So ended Mary Tudor, who in five years had rendered Romanism more hateful in the eyes of Englishmen than five centuries of papal aggression had availed to make it, and who had by her persecutions caused the adoption of Protestantism under her successor to become inevitable.
FOOTNOTE:
For example, she chose it for her coinage.
CHAPTER XXIV.
ELIZABETH.
1558-1603.
When Mary Tudor had passed away unwept and unregretted, all England heaved a sigh of relief, and turned to do homage to her sister Elizabeth. The daughter of Anne Boleyn was now a young woman of twenty-five. She had been living for the last five years in almost continual peril of her life, and had required all her caution to keep herself from the two snares which lay about her—the dangers of being accused of treason on the one hand and of heresy on the other. Fortunately for herself, Elizabeth was politic and cautious even to excess—all through her reign her most trusted ministers were often unable to discern her real thoughts and wishes—so that she came unharmed through her sister's reign of terror.
The religious crisis.
But when the lords of the council came flocking to Hatfield—the place of her honourable confinement—to salute her as queen, Elizabeth knew that her feet were still set in slippery places. The ultra-Catholic party was still in power, and the large majority of the nation were professing Romanists; on the other hand, she knew that her sister had made the name of Rome hateful, and there was a powerful and active band of Protestants, some in exile and some at home, who were ready to rush in and violently reverse all that Mary had done, if the new sovereign would give them any encouragement. Moreover, there was grave danger abroad: England was in the midst of war with France, yet Philip of Spain, the late queen's husband, was likely to be more dangerous than even the King of France, for it was obvious that he would be loth to let England out of his grasp, after he had profited by her alliance for four years.