But while doing justice to Elizabeth’s insight and prudence, we may not excuse her extreme severity to the nonconformists of either party. It was not necessary. It seems to have been even impolitic. It arose from her arbitrary temper--from a quality, that is to say, valuable in a ruler, but apt, in great rulers, to be somewhat in excess. I have condemned her persecution of the Catholics. Her persecution of the Protestant nonconformists was marked by even greater injustice. Against the Catholics it might at least be urged that their opinions logically led to disloyalty. But the Independents, Barrow, Greenwood, and Penry, were indisputably loyal men. They were put to death nominally for spreading writings which, contrary to common sense, were held to be seditious, but really for their religious opinions, which, in the case of the first two, were extracted from them by the interrogatories of Archbishop Whitgift, an Inquisitor as strenuous and merciless as Torquemada. Some of the Council, especially Burghley and Knollys, were strongly opposed to Whitgift’s proceedings. It must therefore be assumed that he had the Queen’s personal approval. She had committed herself to a struggle with intrepid and obstinate men. The crowded gaols were a visible demonstration that she could not compel them to submit; and to hang them all was out of the question. An Act was therefore passed in 1593, by which those who would not promise to attend church were to be banished the country. Thus most of the Independents were at last got rid of. The non-separatist Puritans, who aimed at less radical changes, and hoped to effect them, if not under their present sovereign, yet under her successor, kept on the windy side of the law, attending church once a month, and not entering till the service was nearly over. Thus, at the end of her reign, Elizabeth perhaps flattered herself that she was within measurable distance of religious uniformity. CHAPTER XII LAST YEARS AND DEATH: 1601-1603.