demands of the earlier Puritans for the abolition of vestments and ceremonies were not conceded. That policy, as well as taste, may have conduced to this result is not unlikely, nor is it inconsistent with Elizabeth's habitual duplicity and dissimulation; but there is quite sufficient evidence to show that her apparent disposition towards the old religion was but skin deep, and that she was in the main a partisan of the Reformation.[1] In the early years of her reign, the terrible dangers by which the country was surrounded may well have made her hesitate to estrange and irritate her only ally, and not improbably add him to the already formidable number of her enemies, when, by merely talking in a vague manner to his ambassador, and leaving the cross standing in her private chapel, she might keep up in his constantly vacillating mind the idea of her possible conversion; but from the day when she published her famous Injunctions to that on which she spoke to the Privy Council about the Irish rebellion, of ' extirpating that monster who colours his traitorous ingratitude with a desire to plant the Romish superstition to the extirpation of God's true religion, wherein we will live and die,'[2] and to that further day when she actually did die, receiving her final consolation from the mouth of the Calvinist Whitgift, there is no reason to believe that Elizabeth was other than a Protestant in belief as well as in action. That times of great excitement, whether religious or political, lead many men to the adoption of extreme opinions, either on one side or the other, may be true; but it is not true, even in such times, that a man must of necessity be either a fanatic
- ↑ On these points further evidence from contemporary sources will be found in the Appendix, note vii.
- ↑ State Papers, vol. cclxxv. No. 10, June 20, 1600.
