Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/444

 136 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 56. last, ran over at once with a violence unprecedented in House of Commons history. Complaints burst out of the laxity with which the laws against Papists had been enforced. The Catholic services were prohibited, yet all over England masses were said in private houses with scarcely an attempt at disguise. The ecclesiastical law- yers were running in the old grooves, with pluralities and dispensations and licenses, those gray iniquities of which Henry had for a few years washed the Church Courts clean. Mr Strickland, ' a grave and antient man/ declared that ' known Papists were admitted to have ecclesiastical government and great livings, while -godly Protestants had nothing/ and 'boys were dis- pensed with to have spiritual promotion/ God, he said, had given England the light of the Word, but England had been slack in making use of its advantages, and had not thought convenient to profess and publish the truth openly. He moved for a reproduction of Cranmer's book on the Reformation of the Laws, that the country might take its place at last among the Re- formed nations, with a clear confession of its faith. Free speech in Parliament had been one of the privileges which Henry VIII. had not attempted to interfere with. Elizabeth could never bring herself to regard it as anything but an intolerable impertinence. Sir Thomas Smith, who had succeeded Cecil as her secretary, proposed that the Communion Bill should be referred to the bishops ; the Queen sent a message to the House not to waste their time over matters which did not concern them, and 'to avoid long speeches.'