ABSTRACT
Three or four years before the writing of the Dialogue, Ralegh wrote A Dialogue between a Jesuit and a Recusant, a work designed to show that English recusants are loyal to their Oath of Allegiance, despite the best efforts of the Jesuits who have infiltrated the court.2 Rather surprisingly, considering the content of the rest of the work, the Jesuit and Recusant end up discussing impositions, which the former argues have been laid by James ‘upon his people, contrary to the Laws and Customs of the Land, as hath been directly proved in the last Parliament.’3 The Recusant, however, rejects the notion that the law binds the king because ‘either for his honour or safety, or for the defence of his Allies’ he can act outside the law.4 He has already suggested: ‘What if Currans were never brought into the Land, were the Commonwealth any whit the worse? Let those that have sweet tongues pay for their palat’, which leads seamlessly into an attack on noblemen who used to ‘live in their Countries and kept Hospitality, they fed the poor, and were beloved and followed.’5 The Jesuit has more to say, however, about James’s problems: ‘what can a Prince do that is poor, and hath not the love of his people?’ He receives the following answer: ‘for the love of the people, if he want it, he may again recover it in a week.’6
