y, as well as some of his minor
poems, were largely inspired by Anglican and Calvinistic purposes.

[Sidenote: Conversion of the masses]

It was during Elizabeth's reign that the Roman Catholics lost the
majority they claimed in 1558 and became the tiny minority they have
ever since remained. The time and to some extent the process through
which this came to pass can be traced with fair accuracy. In 1563 the
policy of the government, till then wavering, became more decided,
indicating that the current had begun to set in favor of Protestantism.
The failure of the Northern rising and of the papal bull in 1569-70,
indicated the weakness of the ancient faith. In 1572 a careful
estimate of the {328} religious state of England was made by a
contemporary, [Sidenote: Carleton's estimate] who thought that of the
three classes into which he divided the population, papist, Protestant
and atheist (by which he probably meant, indifferent) the first was
smaller than either of the other two. Ten years later (1580-85) the
Jesuit mission in England claimed 120,000 converts. But in reality
these adherents were not new converts, but the remnant of Romanism
remaining faithful. If we assume, as a distinguished historian has
done, that this number included nearly all the obstinately devoted, as
the population of England and Wales was then about 4,000,000, the
proportion of Catholics was only about 3 per cent. of the total, at
which percentage it remained constant during the next century. But
there were probably a considerable number of timid Roman Catholics not
daring to make themselves known to the Jesuit mission. But even
allowing liberally for these, it is safe to say that by 1585 the
members of that church had sunk to a very small minority.

Those who see in the conversion of the English people the result merely
of government pressure must explain two inconvenient facts. The first
is that the Puritans, who were more strongly persecuted than the
papists, waxed mightily notwithstanding. The second is that, during
the period when the conversion of the masses took place, there were no
martyrdoms and there was little persecution. The change was, in fact,
but the inevitable completion and consequence of the conversion of the
leaders of the people earlier. With the masses, doubtless, the full
contrast between the old and the new faiths was not realized.
Attending the same churches if not the same church, using a liturgy
which so