The queen of Scots, her antagonist and rival, and the pretender to her throne, was a prisoner in her hands; and, by her impatience and high spirit, had been engaged in practices which afforded the queen a pretence for rendering her confinement more rigorous, and for cutting off her communication with her partisans in England.
Religion was the capital point on which depended all the political transactions of that age; and the queen's conduct in this particular, making allowance for the prevailing prejudices of the times, could scarcely be accused of severity or imprudence.

She established no inquisition into men's bosoms; she imposed no oath of supremacy, except on those who received trust or emolument from the public; and though the exercise of every religion but the established was prohibited by statute, the violation of this law, by saying mass, and receiving the sacrament, in private houses, was in many instances connived at;[*] while, on the other hand, the Catholics, in the beginning of her reign, showed little reluctance against going to church, or frequenting the ordinary duties of public worship.

The pope, sensible that this practice would by degrees reconcile all his partisans to the reformed religion, hastened the publication of the bull which excommunicated the queen, and freed her subjects from their oaths of allegiance; and great pains were taken by the emissaries of Rome, to render the breach between the two religions as wide as possible, and to make the frequenting of Protestant churches appear highly criminal in the Catholics.[**] These practices, with the rebellion which ensued, increased the vigilance and severity of the government; but the Romanists, if their condition were compared with that of the nonconformists in other countries, and with their own maxims where they domineered, could not justly complain of violence or persecution.
* Camden, p.

459.
** Walsingham's Letter in Burnet, vol.ii.p.

418.