the disciples of Allen and Parsons rather than in the victims of Mary's persecution. Now, when a few more years are past, when researches have been still further extended, and there has been time and opportunity to see that the new side of the question is no more the only side than the old one was, we may hope that a more judicial and rational view may be taken, and that we may learn that the ideas of the value of the Reformation which prevailed for almost three centuries in England were, on the whole, nearer the truth than those which have for the moment almost superseded them; that they never would have retained their hold upon the English nation so long and so firmly otherwise; and that they lost it for the time, mainly because this ascendency had been so complete, that men forgot the possibility of holding any other views, and had lost sight even of the grounds upon which they held these. And certainly there is no point in which all the research which has taken place can only serve to re-establish the old opinion in the view of any person who comes to the question with an open mind than the one now before us.
Elizabeth's justification for the execution of Jesuits and Seminarists is in all points complete. It was on May 15, 1570, that Pius V.'s bull of excommunication was found nailed up against the Bishop of London's palace at Fulham. Up to that time no execution had taken place in Elizabeth's reign which could in any way be said to be due to intolerance of Popery; so far from it that, albeit for other reasons, priests, known to be such, had been permitted to retain their livings, and recusants generally, though sometimes worried, were not punished. It was in July 1571 that the first conspiracy was hatched at King Philip's council-table for the assassination of Elizabeth; and from that time till the
