The large majority of the Catholics showed a loyal and patriotic spirit at the time of the Armada. But they were not treated with confidence by the Government. Great numbers of them were imprisoned or confined in the houses of Protestant gentlemen, by way of precaution, when the Armada was approaching. No Catholic, I believe, was intrusted with any command either by land or sea; and after the danger was over, the persecution, in all its forms, became sharper than ever. There was the less reason for this, inasmuch as it was no secret that the secular priests and the great majority of the English Catholics had become bitterly hostile to the small Jesuitical faction whose treasonable conspiracies had brought so much trouble on their loyal co-religionists. The term “Puritan” is used loosely, though conveniently, to designate several shades of belief. By far the larger number of those to whom it is applied were, and meant to remain, members of the Established Church. They objected to certain ceremonies and vestments. They hoped to procure the abolition of these, and, in the meantime, evaded them when they could. They were what would now be called the Evangelical or Low Church party. They held Calvin’s distinctive doctrines on predestination, as indeed did most of the bishops; but though preferring his Presbyterian organisation, or something like it, they did not treat it as essential. They were broadly distinguished from the Brownists or Independents, then an insignificant minority, who held each congregation to be a church, and therefore protested against the establishment of any national church.