[268] These transactions have been perpetuated by a tract, entitled "Discourse of the Troubles at Frankfort," first published in 1575, and reprinted in the well-known collection entitled _The Phoenix_. It is fairly and temperately written, though with an avowed bias towards the puritan party. Whatever we read in any historian on the subject, is derived from this authority; but the refraction is of course very different through the pages of Collier and of Neal. [269] Strype, ii. 1. There was a Lutheran party at the beginning of her reign, to which the queen may be said to have inclined, not altogether from religion, but from policy. _Id._ i. 53. Her situation was very hazardous; and in order to connect herself with sincere allies, she had thoughts of joining the Smalcaldic league of the German princes, whose bigotry would admit none but members of the Augsburg confession. Jewel's letters to Peter Martyr, in the appendix to Burnet's third volume, throw considerable light on the first two years of Elizabeth's reign; and show that famous prelate to have been what afterwards would have been called a precisian or puritan. He even approved a scruple Elizabeth entertained about her title of head of the church, as appertaining only to Christ. But the unreasonableness of the discontented party, and the natural tendency of a man who has joined the side of power to deal severely with those he has left, made him afterwards their enemy. [270] Roods and relics accordingly were broken to pieces and burned throughout the kingdom, of which Collier makes loud complaint. This, Strype says, gave much offence to the catholics; and it was not the most obvious method of inducing them to conform. [271] Burnet, iii. Appendix, 290; Strype's _Parker_, 46. [272] Quantum auguror, non scribam ad te posthac episcopus. Eo enim jam res pervenit, ut aut cruces argenteæ et stanneæ, quas nos ubique confregimus, restituendæ sint, aut episcopatus relinquendi. Burnet, 294. Sandys writes, that he had nearly been deprived for expressing himself warmly against images. _Id._ 296. Other proofs of the text may be found in the same collection, as well as in Strype's _Annals_, and his _Life of Parker_. Even Parker seems, on one occasion, to have expected the queen to make such a retrograde movement in religion as would compel them all to disobey her. _Life of Parker_, Appendix, 29; a very remarkable letter. [273] Strype's _Parker_, 310. The archbishop seems to disapprove this as inexpedient, but rather coldly; he was far from sharing the usual opinions on this subject. A puritan pamphleteer took the liberty to name the queen's chapel as "the pattern and precedent of all superstition." Strype's _Annals_, i. 471. [274] Burnet, ii. 395.