left behind them all that they had--goods, lands, and
houses--not for adultery, or theft, or treason, but for the profession of
the Gospel?" "It pleased God," wrote Bishop Jewel, "here to cast them on
land: the queen of her gracious pity hath granted them harbor. Is it
become so heinous a thing to show mercy?" "They are our brethren,"
continued their noble-minded advocate, "they live not idly. If they have
houses of us, they pay rent for them. They hold not our grounds but by
making due recompense. They beg not in our streets, nor crave anything at
our hands, but to breathe our air, and to see our sun. They labor truly,
they live sparefully. They are good examples of virtue, travail, faith,
and patience. The towns in which they abide are happy, for God doth follow
them with His blessings."[634]

[Sidenote: Misgivings of Queen Elizabeth.]

[Sidenote: Her double-dealing and effrontery.]

Queen Elizabeth was less decidedly in their favor. Her court swarmed with
creatures of the Spanish king, who openly gloried in the victories of the
Guises. The ambassadors of Charles and Philip strove to the utmost to
render the Huguenots odious to her mind, and to give a false coloring to
the war raging in France. Her jealousy of the royal prerogative was
appealed to, by the repeated declaration that the Protestants of France
were turbulent men, who, for the slightest occasion and upon the most
slender suspicion, were ready to have recourse to arms--enthusiasts, who
could not be dissuaded from rash enterprises; sectaries, who employed
their consistories and their organized form of church government to levy
men, to collect arms, munitions of war, and money--rebels, in fine, who
could at any moment rise within an hour, and surprise his most Christian
Majesty's cities and provinces. The abrogation of religious liberty was,
therefore, not merely advisable, but absolutely necessary. Elizabeth was
reminded, also, of her own intolerant measures toward the Roman Catholics
of her dominions; and she was assured that her fears of a combined attack
on all the Protestants were devoid of foundation--that Charles had neither
taken up arms, nor revoked the edicts of toleration at the desire of any
other prince, still less because of the instance of any private
individuals, but of his own free will, in order to secure his
kingdom.[635] These arguments, if they did not convince Elizabeth, gave
her a fair excuse for trying to maintain an appearance of
n