Note 269 — Chapter IV

Strype, ii. 1. There was a Lutheran party at the beginning of her reign, to which the queen may be said to have inclined, not altogether from religion, but from policy. Id. i. 53. Her situation was very hazardous; and in order to connect herself with sincere allies, she had thoughts of joining the Smalcaldic league of the German princes, whose bigotry would admit none but members of the Augsburg confession. Jewel's letters to Peter Martyr, in the appendix to Burnet's third volume, throw considerable light on the first two years of Elizabeth's reign; and show that famous prelate to have been what afterwards would have been called a precisian or puritan. He even approved a scruple Elizabeth entertained about her title of head of the church, as appertaining only to Christ. But the unreasonableness of the discontented party, and the natural tendency of a man who has joined the side of power to deal severely with those he has left, made him afterwards their enemy.