and Cecil made up their minds to take the risk, and England was to be Protestant and defy the Pope, from "whom nothing was to be feared but evil will, cursing, and practising." Paul IV., it was said, was prepared to receive the news of Elizabeth's succession favourably, perhaps under conditions to guarantee her legitimacy; but partly to his astonishment, and certainly to his wrath, he was not even officially informed of her accession, and the young Queen's ambassador at Rome was told that she had no need for him there. The changes at home, however, were made with all due caution. In Elizabeth's first proclamation an "et cetera" veiled any claim to be the Head of the Church,[527] and her earliest meddling with ecclesiastical matters was to forbid all contentious preaching.[528] The statutory religion (Romanist) was to be maintained for the meantime. No official proclamation was made foreshadowing coming changes. Elizabeth, however, did not need to depend on proclamations to indicate to her people the path she meant to tread. She graciously accepted the Bible presented to her on her entry into London, clasped it to her bosom, and pressed it to her lips. Her hand ostentatiously shrank from the kiss of Bonner the persecutor. The great lawyer, Goderick, pointed out ways in which Protestant feeling might find vent in a legal manner: "In the meantime Her Majesty and all her subjects may by licence of law use the _English Litany_ and suffrages used in King Henry's time, and besides Her Majesty in her closet may use the Mass without lifting up the Host according to the ancient canons, and may also have at every Mass some communicants with the ministers to be used in both kinds."[529] The advice was acted upon, improved upon. "The affairs of religion continue as usual," says the Venetian agent (Dec. 17th, 1558), "but I hear that at Court when the Queen is present a priest officiates, who says certain prayers with the Litanies in English, after the fashion of King Edward."[530] She went to Mass, but asked the Bishop officiating not to elevate the Host for adoration; and when he refused to comply, she and her ladies swept out of church immediately after the Gospel was read.[531] Parliament was opened in the usual manner with the performance of Mass, but the Queen did not appear until it was over; and then her procession was preceded by a choir which sang hymns in English. When the Abbot of Westminster met her in ecclesiastical procession with the usual candles sputtering in the hands of his clergy, the Queen shouted, "Away with these torches, we have light enough."[532]