Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/345

 I573-J THE SPANISH TREATY. 325 in his senses wish for more ? So long as there was no Inquisition, she could not see why the Calvinists should refuse to hear mass. So long as their subjects would conform to the established ritual, kings might well be satisfied to leave opinion alone. It was to this consum- mation that her foreign policy was always directed. It was for this reason that she always resisted the advice of Burghley and Walsingham to put herself at the head of a Protestant League. Unwillingly and at long intervals she had sent secret help to the Prince of Orange and the Prince of Conde not however to emancipate the Low Countries, or change the dynasty of France, but only to prevent the triumph of the spirit of the Council of Trent, and to bring Philip and the House of Valois to extend over Europe a government analogous to her own. Events were too strong for her. Her theory was two centuries before its time ; and nations can only be governed on principles with which they sympathize themselves. Yet Elizabeth may be fairly credited with a general rectitude of purpose ; and for the immediate purpose of keeping England quiet and preventing civil war, she was acting prudently and successfully. She could not forget that she was a sovereign of a divided people, and that all her subjects, as long as they were loyal, were entitled to have their prejudices respected. The Anglo- Catholics and Catholics were still three- quarters of the population ; united in sympathy, united in the hope of seeing the old creed restored in its fulness, and as yet only differing in a point of order. All alike