This system continued for the first eleven years of Elizabeth's reign. No Catholic, she could proudly say, had ever during that time been molested for his belief. There was a small fine for non-attendance at church, but even this was rarely levied, and by the confession of the Jesuits the Queen's policy was succeeding too well. Sensible men began to see that the differences of religion were not things to quarrel over. Faith was growing languid. The elder generation, who had lived through the Edward and Mary revolutions, were satisfied to be left undisturbed; a new generation was growing up, with new ideas; and so the Church of Rome bestirred itself. Elizabeth was excommunicated. The cycle began of intrigue and conspiracy, assassination plots, and Jesuit invasions. Punishments had to follow, and in spite of herself Elizabeth was driven into what the Catholics could call religious persecution. Religious it was not, for the seminary priests were missionaries of treason. But religious it was made to appear. The English gentleman who wished to remain loyal, without forfeiting his faith, was taught to see that a sovereign under the Papal curse had no longer a claim on his allegiance. If he disobeyed the Pope, he had ceased to be a member of the Church of Christ. The Papal party grew in coherence, while, opposed to them as their purpose came in view, the Protestants, who at first had been inclined to Lutheranism, adopted the deeper and sterner creed of Calvin and Geneva. The memories of the Marian cruelties revived again. They saw themselves threatened with a return to stake and fagot. They closed their ranks and resolved to die rather than submit again to Antichrist. They might be inferior in numbers. A _plébiscite_ in England at that moment would have sent Burghley and Walsingham to the scaffold. But the Lord could save by few as well as by many. Judah had but two tribes out of the twelve, but the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of Israel.
One great mistake had been made by Parsons. He could not estimate what he could not understand. He admitted that the inhabitants of the towns were mainly heretic--London, Bristol, Plymouth, and the rest--but he despised them as merchants, craftsmen, mean persons who had no heart to fight in them. Nothing is more remarkable in the history of the sixteenth century than the effect of Calvinism in levelling distinctions of rank and in steeling and ennobling the character of common men. In Scotland, in the Low Countries, in France, there was the same phenomenon. In Scotland, the Kirk was the creation of the preachers and the people, and peasants and workmen dared to stand in the field against belted knights and barons, who had trampled on their fathers for centuries. The artisans of the Low Countries had for twenty years defied the whole power of Spain. The Huguenots were not a fifth part of the French nation, yet defeat could never dishearten them. Again and again they forced Crown and nobles to make terms with them. It was the same in England. The allegiance to their feudal leaders dissolved into a higher obligation to the King of kings, whose elect they believed themselves to be. Election to them was not a theological phantasm, but an enlistment in the army of God. A little flock they might be, but they were a dangerous people to deal with, most of all in the towns on the sea. The sea was the element of the Reformers. The Popes had no jurisdiction over the winds and waves. Rochelle was the citadel of the Huguenots. The English merchants and mariners had wrongs of their own, perpetually renewed, which fed the bitterness of their indignation. Touch where they would in Spanish ports, the inquisitor's hand was on their ships' crews, and the crews, unless they denied their faith, were handed over to the stake or the galleys. The Calvinists are accused of intolerance. I fancy that even in these humane and enlightened days we should not be very tolerant if the King of Dahomey were to burn every European visitor to his dominions who would not worship Mumbo Jumbo. The Duke of Alva was not very merciful to heretics, but he tried to bridle the zeal of the Holy Office in burning the English seamen. Even Philip himself remonstrated. It was to no purpose. The Holy Office said they would think about it, but concluded to go on. I am not the least surprised if the English seamen were intolerant. I should be very much surprised if they had not been. The Queen could not protect them. They had to protect themselves as they could, and make Spanish vessels, when they could catch them, pay for the iniquities of their rulers.