and on the success of her administration. To strengthen her hands
was, therefore, the first duty of a patriot and a Protestant; and
that duty was well performed. The Puritans, even in the depths of
the prisons to which she had sent them, prayed, and with no
simulated fervour, that she might be kept from the dagger of the
assassin, that rebellion might be put down under her feet, and
that her arms might be victorious by sea and land. One of the
most stubborn of the stubborn sect, immediately after his hand
had been lopped off for an offence into which he had been hurried
by his intemperate zeal, waved his hat with the hand which was
still left him, and shouted "God save the Queen!" The sentiment
with which these men regarded her has descended to their
posterity. The Nonconformists, rigorously as she treated them,
have, as a body, always venerated her memory.5

During the greater part of her reign, therefore, the Puritans in
the House of Commons, though sometimes mutinous, felt no
disposition to array themselves in systematic opposition to the
government. But, when the defeat of the Armada, the successful
resistance of the United Provinces to the Spanish power, the firm
establishment of Henry the Fourth on the throne of France, and
the death of Philip the Second, had secured the State and the
Church against all danger from abroad, an obstinate struggle,
destined to last during several generations, instantly began at
home.

It was in the Parliament of 1601 that the opposition which had,
during forty years, been silently gathering and husbanding
strength, fought its first great battle and won its first
victory. The ground was well chosen. The English Sovereigns had