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 to be disused, and put some of his bishops in prison, Elizabeth, on the other hand, contented herself with discountenancing the Elevation of the Host, and setting free the prisoners confined for religion at Mary's death, putting an immediate stop to the burnings, and permitting the return of the Protestant exiles. In each case, too, these moderate and apparently necessary acts were generally, and in the main rightly, interpreted as unmistakable indications of what was to follow. The only other overt acts by which Elizabeth displayed the inclination of her own feelings, previously to the meeting of Parliament, appear to have been that she ordered the Litany, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed to be used in English, and that, when the Marian bishops came to meet her, and offer their congratulations on her accession, she is said to have refused the ordinary royal courtesy to Bonner.

One of the most important transactions of the beginning of Elizabeth's reign was a secret consultation of a number of Protestant divines at the house of Sir Thomas Smith, in Cannon Row, in which the alterations in Edward's second Prayer-book, which were shortly to be submitted to Parliament, were discussed and determined on. An anonymous paper in which this appears to have been suggested to Cecil is given by Burnet, Strype, and others, with several, mostly slight, variations; and the consultation itself was resolved on, and probably took place, before the Parliament met. But the meeting of Elizabeth's first Parliament was not long delayed. Mary had died on November 17, and Parliament met for the despatch of business on January 25.

Parliament and Convocation, as usual, met about the same time, though in this case, in consequence of a