In 1583, Grindall was succeeded by Whitgift, and with such prelates as Whitgift and Bancroft, Elizabeth, as she grew old, grew more and more intolerant. Whitgift, one of the fiercest of persecutors, used to go down on his knees before the queen to implore her not to show the slightest favour to the Nonconformists, lest it should invalidate her own infallibility. Under his guidance she refused to listen to the milder councils of her ministers; and the terrible Star Chamber and High Commission Court exercised a power almost equal to the Inquisition in Spain. Every one was compelled to answer on oath any question proposed either against others or themselves. The whole country groaned together; and Burleigh, remonstrating but in vain, declared that not even the Inquisition of Spain used so many questions to entrap their victims. Finally a law was enacted, that whoever above the age of sixteen refused to go to church, attended a conventicle, or denied the queen’s supremacy, should be imprisoned without trial till they conformed and signed an article of recantation. Refusing to sign this, they should be banished for life, or if refusing to quit the nation, or returning without royal licence, should be put to death without benefit of clergy. But not even this terrible law could wholly effect its purpose, whatever ruin and misery it might occasion. There were already, in the counties round London alone, 20,000 stiff-necked frequenters of conventicles, who would not bow down to the Baal of conformity. Great numbers again fled to Holland.