Elizabeth's crown would have been jeoparded had the Catholic powers, or any one of them, acted promptly. That they did not do so is proof, partly of their mutual jealousies, party of the excellence of Cecil's statesmanship. Convinced though he was that civil peace could only be secured by religious unity, for five years he played a hesitating game in order to hold off the Catholics until his power should be strong enough to crush them. By a system of espionage, by permitting only nobles and sailors to leave the kingdom without special licence, by welcoming Dutch Protestant refugees, he clandestinely fostered the strength of his party. His scheme was so far successful that the pope hesitated more than eleven years before issuing the bull of deprivation. For this Elizabeth had also to thank the Catholic Hapsburgs; in the first place Philip who then hoped to marry her, and in the second place the Emperor Ferdinand who said that if Elizabeth were excommunicated the German Catholics would suffer for it and that there were many German Protestant princes who deserved the ban as much as she did. Matters were clarified by the calling of the Council of Trent. Asked to send an embassy to this council Elizabeth refused for three reasons: (1) because she had not been consulted about calling the council; (2) because she did not consider it free, pious and Christian; (3) because the pope sought to stir up sedition in her realms. The council replied to this snub by excommunicating her, but it is a significant sign of the {334} times that neither they nor the pope as yet dared to use spiritual weapons to depose her, as the pope endeavored to do a few years later. [Sidenote: Anti-Catholic laws]