Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/63

 1581.] THE JESUIT INVASION. 47 but spiritual soldiers bound to execute his bidding what- ever it might be. Elizabeth boasted with justice that no Catholic had as yet suffered in England for his religious opinions. The laws against the Catholic services were technically severe ; but for twenty years they had been evaded with the frank connivance of the authorities. The Queen had repressed sternly the persecuting zeal of her own bishops. Priests of the old sort were still to be found in every part of England, though in diminished numbers, saying mass in private houses, while justices of the peace looked away or were present themselves. Nuns were left unmolested under the roofs of Catholic ladies, pursuing their own devotions in their own way, and were denied nothing but a publicity of worship which might have provoked .a riot. Whatever had been the Queen's motive, she had refused to let the succession be determined, and the Catholics could look forward to see- ing again a sovereign of their own creed. She required nothing but political obedience- and outward submission to the law, and with the average Englishmen of native growth and temperament, loyalty was an article of faith which the excommunication had failed to shake. The rebellion of the North had elicited few signs of practical sympathy, and the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Northumberland had been executed without increasing the existing disaffection. The truce between the two parties, which might have lasted otherwise till Elizabeth's death, was ended by the impatience of the converts. The Pope in his