"Camden and many others have asserted that by systematic connivance the Roman Catholics enjoyed a pretty free use of their religion for the first fourteen years of Elizabeth's reign. But this is not reconcilable to many passages in Strype's collections. We find abundance of persons harassed for recusancy, that is, for not attending the protestant church, and driven to insincere promises of conformity. Others were dragged before ecclesiastical commissions for harbouring priests, or for sending money to those who had fled beyond sea. ... A great majority both of clergy and laity yielded to the times; and of these temporizing conformists it cannot be doubted that many lost by degrees all thought of returning to their ancient fold. But others, while they complied with exterior ceremonies, retained in their private devotions their accustomed mode of worship. ... Priests ... travelled the country in various disguises, to keep alive a flame which the practice of outward conformity was calculated to extinguish. There was not a county throughout England, says a Catholic historian, where several of Mary's clergy did not reside, and were commonly called the old priests. They served as chaplains in private families. By stealth, at the dead of night, in private chambers, in the secret lurking places of an ill-peopled country, with all the mystery that subdues the imagination, with all the mutual trust that invigorates constancy, these proscribed ecclesiastics celebrated their solemn rites, more impressive in such concealment than if surrounded by all their former splendour. ... It is my thorough conviction that the persecution, for it can obtain no better name, carried on against the English Catholics, however it might serve to delude the government by producing an apparent conformity, could not but excite a spirit of disloyalty in many adherents of that faith. Nor would it be safe to assert that a more conciliating policy would have altogether disarmed their hostility, much less laid at rest those busy hopes of the future, which the peculiar circumstances of Elizabeth's reign had a tendency to produce." _H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 3._ {841}