Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/450

436 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 56. them. But they took no notice ; she required money, and she let them go their own way till the subsidy was voted. To the Peers, the Communion Bill was most un- welcome. They knew it to be aimed at themselves, and deputations of Catholic noblemen waited on the Queen to remonstrate. Troubled as she was with her Anjou marriage, and intending if necessary to escape out of it through her Protestant orthodoxy, Elizabeth did not care to commit herself too positively on the Catholic side. A Committee of the two Houses sat to consider if it could be remodelled ; but the one su- premely unpalatable condition could not be shaken off ; the undivided phalanx of the twenty- two Prelates never failing, who turned the scale in every division. One Catholic nobleman said tauntingly, that if the Right Reverend Lords could agree among themselves as to what they required the laity to receive in the Sacrament, they might get over their objections ; at present every parish had its own theory on the matter ; and being charged as they were with the custody of their own souls, the Peers as well as others had a right to their own opinions. 1 Burghley however lent his great weight to put down the opposition. 'The quiet of the realm/ he said, ' required that the measure should be passed. Liberty of conscience was generally good, but after the step which the Pope had chosen to take, religion had 1 La Mothe Fenelon, May 18: Depeches, vol. iv.