OBSERVATIONS ON A LIBEL. 429 



great wisdom and magnanimity, she suffered but 

 the exercise of one religion, yet her proceedings 

 towards the papists were with great lenity, expecting 

 the good effects which time might work in them. 



And therefore her majesty revived not the laws 

 made in twenty-eighth, and thirty-fifth, of her 

 father s reign, whereby the oath of supremacy might 

 have been offered at the king s pleasure to any sub 

 ject, though he kept his conscience never so modestly 

 to himself ; and tie refusal to take the same oath, 

 without farther circumstance, was made treason : 

 but contrariwise, her majesty not liking to make 

 windows into men s hearts and secret thoughts, except 

 the abundance of them did overflow into overt and 

 express acts and affirmations, tempered her law so, 

 as it restraineth only manifest disobedience in im 

 pugning and impeaching advisedly and ambitiously 

 her majesty s supreme power, and maintaining and 

 extolling a foreign jurisdiction. And as for the oath, 

 it was altered by her majesty into a more grateful 

 form ; the harshness of the name, and appellation of 

 supreme head was removed ; and the penalty of the 

 refusal thereof turned into a disablement to take any 

 promotion, or to exercise any charge ; and yet that 

 with a liberty of being revested therein, if any man 

 shall accept thereof during his life. 



But after many years toleration of a multitude 

 of factious papists, when Pius Quintus had excom 

 municated her majesty, and the bill of excommuni 

 cation was published in London, whereby her ma 

 jesty was in a sort proscribed, and all her subjects 



