ardently supported the Church of England, it was because he was its
head. The Catholic who would have turned the Church authority over
again to the Pope, and the "Puritans" who resisted the "Popish
practices" of the Reformed Church of England, were equally hateful to
him, for one and the same reason; they were each aiming to diminish
_his_ authority.

[Sidenote: First English Colony in New England]

When the Puritans brought to him a petition signed by 800 clergymen,
praying that they be not compelled to wear the surplice, nor make the
sign of the cross at baptism--he said they were "vipers," and if they
did not submit to the authority of the Bishops in such matters "they
should be harried out of the land." In the persecution implied by this
threat, a large body of Puritans escaped to Holland with their
families, and from thence came that band of heroic men and women on the
"Mayflower," landing at a point On the American Coast which they called
"Plymouth" (1620). A few Englishmen had in 1607 settled in Jamestown,
Virginia. These two colonies contained the germ of the future "United
States of America."

[Sidenote: "Gunpowder Plot, 1605."]

The persecution of the Catholics led to a plot to blow up Parliament
House at a time when the King was present, thinking thus at one stroke
to get rid of a usurping tyrant, and of a House of Commons which was
daily becoming more and more infected with Puritanism. The discovery of
this "Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot," prevented its consummation, and
immensely strengthened Puritan sentiment.