Catholic nobles whom she admitted to the presence. The Catholics
grumbled at the Protestant statesmen whom she called to her
council-board. To Elizabeth on the other hand the arrangement was the
most natural thing in the world. She looked at theological differences
in a purely political light. She agreed with Henry the Fourth that a
kingdom was well worth a mass. It seemed an obvious thing to her to hold
out hopes of conversion as a means of deceiving Philip, or to gain a
point in negotiation by restoring the crucifix to her chapel. The first
interest in her own mind was the interest of public order, and she never
could understand how it could fail to be the first in every one's mind.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth's toleration.]

One memorable change marked the nobler side of the policy she brought
with her to the throne. Elizabeth's accession was at once followed by a
close of the religious persecution. Whatever might be the changes that
awaited the country, conformity was no longer to be enforced by the
penalty of death. At a moment when Philip was presiding at _autos-de-fe_
and Henry of France plotting a massacre of his Huguenot subjects, such a
resolve was a gain for humanity as well as a step towards religious
toleration. And from this resolve Elizabeth never wavered. Through all
her long reign, save a few Anabaptists whom the whole nation loathed as
blasphemers of God and dreaded as enemies of social order, no heretic
was "sent to the fire." It was a far greater gain for humanity when the
Queen declared her will to meddle in no way with the consciences of her
subjects. She would hear of no inquisition into a man's private thoughts
on religious matters or into his personal religion. Cecil could boldly
assert in her name at a later time the right of every Englishman to
perfect liberty of religious opinion. Such a liberty of opinion by no
means implied liberty of public worship. On the incompatibility of
freedom of worship with public order Catholic and Protestant were as yet
at one. The most advanced reformers did not dream of contending for a
right to stand apart from the national religion. What they sought was to
make the national religion their own. The tendency of the reformation
had been to press for the religious as well as the political unity of
every state. Even Calvin looked forward to the winning of the nations
to a purer faith without a suspicion that the religious movement which
he headed would end in establish