on account of religion: it is impossible to let many thousand
true subjects be dependent on such as have hostile intentions. The
plan Henry VIII had once entertained, of diminishing the authority of
the Lords, is now brought by the High Treasurer at this crisis once
more into vivid recollection. The Queen is to bind the Commons to
herself, to win over their hearts. And Burleigh advises allowing the
followers of dissenting Protestant Churches, especially the Puritans,
to worship as they please: in preaching and catechising they are more
zealous than the Episcopalians, very far more successful in converting
the people, and indispensable for weakening the popish party. We see
how the necessity of the war acts on home affairs. The chief minister
favoured the elements which were forcing their way out through the
existing forms of the state.

In this general strain on men's minds their eyes once more turned to
the Queen of Scots in her captivity. What would there have been at all
to fear at other times from a princess under strong custody and cut
off from all the world? But in the excitement of that age she could
even so be still an object of apprehension. Her personal friends had
from the first not seen a great mischance in her enforced residence in
England. For by blameless conduct she refuted the evil report which
had followed her thither from Scotland; and her right as heiress of
the crown came to the knowledge of the whole nation.[251] In the days
at which we have arrived we know with certainty that her presence in
the country formed a great lever for Catholic agitation. A report
found in the papal archives has been published, by which it is clear
how much support men promised themselves from her for every resolute
undertaking.[252] This document says that since she has numberless
partisans, and although in prison has uninterrupted communication with
them, she will always find means, when the time comes, of giving them
notice of the approaching opportunity: she is resolved to encounter
every hardship, nay even death itself, for the great cause.[253]

Occupied with measures of defence on all sides, the English government
had already long been considering how to meet this danger. This was
the very reason why Elizabeth's marriage was so often spoken of with
popular approbation: if she had children, Mary's claims would lose
their importance. Gradually however every man had to confess to
himself that this was not to be expe