At the age of eleven she had translated Margaret of Navarre's _Mirror of the Sinful Soul_, a work expressing the spirit of devotion joined with liberalism in creed and outward conformity in cult.

The rapid vicissitudes of faith in England taught her tolerance, and her own acute intellect and practical sense inclined her to indifference.

She did not scruple to give all parties, Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist, the impression, when it suited her, that she was almost in agreement with each of them.

The accusation {325} that she was "an atheist and a maintainer of atheism" [Sidenote: 1601] meant no more than that her interests were secular.

She once said that she would rather hear a thousand masses than be guilty of the millions of crimes perpetrated by some of those who had suppressed the mass.