state could avert
the common danger by which all were threatened. Roman Catholic Europe
and reformed Europe were struggling for death or life. France divided
against herself, had, for a time, ceased to be of any account in
Christendom. The English Government was at the head of the Protestant
interest, and, while persecuting Presbyterians at home, extended a
powerful protection to Presbyterian Churches abroad. At the head of the
opposite party was the mightiest prince of the age, a prince who ruled
Spain, Portugal, Italy, the East and the West Indies, whose armies
repeatedly marched to Paris, and whose fleets kept the coasts of
Devonshire and Sussex in alarm. It long seemed probable that Englishmen
would have to fight desperately on English ground for their religion and
independence. Nor were they ever for a moment free from apprehensions
of some great treason at home. For in that age it had become a point of
conscience and of honour with many men of generous natures to sacrifice
their country to their religion. A succession of dark plots, formed by
Roman Catholics against the life of the Queen and the existence of the
nation, kept society in constant alarm. Whatever might be the faults of
Elizabeth, it was plain that, to speak humanly, the fate of the realm
and of all reformed Churches was staked on the security of her person
and on the success of her administration. To strengthen her hands was,
therefore, the first duty of a patriot and a Protestant; and that duty
was well performed. The Puritans, even in the depths of the prisons to
which she had sent them, prayed, and with no simulated fervour, that she
might be kept from the dagger of the assassin, that rebellion might be
put down under her feet, and that her arms might be victorious by sea
and land. One of the most stubborn of the stubborn sect, immediately
after his hand had been lopped off for an offence into which he had been
hurried by his intemperate zeal, waved his hat with the hand which was
still left him, and shouted "God save the Queen!" The sentiment with
which these men regarded her has descended to their posterity. The
Nonconformists, rigorously as she treated them, have, as a body, always
venerated her memory. [5]

During the greater part of her reign, therefore, the Puritans in the
House of Commons, though sometimes mutinous, felt no disposition to
array themselves in systematic opposition to the government. But,
when the defeat of the Armada, the su