In 1606 when the Spanish court learned about the recent Draconian laws against the Catholics in England in the aftermath of the notorious Gunpowder Plot, Joseph Creswell, a well-known Jesuit living in Madrid, wrote a public letter to Sir Charles Cornwallis, the ambassador of James I. His carefully reasoned tract argued that violence against the consciences of Englishmen and women was no longer in place after the peace treaty arranged between the two hostile Catholic and Protestant kingdoms was signed. To rally support among influential leaders in the court capital of the Spanish king, he...