In 1563 the policy of the government, till then wavering, became more decided, indicating that the current had begun to set in favor of Protestantism.
The failure of the Northern rising and of the papal bull in 1569-70, indicated the weakness of the ancient faith.

In 1572 a careful estimate of the {328} religious state of England was made by a contemporary, [Sidenote: Carleton's estimate] who thought that of the three classes into which he divided the population, papist, Protestant and atheist (by which he probably meant, indifferent) the first was smaller than either of the other two.

Ten years later (1580-85) the Jesuit mission in England claimed 120,000 converts.

But in reality these adherents were not new converts, but the remnant of Romanism remaining faithful.

If we assume, as a distinguished historian has done, that this number included nearly all the obstinately devoted, as the population of England and Wales was then about 4,000,000, the proportion of Catholics was only about 3 per cent.