Under Cecil’s guidance Elizabeth’s first steps were prudent and wise in the extreme. The religious burnings were at once stopped, and those persons who were imprisoned on the charge of heresy were enlarged on their own recognisances; but most of the members of Mary’s Catholic Council were retained, though reinforced by seven new Protestant Councillors, Cecil and Parry being given the most influential duties. But, moderate though the new rulers were, the Catholics, and especially the Spanish party, were in dismay. Only a week after the Queen’s accession Feria wrote to Philip: “The kingdom is entirely in the hands of young folks, heretics, and traitors, and the Queen favours no man who served her sister. The old people and the Catholics are dissatisfied, but dare not open their lips. The Queen seems to me incomparably more feared than her sister was, and gives her orders as absolutely as her father did.” In the meanwhile the new Queen heard Mass, and made no change in religious observance, but she turned her back upon Bonner when he went to greet her with the other Bishops, and took care to show that, Catholic or Protestant, she was not going to be the submissive tool of either Spain or France, though she professed a desire to be friendly with both. “These people,” wrote Feria, “try to make it known everywhere that your Majesty will have no more influence here than if you had not married the late Queen, and they persuade the present Queen not to be intimate with me. As she is much taken up with the people, she does as they wish her to do, and treats foreigners slightingly. I have therefore decided to go slowly until things settle down and I see who takes the lead. Up to the present nothing is certain, and every one talks as his wishes lead him. I wonder they have not sent me crazy. The whole point is the husband she chooses, and we must try by money arrangements that he shall be one agreeable to your Majesty.”