2.
* Some even of those who defend the queen's measures, allow that in ten years fifty priests were executed, and fifty- five banished Camden, p.

649.
The parliament, besides arming the queen with these powers, granted her a supply of one subsidy and two fifteenths.

The only circumstance in which their proceedings were disagreeable to her, was an application, made by the commons, for a further reformation in ecclesiastical matters.

Yet even in this attempt, which affected her, as well as them, in a delicate point, they discovered how much they were overawed by her authority.

The majority of the house were Puritans, or inclined to that sect;[*] but the severe reprimands which they had already, in former sessions, met with from the throne deterred them from introducing any bill concerning religion; a proceeding which would have been interpreted as an encroachment on the prerogative: they were content to proceed by way of humble petition, and that not addressed to her majesty, which would have given offence, but to the house of lords, or rather the bishops, who had a seat in that house, and from whom alone they were willing to receive all advances towards reformation;[**] a strange departure from what we now apprehend to be the dignity of the commons! * Besides the petition after mentioned, another proof of the prevalency of the Puritans among the commons was, their passing a bill for the reverent observance of Sunday, which they termed the Sabbath, and the depriving the people of those amusements which they were accustomed to take on that day.