Bible, in which the mistakes which had been made in former translations were to be set right. After several years this new translation was finished, and is the one which is used generally in England at the present day.

3. James I. and the House of Commons.-When Parliament met, the members of the House of Commons did not like what James had been doing. They thought that, as it was very difficult to find a sufficient number of clergymen who could preach good sermons, it would be better to allow them all to preach, whether they would wear surplices or not. The Commons were, therefore, not in a very good humour with the king, and they were the more displeased when they found that James wanted them to give him money. Elizabeth had been very sparing, and even stingy, but when James came to England from such a poor country as Scotland then was, he fancied that he was going to be extremely rich, and began giving away estates and money to his Scotch friends. He soon found out that if his income was greater in England than it had been in Scotland, his expenses were also much more, and that unless the House of Commons would give him money he would run into debt. The Commons, however, would not give him money unless he did what they wanted, so that they and the king did not agree very well together.

4. The Gunpowder Plot.-The Catholics were more badly treated than the Puritans. James promised that if they did not make disturbances he would not make them pay the fines which they were

bound to pay by law, but he soon broke his promise. One of their number, named Catesby, resolved to blow up with gunpowder the Lords and Commons, when they came to hear the king's speech at the opening of Parliament. In this way, both James himself, and the men who refused to alter the laws which directed the persecution of the Catholics,

would be punished. Catesby expected that James's sons would be blown up with their father, and he intended, after this had been done, to take James's little daughter Elizabeth, who was being educated in Warwickshire, and to bring her up as a Catholic Queen. If Catesby had succeeded, he would probably have been murdered, or executed for his crime long before he could get near the child; but he

was too angry to think of this. He let some other Catholics into the secret, one of whom was Guido Fawkes, or, as he is commonly called now, Guy Fawkes. These men hired a house next to the one in which Parliament was to meet, and began to break a hole in the wall which separated the buildings, in order to carry the gunpowder through it to a place under the floor upon which the king would be standing. They were not accustomed to such hard work, and they were in despair at the slow progress they were making, when suddenly they heard a rustling sound. One of them went to see what was happening, and found that a woman was moving coals from a coal-cellar near, and that the cellar was to be let. As they found that it ran underneath the Parliament room they at once took

it. There was no longer any necessity for them to break through the wall. They brought into the cellar several barrels of gunpowder and covered them over with faggots and pieces of wood.

5. Discovery of the Plot.-The plotters wanted more money than they had got, because they wished to buy horses and armour to enable them to seize the little Elizabeth as soon as the explosion had taken place. They therefore let into the secret some rich men who would be likely to give them money. One of these had a brother-in-law in the House of Lords, and did not wish that he should be blown up with the rest. He therefore let him know what was being done, and the information was carried to the government. On the night before Parliament was to meet, Guy Fawkes went down to the cellar to

be ready to set fire to the powder in the morning. He was made a prisoner, and his companions fled into the country. Some were killed but most of them were taken and executed.

6. The English Government of Ireland.-At the end of Elizabeth's reign, Ireland had been for the' first time brought completely under the power of the English government. For some few years the English tried to do their best for the native Irish, and to give to those who wished to live quietly lands which they might have for their own, whilst those who could do nothing but fight were sent abroad to fight in foreign armies. Some of the chiefs who had ruled the Irish tribes before Ireland had been conquered did not like to see the English having so much power in the country, and settling matters where they had been themselves accustomed to have everything their own way. One of their number, O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, had a quarrel with another Irishman. He was summoned to Dublin that his case might be heard, and behaved so rudely to the Lord Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, who governed in the king's name, that he was ordered to go to England to give an account of his actions. He was afraid that if he obeyed he would never be allowed to come back again, and, with another Irish Earl, he fled to Spain.

7. The Colonisation of Ulster. The two earls who had fled had been chiefs over six counties in Ulster. Chichester advised that the lands of these counties should be given to the Irishmen who lived on them, and that, when they were all satisfied, the

land which remained should be divided amongst new colonists from England and Scotland. The English government did not take his advice. The best land was given to Englishmen and Scotchmen, and what remained was granted to the Irish, who were thus thrust out of their old homes. The new colonists were much more industrious than the Irish, and they soon made Ulster more fertile than the Irishmen would have done for a long time to come; but it was very cruel to the Irish, and it would not be easy to make them forget the treatment which they had received.

8. The Great Contract and the Impositions.These troubles made it necessary to keep up a larger army in Ireland than before. The expense caused by this made James run into debt even more than he had done at the beginning of his reign. In 1610, therefore, he asked Parliament to agree to a scheme which was known as the Great Contract, by which he was to receive a large increase of income on condition of his giving up a number of rights which were burdensome to his subjects. The House of Commons, on its part, asked him to give way on another question of great importance. In order to get more money, he had made the merchants pay 'duties on goods taken out of the kingdom or brought into it, besides those payments which had been granted to him by Parliament. These duties being put on or imposed by the king himself, were called Impositions. The judges said that the king had a right by law to do this. The House of Commons said he had not. An agreement was very nearly come