he nation against the late government and its alliance
with Spain, we may still allow that this must have been the actual
result, as it really proved to be. It was indeed said that Philip II,
who not merely concluded peace with France but actually married a
daughter of Henry II, would make common cause with him against
England: but Elizabeth no more allowed herself to be misled by this
possibility, which also had much against it, than Henry VIII had been
under similar circumstances. Like him and like the founder of her
family, she took up an independent position between the two powers,
equally ready according to circumstances for war or peace with one or
the other.

Meanwhile she had already proceeded to measures which could never have
been reconciled with the Spanish alliance, and to ecclesiastical
changes which first gave her position its true character.

Her earliest intimation of again deviating from the Church was given
by restoring, like a devoted daughter, her father's monument, which
Mary had levelled with the ground. A second soon followed, which at
once touched on the chief doctrine in dispute. Before attending a
solemn high mass she required the officiating bishop to omit the
elevation of the host. As he refused, she left the church at the
moment the ceremony was being consummated. To check the religious
strife which began to fill the pulpits she forbade preaching, like her
predecessors; but she allowed the Sunday Lessons, the Litany, and the
Creed to be read in English. Elizabeth had hitherto conformed to the
restored Catholic ritual: it could not be quite said that she
belonged to either of the existing confessions. She always declared
that she had read no controversial writings. But she had occupied
herself with the documents of the early Church, with the Greek and
Latin Fathers, and was thoroughly convinced that the Romanism of the
later centuries had gone far astray from this pattern. She had made up
her mind, not as to every point of doctrine, but as to its general
direction: she believed too that she was upheld and guarded by God, to
carry out this change. 'How wonderful are God's ordinances,' she
exclaimed, when she heard that the crown had fallen to her.

What course however was now to be taken was a question which, owing to
the antagonism of the factions and the close connexion of all
ecclesiastical and political matters, required the most mature
consideration.

The Queen was advised simply to