Nothing can be more unhappy for a people than to be governed by a sovereign attached to a religion different from the established; and it is scarcely possible that mutual confidence can ever, in such a situation, have place between the prince and his subjects. Mary’s conduct had been hitherto in every respect unexceptionable, and even laudable; yet had she not made such progress in acquiring popularity, as might have been expected from her gracious deportment and agreeable accomplishments. Suspicions every moment prevailed on account of her attachment to the Catholic faith, and especially to her uncles, the open and avowed promoters of the scheme for exterminating the professors of the reformed religion throughout all Europe. She still refused to ratify the acts of parliament which had established the reformation; she made attempts for restoring to the Catholic bishops some part of their civil jurisdiction;[**] and she wrote a letter to the council of Trent, in which, besides professing her attachment to the Catholic faith, she took notice of her title to succeed to the crown of England, and expressed her hopes of being able, in some period, to bring back all her dominions to the bosom of the church.[***] The zealots among the Protestants were not wanting, in their turn, to exercise their insolence against her, which tended still more to alienate her from their faith. A law was enacted, making it capital, on the very first offence, to say mass any where, except in the queen’s chapel;[****] and it was with difficulty that even this small indulgence was granted her: the general assembly importuned her anew to change her religion; to renounce the blasphemous idolatry of the mass, with the tyranny of the Roman Antichrist; and to embrace the true religion of Christ Jesus.[v] * Keith, p. 290. ** Spotswood, p. 198. *** Father Paul, lib. vii. **** Keith, p. 268. v Keith, p, 545. Knox. p. 374. As she answered in temper, that she was not yet convinced of the falsity of her religion or the impiety of the mass, and that her apostasy would lose her the friendship of her allies on the continent, they replied by assuring her, that their religion was undoubtedly the same which had been revealed by Jesus Christ, which had been preached by the apostles, and which had been embraced by the faithful in the primitive ages; that neither the religion of Turks, Jews, nor Papists was built on so solid a foundation as theirs; that they alone, of all the various species of religionists spread over the face of the earth, were so happy as to be possessed of the truth; that those who hear, or rather who gaze on the mass, allow sacrilege, pronounce blasphemy, and commit most abominable idolatry; and that the friendship of the King of kings was preferable to all the alliances in the world.[*]