Brown took refuge from persecution at Middleburg, in Zealand; but soon returned to England, and ultimately renounced those principles of nonconformity, which he was better fitted to develope by his ardour, than to recommend by his character. The flame which he had kindled continued to burn with a purer, a steadier, and a broader lustre. In the parliament which met in February 1592–3, Sir Walter Raleigh said he feared there were near twenty thousand Brownists divided into congregations in Norfolk and Essex and in the neighbourhood of London. {90} Even this enlightened statesman declared that he deemed them “worthy to be rooted out of a commonwealth;” and the parliament, which had often shown a disposition to favour the puritans, consented, with a view to the extermination of the Brownists, to pass an act characterized by consummate tyranny. It consigned to prison all, above sixteen years of age, who should forbear for a month to go to church, or who should deny the queen’s ecclesiastical authority. And in case they refused to make a most degrading submission, they were to go into perpetual banishment; and such as remained beyond the specified time, or returned without license from the queen, were to suffer death as felons. {91} The Brownists felt the full weight of this cruel law. The justices of Suffolk who petitioned the council in favour of the puritan clergy, had no mercy for such audacious heretics as these. “We allow not” (said they) “of the anabaptists and their communion; we allow not of Brown, the overthrower of church and commonwealth; we abhor all these; we punish all these.” {92a} Many were imprisoned; some were hanged; multitudes were driven to the protestant states on the continent. Others remained at home “fluctuating between the evasion and violation of the law,” and casting a wistful glance towards the expected accession of a prince educated in the presbyterian Kirk of Scotland. {92b}