A Child's History of England.232

Nor was even this all. Jeffreys was as fond of money for himself as of misery for others, and he sold pardons wholesale to fill his pockets. The King ordered, at one time, a thousand prisoners to be given to certain of his favourites, in order that they might bargain with them for their pardons. The young ladies of Taunton who had presented the Bible, were bestowed upon the maids of honour at court; and those precious ladies made very hard bargains with them indeed. When The Bloody Assize was at its most dismal height, the King was diverting [娱乐] himself with horse-races in the very place where Mrs. Lisle had been executed. When Jeffreys had done his worst, and came home again, he was particularly complimented in the Royal Gazette [公报]; and when the King heard that through drunkenness and raging he was very ill, his odious [可恨的] Majesty remarked that such another man could not easily be found in England. Besides all this, a former sheriff of London, named Cornish, was hanged within sight of his own house, after an abominably conducted trial, for having had a share in the Rye House Plot, on evidence given by Rumsey, which that villain was obliged to confess was directly opposed to the evidence he had given on the trial of Lord Russell. And on the very same day, a worthy widow, named Elizabeth Gaunt, was burned alive at Tyburn, for having sheltered a wretch who himself gave evidence against her. She settled the fuel about herself with her own hands, so that the flames should reach her quickly: and nobly said, with her last breath, that she had obeyed the sacred command of God, to give refuge to the outcast [被抛弃的人], and not to betray the wanderer.

bestow ~ sth on sb: 把sth送给sb。young ladies被(当财源)送给了maids of honour at court
wretch: 非常不幸的或痛苦的人; 坏人; 狠毒的人

After all this hanging, beheading, burning, boiling, mutilating, exposing, robbing, transporting, and selling into slavery, of his unhappy subjects, the King not unnaturally thought that he could do whatever he would. So, he went to work to change the religion of the country with all possible speed; and what he did was this.

mutilate: (折断﹑撕去﹑割掉某部分)使sb/sth损伤, 残缺, 外形损毁

He first of all tried to get rid of what was called the Test Act - which prevented the Catholics from holding public employments - by his own power of dispensing [administer in court] with the penalties. He tried it in one case, and, eleven of the twelve judges deciding in his favour, he exercised [行使] it in three others, being those of three dignitaries [显要人物, VIP] of University College, Oxford, who had become Papists, and whom he kept in their places and sanctioned. He revived the hated Ecclesiastical [relating to the Christian church or its priests] Commission [委员会], to get rid of Compton, Bishop of London, who manfully opposed him. He solicited [恳求] the Pope to favour England with an ambassador, which the Pope (who was a sensible man then) rather unwillingly did. He flourished "挥舞" Father [神父] Petre before the eyes of the people on all possible occasions. He favoured the establishment of convents [女修道院] in several parts of London. He was delighted to have the streets, and even the court itself, filled with Monks and Friars [修士] in the habits [long garment worn by a monk or nun] of their orders [宗教团体]. He constantly endeavoured to make Catholics of the Protestants about him. He held private interviews, which he called 'closetings,' with those Members of Parliament who held offices [有职位], to persuade them to consent to the design he had in view. When they did not consent, they were removed, or resigned of themselves, and their places were given to Catholics. He displaced Protestant officers from the army, by every means in his power, and got Catholics into their places too. He tried the same thing with the corporations [市政当局], and also (though not so successfully) with the Lord Lieutenants of counties. To terrify the people into the endurance of all these measures, he kept an army of fifteen thousand men encamped on Hounslow Heath, where mass [弥撒] was openly performed in the General's tent, and where priests went among the soldiers endeavouring to persuade them to become Catholics. For circulating a paper among those men advising them to be true to their religion, a Protestant clergyman, named Johnson, the chaplain of the late [已故的] Lord Russell, was actually sentenced to stand three times in the pillory, and was actually whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. He dismissed his own brother-in-law from his Council because he was a Protestant, and made a Privy Councillor of the before-mentioned Father Petre. He handed Ireland over to Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, a worthless, dissolute [道德沦丧的] knave [dishonest man], who played the same game there for his master, and who played the deeper game for himself of one day putting it under the protection of the French King. In going to these extremities, every man of sense and judgment among the Catholics, from the Pope to a porter, knew that the King was a mere bigoted fool, who would undo [destroy] himself and the cause he sought to advance; but he was deaf to all reason, and, happily for England ever afterwards, went tumbling off [摔下] his throne in his own blind way.

monk: a member of an all-male religious group that lives apart from other people in a monastery
friar: a member of a religious group of Catholic men, who travelled around in the past teaching about Christianity and who were very poor
chaplain: a priest or other religious minister responsible for the religious needs of a club, the army, a hospital etc
Catholics of the Protestants: 似乎基督教和天主教并不是泾渭分明水火不容。比方说有些Protestants"抗议者"反对的是人，不是制度，另一些则反制度。
Privy Council: body of statesmen, politicians, etc appointed by the sovereign as advisers on affairs of State
Someone who is bigoted has strong, unreasonable prejudices or opinions and will not change them, even when they are proved to be wrong.

六级/考研单词: fond, miserable, wholesale, bargain, bible, maid, precious, divert, execute, compliment, drunken, rage, majesty, besides, conduct, plot, oblige, confess, worthy, widow, shelter, wretched, flame, noble, obey, sacred, refuge, betray, exposition, rob, slave, dispense, sanction, revive, commission, bishop, solicit, ambassador, flourish, delight, garment, endeavor, parliament, consent, displace, lieutenant, endure, tent, priest, circulate, advice, clergy, whip, dismiss, shallow, mere, undo, deaf, tumble, throne, secular, catholic, statesman, sovereign, rational, prejudice