resemblance of popish forms, might be the one most likely to
obtain their suffrage also.

Such being the state of religious opinion in England at the accession of
Elizabeth, it will not appear wonderful that the Genevan reformer should
have begun to indulge the flattering expectation of seeing his own
scheme established in England as in Scotland, and himself revered
throughout the island as a spiritual director from whose decisions there
could be no appeal. Emboldened at once by zeal and ambition, he hastened
to open a communication with the new government, in the shape of an
exhortation to the queen to call a protestant council for establishing
uniformity of doctrine and of church government; but his dream of
supremacy was quickly dissipated on receiving for answer, that England
was determined to preserve her episcopacy.

This decisive rejection of the presbyterian form was followed up by
other acts on the part of the queen which gave offence to all the real
friends of reformed religion, and went far to prove that Elizabeth was
at heart little more of a protestant than her father. The general
prohibition of preaching, which was strictly enforced during the first
months of her reign, was understood as a measure of repression levelled
full as much against the indiscreet zeal of the returned exiles, as
against the disaffection of the catholics. An order that until the next
meeting of parliament no change should be made in the order of worship
established by the late queen, except the reading of the creed and
commandments in English, implied, at least, a determination in the civil
power to take the management of religion entirely out of the hands of a
clergy whose influence over the minds of the people it viewed with a
jealous eye. It was soon also discovered, to the increasing horror of
all true protestants, that the queen was strongly disposed to insist on
the celibacy of the clergy; and even when the strenuous efforts of Cecil
and others had brought her to yield with reluctance this capital point,
she still pertinaciously refused to authorize their marrying by an
express law. She would not even declare valid the marriages contracted
by them during the reign of her brother; so that it became necessary to
procure private bills of legitimation in behalf of the offspring of
these unions, though formed under the express sanction of then existing
laws. The son of Cranmer himself, and the son of archbishop Parker, were
of the