or throne, desired
to see the Church of England reformed according to the Church of Geneva.
Yet there is no doubt that many sectaries experienced much inhuman
treatment for such delinquency, both in the early and the later years of
Elizabeth's reign.

There was another consideration, which had its due weight in this
balance, and that was the respective succession to the throne in the two
kingdoms of France and England. Mary Stuart, the Catholic, the niece of
the Guises, emblem and exponent of all that was most Roman in Europe, the
sworn friend of Philip, the mortal foe to all heresy, was the legitimate
successor to Elizabeth. Although that sovereign had ever refused to
recognize that claim; holding that to confirm Mary in the succession was
to "lay her own winding sheet before her eyes, yea, to make her, own
grave, while she liveth and looketh on;" and although the unfortunate
claimant of two thrones was a prisoner in her enemy's hands, yet, so long
as she lived, there was little security for Protestantism, even in
Elizabeth's lifetime, and less still in case of her sudden death. On the
other hand, not only were the various politico-religious forces of France
kept in equilibrium by their action upon each other--so that it was
reasonable to believe that the House of Valois, however Catholic itself,
would be always compelled by the fast-expanding strength of French
Calvinism, to observe faithfully a compact to tolerate the Netherland
churches--but, upon the death of Henry III. the crown would be
legitimately placed upon the head of the great champion and chief of the
Huguenots, Henry of Navarre.

It was not unnatural, therefore, that the Prince of Orange, a Calvinist
himself, should expect more sympathy with the Netherland reformers in
France than in England. A large proportion of the population of that
kingdom, including an influential part of the nobility, was of the
Huguenot persuasion, and the religious peace, established by royal edict,
had endured so long, that the reformers of France and the Netherlands had
begun to believe in the royal clemency, and to confide in the royal word.
Orange did not live to see the actual formation of the Holy League, and
could only guess at its secrets.

Moreover, it should be remembered that France at that day was a more
formidable state than England, a more dangerous enemy, and, as it was
believed, a more efficient protector. The England of the period, glorious
as it was for its o