s not unnatural
that the Netherlanders should hate the Roman Catholic religion, in the
name of which they had endured such infinite tortures, but it is,
nevertheless, painful to observe that they requested Queen Elizabeth,
whom they styled defender, not of "the faith" but of the "reformed
religion," to exclude from the Provinces, in case she accepted the
sovereignty, the exercise of all religious rites except those belonging
to the reformed church. They, however, expressly provided against
inquisition into conscience. Private houses were to be sacred, the
papists free within their own walls, but the churches were to be closed
to those of the ancient faith. This was not so bad as to hang, burn,
drown, and bury alive nonconformists, as had been done by Philip and the
holy inquisition in the name of the church of Rome; nor is it very
surprising that the horrible past should have caused that church to be
regarded with sentiments of such deep-rooted hostility as to make the
Hollanders shudder at the idea of its re-establishment. Yet, no doubt, it
was idle for either Holland or England, at that day, to talk of a
reconciliation with Rome. A step had separated them, but it was a step
from a precipice. No human power could bridge the chasm. The steep
contrast between the league and the counter-league, between the systems
of Philip and Mucio, and that of Elizabeth and Olden-Barneveld, ran
through the whole world of thought, action, and life.

But still the negociation between Holland and England was a strange one.
Holland wished to give herself entirely, and England feared to accept.
Elizabeth, in place of sovereignty, wanted mortgages; while Holland was
afraid to give a part, although offering the whole. There was no great
inequality between the two countries. Both were instinctively conscious,
perhaps, of standing on the edge of a vast expansion. Both felt that they
were about to stretch their wings suddenly for a flight over the whole
earth. Yet each was a very inferior power, in comparison with the great
empires of the past or those which then existed.

It is difficult, without a strong effort of the imagination, to reduce
the English empire to the slender proportions which belonged to her in
the days of Elizabeth. That epoch was full of light and life. The
constellations which have for centuries been shining in the English
firmament were then human creatures walking English earth. The captains,
statesmen, corsairs, merchant