QUEEN ELIZABETH AND RELIGIOUS TOLERATION.
(TO THE EDITOP. OF TILE "SPECTATOR. "1
Srn,—Sbortly before his death, I remember the late Bishop of London (Dr. Creighton) saying to me: "You may posi- tively and unhesitatingly affirm that Elizabeth never killed one person for his or her religious opinions." She had such obvious faults of vanity, meanness, and deceit, that we may surely not be called partial if we claim for her the two great virtues of religious tolerance and of being so supremely brave that she was never frightened into cruelty even by the daily danger of assassination. Political executions there were, and as I believe no one denies that men were sent over to England with the Pope's blessing for the express purpose of assassinating her, it is not to be wondered at. Elizabeth was doubtless forced against her will into the Protestant position, for her sympathies were really with Roman doctrines and principles to a very large extent. But she and Henry IV. of France were the two rulers who bated persecution for opinions, and who would be called Broad Church. Bishop Creighton had studied the period well, and knew what he was talking about. I have many Roman Catholic friends who think otherwise, but I have never elicited from them any proof of Elizabeth's cruelty, or (strange to say) any condemnation of Mary's persecution. Certainly four hundred people were done to death in her short reign purely for their opinions. And fifty thousand were destroyed in the Netherlands by Alva before any Protestant had a chance of hurting a Roman Catholic. I am not a bigot, and should be delighted to find that Roman Catholic opinion is changing on
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