1557. The xxij day of December were burned in Smyth-feld ij, one ser John Ruffe the frere and a Skott, and a woman for herese.” (_Diary of Henry Machyn._) CHAPTER II THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION The question as to the proportion of Protestants to Catholics at the accession of Elizabeth, and at her death, has received various answers, depending upon the religion of the respondent. Lingard, the fairest of all the Catholic writers, estimates the number of Catholics at one-half the whole population. This was thirty years before Elizabeth’s accession. Dr. Allen thought they were two-thirds (Strype, iii. 415). A great many of the better class were Catholics. Venner (1649) says that fifty years before, all physicians were Catholics. This may have been caused by study in Italian schools of medicine. A good many people in London attended mass at some Ambassador’s chapel. The Spaniards when the Armada was projected relied upon the opinion that the half of England would join them. The North of England was filled with Catholics, yet they did not join the Rebellion of 1569. One-fourth of the population of Cheshire were Catholics; on the other hand, there is testimony to the effect that the number of Catholics had enormously decreased in the first thirty years of Elizabeth’s reign. In 1569 there were in London twelve to fifteen places where mass was regularly said. In 1594 a Jesuit speaks of the “little sparkle of Catholic religion yet reserved amongst us” as soon to be extinguished. The common-sense view of the case seems to be this. The people of London who, as we have seen, were filled with Lollardry from the beginning of the fifteenth century; who welcomed the Dissolution of the Religious Houses; who rejoiced at such a shadow of free thought as Henry afforded them; who shuddered with horror at the flames of Smithfield;—were overjoyed at the return of the Protestant Faith. But it would be wrong to suppose that all the scholars, all who had lived among the better-class priests and friars, went over to the new Faith; they did not: a large number of gentlewomen remained steadfast; the Government showed its good sense by taking no notice, or as little as possible, of recusants. Burleigh advised against punishing these people by death; best not make martyrs; there was no true method of lessening their numbers “but by preaching and by education of the younger under good schoolmasters.”