Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/244

224 dissensions in the camp. Toleration is good—but even the best things must abide their opportunity; and although we may regret that in this grand struggle for freedom, success could only be won by the aid of measures which bordered upon oppression, yet here also the even hand of justice was but commending the chalice to the lips of those who had made others drink it to the dregs. They only were likely to fall under the Treason Act who for centuries had fed the rack and the stake with sufferers for 'opinion.'

Having thus made provision for public safety, the Parliament voted a supply of money for the fortifications on the coast and for the expenses of the Irish war; and after transferring to the Crown the first-fruits of Church benefices, which had been previously paid to the See of Rome, and passing at the same time a large and liberal measure for the appointment of twenty- six suffragan bishops, they separated, not to meet again for more than a year.