To the left of the Puritans were the Independents or Brownists as they were called from their leader Robert Browne, the advocate of _Reformation without Tarrying for Any_. He had been a refugee in the Netherlands, where he may have come under Anabaptist influence. His disciples differed from the followers of Cartwright in separating themselves from the state church, in which they found many "filthy traditions and inventions of men." Beginning to organize hi separate congregations about 1567, they were said by Sir Walter Raleigh to have as many as 20,000 adherents in 1593. Though heartily disliked by re-actionaries and by the _beati possidentes_ in both church {346} and state, they were, nevertheless, the party of the future. [1] A. O. Meyer: _England und die katholische Kirche unter Elizabeth_, p. 231. SECTION 5. IRELAND If the union of England and Wales has been a marriage--after a courtship of the primitive type; if the union with Scotland has been a successful partnership--following a long period of cut-throat competition; the position of Ireland has been that of a captive and a slave. To her unwilling mind the English domination has always been a foreign one, and this fact makes more difference with her than whether her master has been cruel, as formerly, or kind, as of late. [Sidenote: English rule] The saddest period in all Erin's sad life was that of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when to the old antagonism of race was added a new hatred of creed and a new commercial competition. The policy of Henry was "to reduce that realm to the knowledge of God and obedience of Us." The policy of Elizabeth was to pray that God might "call them to the knowledge of his truth and to a civil polity," and to assist the Almighty by the most fiendish means to accomplish these ends. The government of the island was a crime, and yet for this crime some considerations must be urged in extenuation. England then regarded the Irish much as the Americans have seemed to regard the Indians, as savages to be killed and driven off to make room for a higher civilization. Had England been able to apply the method of extermination she would doubtless have done so and there would then be no Irish question today. But in 1540 it was recognized that "to enterprise the whole extirpation and total destruction of all the Irishmen in the land would be a marvellous gumptious charge and great difficulty."