he had won from Edward the Sixth, while he drew closer to the girl who alone could rescue England from the misgovernment of Mary's rule. Even before the Queen's death it was known that Cecil would be the chief counsellor of the coming reign. "I am told for certain," the Spanish ambassador wrote to Philip after a visit to Elizabeth during the last hours of Mary's life, "that Cecil who was secretary to King Edward will be her secretary also. He has the character of a prudent and virtuous man, although a heretic." But it was only from a belief that Cecil retained at heart the convictions of his earlier days that men could call him a heretic. In all outer matters of faith or worship he conformed to the religion of the state. [Sidenote: The Politicals.] It is idle to charge Cecil, or the mass of Englishmen who conformed with him in turn to the religion of Henry, of Edward, of Mary, and of Elizabeth, with baseness or hypocrisy. They followed the accepted doctrine of the time--that every realm, through its rulers, had the sole right of determining what should be the form of religion within its bounds. What the Marian persecution was gradually pressing on such men was a conviction, not of the falsehood of such a doctrine, but of the need of limiting it. Under Henry, under Edward, under Mary, no distinction had been drawn between inner belief and outer conformity. Every English subject was called upon to adjust his conscience as well as his conduct to the varying policy of the state. But the fires of Smithfield had proved that obedience such as this could not be exacted save by a persecution which filled all England with horror. Such a persecution indeed failed in the very end for which it was wrought. Instead of strengthening religious unity, it gave a new force to religious separation; it enlisted the conscience of the zealot in the cause of resistance; it secured the sympathy of the great mass of waverers to those who withstood the civil power. To Cecil, as to the purely political statesmen of whom he was the type, such a persecution seemed as needless as it was mischievous. Conformity indeed was necessary, for men could as yet conceive of no state without a religion or of civil obedience apart from compliance with the religious order of the state. But only outer conformity was needed. That no man should set up a worship other than that of the nation at large, that every subject should duly attend at the national worship, Cecil believed to be essential to public order. But he saw no need for prying into the actual beliefs of those who conformed to the religious laws of the realm, nor did he think that such beliefs could be changed by the fear of punishment. While refusing freedom of worship therefore, Cecil, like Elizabeth, was ready to concede freedom of conscience. And in this concession we can hardly doubt that the bulk of Englishmen went with him. Catholics shared with Protestants the horror of Mary's persecution.