The commercial class of the towns and the intellectual class, which, though relatively small, then as now made public opinion as measured by all ordinary tests, was predominantly and enthusiastically Protestant.
If we analyse the expressed wishes of England, we shall find a mixture of real religious faith and of worldly, and sometimes discreditable, motives.

A new party always numbers among its constituency not only those who love its principles but those who hate its opponents.

With the Protestants were a host of allies varying from those who detested Rome to those who repudiated all religion.

Moreover every successful party has a number of hangers-on for the sake of political spoils, and some who follow its fortunes {312} with no purpose save to fish in troubled waters.
But whatever their constituency or relative numbers, the Protestants now carried all before them.

In the free religious debate that followed the death of Henry, the press teemed with satires and pamphlets, mostly Protestant.