The English Catholics had ardently espoused the cause of the house of Stuart, and they were to pay once again for their illusive imprudence and folly. The attempt which had just cost the Bishop of Rochester his episcopal see and the freedom of his country, served as a pretext for Walpole to propose a tax of £100,000, to be collected from the estates of the Catholics. "Many of them are guilty," said the minister. This contempt for justice and liberty, which long pursued the Catholics in England, weighed upon the French Protestants still longer and more heavily. The bill which passed the Houses included all the gentry who had refused to take the oath of allegiance. Many who had resisted, up to this time, in consequence of a sincere repugnance, now hastened to take the oath to the established order of things.
"I have observed well," said the Speaker Onslow, who was opposed to the measure of Walpole, "and it was a strange and ridiculous spectacle to see the crowd which gathered at the quarterly Sessions in order to pledge their allegiance to the government, while, at the same time, cursing it for the trouble which it was giving them and for the fear which it inspired. I am convinced that the attachment for the king and his family has received a severe shock from all that happened at this time."
As the exiled bishop put his foot upon the soil of France, at Calais, he learned that Lord Bolingbroke had been pardoned by the king, and had arrived in that city on his way to England. "I am exchanged, then," said Atterbury, smiling. "Assuredly," wrote Pope, the intimate and faithful friend of the bishop, "this country fears an excess of talent, since it will not regain one genius without losing another."