Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/491

 THE BOND OF ASSOCIATION. 475 converts to Protestantism than the preachers. Increas- ing wealth produced a value for security, and ardent Catholic squires, when they found their rents trebled, their marshes drained, and their forests turned to corn- land, became less eager for the presence of invading armies of Spaniards. The Pope and the Jesuits came to be regarded first with impatience and then with hatred, even by men who imagined that they retained the faith of their fathers. The Queen had succeeded to the throne by her father's will, by Act of Parliament, and with the consent of Philip himself. Her 'natural successor was a Catholic, whose claims had been scru- pulously respected. AVho or what was the Pope that he should pretend to dispose of kingdoms, and send fire and sword among their homesteads? Thus time, in which Elizabeth trusted, was surely working for her. "War with Spain might be ultimately inevitable; but the longer it was postponed the smaller the party that Philip would find among her subjects. Had she cared deeply for the cause of the Reformation, her policy would have been as short-sighted as Walsingham be- lieved it to be ; but in the sense of preferring justifica- tion by faith to justification by the Sacraments, Eliza- beth did not care for it at all. Mass or meeting were indifferent to her, provided people would respect the laws and tolerate each other's follies. She coveted no other prince's territories, and desired only to be left in peace to enjoy her own. She regarded the Protestant* in France and Scotland and the Netherlands only as in- struments that she was at liberty to use when their