their
bigotry, and their unprincipled ambition, as effectually to preclude
them from uniting their forces to put in execution against Elizabeth the
papal sentence of deprivation; and by the opportunity which they
afforded her of causing incalculable mischiefs to these princes through
the succours which she might afford to their rebellious subjects, they
long enabled her to restrain both Philip and Charles within the bounds
of respect and amity. But circumstances were now tending with increased
velocity towards a rupture with Spain, clearly become inevitable; and in
1577 the queen of England saw herself compelled to take steps in the
affairs of the Low Countries equally offensive to that power and to
France.

The states of Holland, after the rejection of their sovereignty by
Elizabeth, cast their eyes around in search of another protector: and
Charles IX., suffering his ambition and his rivalry with Philip II. to
overpower all the vehemence of his zeal for the catholic religion,
showed himself eager to become their patron. His brother the duke
d'Alencon, doubtless with his concurrence, offered on certain terms to
bring a French army for the expulsion of don John of Austria, governor
of the Low Countries; and this proposal he urged with so much
importunity, that the Hollanders, notwithstanding their utter antipathy
to the royal family of France, seemed likely to accede to it, as the
lightest of that variety of evils of which their present situation
offered them the choice. But Elizabeth could not view with indifference
the progress of a negotiation which might eventually procure to France
the annexation of these important provinces; and she encouraged the
states to refuse the offers of Alencon by immediately transmitting for
their service liberal supplies of arms and money to duke Casimir, son of
the Elector Palatine, then at the head of a large body of German
protestants in the Low Countries.

At the same time she endeavoured to repress the catholics in her own
dominions by a stricter enforcement of the penal laws, and two or three
persons in this year suffered capitally for their denial of the queen's
supremacy[81].

[Note 81: Dr. Whitgift, then bishop of Worcester and vice-president
of the marches of Wales under sir Henry Sidney, peculiarly distinguished
himself by his activity in detecting secret meetings of catholics for
the purpose of hearing mass and practising other rites of their
religion. The privy-council,