been a more lofty policy, and a far more intelligent one, to extend
towards the Catholics of England, who as a body were loyal to their
country, an ample toleration. But it could scarcely be expected that
Elizabeth Tudor, as imperious and absolute by temperament as her father
had ever been, would be capable of embodying that great principle.

When, in the preliminaries to the negotiations of 1587, therefore, it was
urged on the part of Spain, that the Queen was demanding a concession of
religious liberty from Philip to the Netherlanders which she refused to
English heretics, and that he only claimed the same right of dictating a
creed to his subjects which she exercised in regard to her own, Lord
Burghley replied that the statement was correct. The Queen permitted--
it was true--no man to profess any religion but the one which she
professed. At the same time it was declared to be unjust, that those
persons in the Netherlands who had been for years in the habit of
practising Protestant rites, should be suddenly compelled, without
instruction, to abandon that form of worship. It was well known that
many would rather die than submit to such oppression, and it was affirmed
that the exercise of this cruelty would be resisted by her to the
uttermost. There was no hint of the propriety--on any logical basis--
of leaving the question of creed as a matter between man and his Maker,
with which any dictation on the part of crown or state was an act of
odious tyranny. There was not even a suggestion that the Protestant
doctrines were true, and the Catholic doctrines false. The matter was
merely taken up on the 'uti possidetis' principle, that they who had
acquired the fact of Protestant worship had a right to retain it, and
could not justly be deprived of it, except by instruction and persuasion.
It was also affirmed that it was not the English practice to inquire into
men's consciences. It would have been difficult, however, to make that
very clear to Philip's comprehension, because, if men, women, and