch, Esq., Keeper of his Majesty’s Closet, and he shall have ten pounds for a Reward.
Doubtless this Chiffinch, the degraded being who lived but to pander to the debauched tastes of his royal and profligate employer, thought nothing of politics or of the signs of the times, and contented himself with the affairs of the Backstairs, caring little for Titus Oates, and less for his victims. Some short time after the foregoing was published (March 20-23, 1675), Chiffinch published another loss in the Gazette. This is it:—