Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/353

T*'h. R1DOLFI CONSPIRACY. 339 Was its chief defect. Besides the Queen there were perhaps half a dozen prominent people in England who had intelligence enough to estimate the real value of forms and doctrines ; the passions which the Church was intended to check necessarily heaved under its sur- face ; but the scandals and controversies which were in- cessantly bursting out should be regarded rather as an evidence of what the country would have been without the Establishment than as indicating that the Establish- ment itself was unsuited to the end for which it was constituted. Conscience, Elizabeth never wearied of proclaiming, was unmolested ; every English subject might think what he pleased. No Inquisition examined into the secrets of opinion ; and before the rebellion no questions were asked as to what worship or what teaching might be heard within the walls of private houses. The Pro- testant fanatics, who had from time to time attempted prosecutions, were always checked and discouraged ; and unless the laws were ostentatiously violated, the Go- vernment was wilfully blind. Toleration was the uni- versal practice in the widest sense which the nature of the experiment permitted ; and if it was now found ne- cessary to draw the cords more tightly, the fault was not with Elizabeth or her ministers, but with the singu- lar and uncontrollable frenzy of theology, which regards the exclusive supremacy of a peculiar doctrine as of more importance than the Decalogue. It has been seen that the Catholics at the beginning of the reign applied to Rome for permission to attend