Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/451

 1 57 1-] THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 437 been made a question of allegiance. The State was in danger, and the Queen's throne had been made in- secure/ * The Bill passed, and waited only for the Queen's con- sent. In and out among these debates, other business went forward of no little moment ; but of more import- ance than any one of the special measures brought for- ward were these signs of the humour of the Commons. The heart of Protestant England was alive ; a deep earnest fear of God was spreading in the middle classes, on the Jewish rather than on the Christian model ; a recognition of a Divine Sovereignty, which it was their business, in spite of knight or noble, to see recognized and obeyed upon earth. "With a better cause, and a lady worthy of their devotion, the Catholics might still have won ; but Kirk o' Field and the Both well marriage were worth a legion of angels to English Protestantism. Of thirty-nine other Acts which passed before the session ended, the following were specially noticeable. It was tacitly understood that Mary Stuart's name was not to be mentioned, but a Bill was introduced, which in its original form would have cut her off from the succession as effectually as if she had been directly designated. The excommunication had made it neces- sary to shield the Queen with more stringent laws, and to re-enact in a modified form the repealed statutes of Henry VIII. It was proposed that ' to affirm, by word or writing, that the Queen was not Queen, or that any 1 La Mothe Fenelon, May 13 : Depeches, vol. iv.