also enacted, that whosoever by bulls should publish absolutions
or other rescripts of the pope, or should, by means of them, reconcile
any man to the church of Rome, such offenders, as well as those who were
so reconciled, should be guilty of treason. The penalty of a praemunire
was imposed on every one who imported any Agnus Dei, crucifix, or such
other implement of superstition, consecrated by the pope.[*] The former
laws against usury were enforced by a new statute.[**] A supply of one
subsidy and two fifteenths was granted by parliament. The queen, as she
was determined to yield to them none of her power, was very cautious in
asking them for any supply. She endeavored, either by a rigid frugality
to make her ordinary revenues suffice for the necessities of the crown,
or she employed her prerogative, and procured money by the granting of
patents, monopolies, or by some such ruinous expedient.

* 13 Eliz. c. 2.

** 13 Eliz. c. 8.

Though Elizabeth possessed such uncontrolled authority over her
parliaments, and such extensive influence over her people; though,
during a course of thirteen years, she had maintained the public
tranquillity, which was only interrupted by the hasty and ill-concerted
insurrection in the north; she was still kept in great anxiety, and felt
her throne perpetually totter under her. The violent commotions excited
in France and the Low Countries, as well as in Scotland, seemed in one
view to secure her against any disturbance; but they served, on more
reflection, to instruct her in the danger of her situation, when
she remarked that England, no less than these neighboring countries,
contained the seeds of intestine discord; the differences of religious
opinion, and the furious intolerance and animosity of the opposite
sectaries.

The league, formed at Bayonne in 1566, for the extermination of the
Protestants, had not been concluded so secretly but intelligence of it
had reached Conde, Coligny, and the other leaders of the Hugonots; and
finding that the measures of the court agreed with their suspicions,
they determined to prevent the cruel perfidy of their enemies, and
to strike a blow before the Catholics were aware of the danger. The
Hugonots, though dispersed over the whole kingdom, formed a kind of
separate empire; and being closely united, as well by their religious
zeal as by the dangers to which they were perpetually exposed, they
obeyed with entire submission the orders of