When Elizabeth came to the throne the people still required a reformation in the Puritan sense, but Elizabeth, a Ritualist herself, had no sympathy with them. In 1592, when an Act was passed for the punishment of persons obstinately refusing to come to church, Sir Walter Raleigh declared his conviction that the Brownists at that time were not less than twenty thousand, chiefly in Norfolk and Suffolk. Their idea was that, in the language of their founder, ‘The Church planted or gathered is a company or number of Christians and believers, which, by a willing covenant made with their God, are under the government of God and Christ, and keep His laws in one communion. The Church government is the lordship of Christ in the communion of His offices, whereby His people obey His will, and have mutual use of their graces and callings to further their goodliness and welfare.’ Such was the teaching of old Browne. In the good old times he was persecuted for saying it, and people were sent to gaol for believing it. Nay, more, Barrow and Greenwood, for doing so, were hanged at Tyburn. In the village of which I write there had been many Nonconformists, and tradition told how the preacher was hidden in a tree while the people listened below. When fair times came, ejected ministers continued their services in a more open manner. Wealthy individuals befriended them, and chapels were built and endowed. In this way the meeting-house of which I speak had come into existence. On the evening of which I write it had been crowded. The one subject of conversation all that night was the sermon. At that time all the cottagers took a deep interest in theology. There was no end of theological disputations, especially among the women, and as usual among the most illiterate of the women. Some of them were hyper-Calvinists, and on a Sunday would walk miles to the nearest town in which the doctrines they loved to hear were preached. The old preacher at the Congregational chapel was not high enough for them. They were God’s elect, and they needed to be preached to as such. Then there were the Ranters, who loved to hear of a free salvation—of instantaneous conversion—of how the Ethiopian had changed his skin and the leopard his spots.