After the specimens given of the ready ductility with which the English of that day accommodated their religious creeds to the creed of their sovereign, we shall hardly wonder at the caustic criticism of the Venetian ambassador, resident at the court of London, in Queen Mary's time. "The example and authority of the sovereign," he says, "are everything with the people of this country in matters of faith. As he believes, they believe; Judaism or Mahometanism,--it is all one to them. They conform themselves easily to his will, at least so far as the outward show is concerned; and most easily of all where it concurs with their own pleasure and profit."[48] The ambassador, Giovanni Micheli, was one of that order of merchant-princes employed by Venice in her foreign missions; men whose acquaintance with affairs enabled them to comprehend the resources of the country to which they were sent, as well as the intrigues of its court. Their observations were digested into elaborate reports, which, on their return to Venice, were publicly read before the doge and the senate. The documents thus prepared form some of the most valuable and authentic materials for the history of Europe in the sixteenth century. Micheli's report is diffuse on the condition of England under the reign of Queen Mary; and some of his remarks will have interest for the reader of the present day, as affording a standard of comparison with the past.[49] London he eulogizes, as one of the noblest capitals in Europe, containing, with its suburbs, about a hundred and eighty thousand souls.[50] The great lords, as in France and Germany, passed most of their time on their estates in the country.