George Bancroft, History of the Colonization of the United States, Vol. 1, 17th edition.

[282] stricter sect. While the companions of their exile

Chap. VIII.}

had, with the most bitter intolerance, been rejected by Denmark and Northern Germany,¹ the English emigrants received in Switzerland the kindest welcome; their love for the rigorous austerity of a spiritual worship was confirmed by the stern simplicity of the republic; and some of them had enjoyed in Geneva the instructions and the friendship of Calvin.

On the death of Mary, the Puritans returned to

1558.

England, with still stronger antipathies to the forms of worship and the vestures, which they now repelled as associated with the cruelties of Roman intolerance at home, and which they had seen so successfully rejected by the churches of Switzerland. The pledges which had been given at Frankfort and Geneva, to promote further reforms, were redeemed.² But the controversy did not remain a dispute about ceremonies; it was modified by the personal character of the English sovereign, and became identified with the political parties in the state. The first act of parliament in the reign of Elizabeth declared the supremacy³ of the crown in the state ecclesiastical; and the uniformity of common prayer was soon established under the severest penalties.⁴ In these enactments, the common zeal to assert the Protestant ascendency left out of sight the scruples of the Puritans.

The early associations of the younger daughter of Henry VIII. led her to respect the faith of the Catholics, and to love the magnificence of their worship. She publicly thanked one of her chaplains, who had