which led him, as far as possible, to promote the cause of the Reformation abroad; Hyde manifested no zeal for the welfare of the Reformed Churches on the Continent. Burleigh did not enrich himself with the spoils of office,--praise which cannot be given to Clarendon. Yet justice demands the admission that Clarendon did suffer for his principles, at least the inconvenience of exile, which is more than can be said of Burleigh. Finally, success attendant upon the policy of the former lasted long enough to demonstrate the sagacity of the author; but the policy of the latter failed so early as to show, that he did not anticipate what was sure almost immediately to arise--that he did not thoroughly understand the character of his fellow-countrymen.[530] The illustration of this latter point is required by the conditions of our History. [Sidenote: EXTENT OF NONCONFORMITY.] The Chancellor's object had been not merely to establish the Episcopal Church, but to crush every form of Dissent. Indeed, his notion of an establishment was that it should have an exclusive existence in the country--that Nonconformity should have no place whatever under its shadow. Yet, at the time of his fall, only five years after the Act of Uniformity was passed, and within two years of the passing of the Five Mile Act--not only did Popery continue to lurk within these dominions, not only did it make its way amongst the upper classes, but Presbyterianism recovered itself from the blows which it had received, and Independents, Baptists, and Quakers, secretly or openly, promoted the spread of their opinions. Of this fact, passages from contemporaries afford striking proofs. On the 4th of August, 1666, a correspondent at Chester, stated that the City swarmed with "cardinal Nonconformists," and that they were so linked into the Magistracy, by alliance, that it was very difficult to bring them to punishment;--only a few of them attended Divine service, and even they were absent during the prayers. Experience proved that these great pretenders to piety and religion, who would not conform to the Prince's ecclesiastical power, only submitted to the civil until they could get power to refuse it. On the 31st of August, 1667, the day after Clarendon resigned the Great Seal, a letter reached Sir Joseph Williamson complaining of "crowds of fanatics," about Bath and Frome. The gentry, as well as the ignorant and ill-affected classes, helped to beget a jealousy of Popery, and were apparently fallen back to the spirit of 1642. Even some who looked big in Court, and in Parliament, had sheltered the unlawful vessels of the malcontented and the furious within their allotments, and in their own families, more especially, since the late exigencies had arisen. [Sidenote: 1667.]