Politically, it favored the growth of self-reliance, self-control and a sense of personal worth that made democracy possible and necessary.
[Sidenote: Browne, 1550 ?-1633 ?] To the left of the Puritans were the Independents or Brownists as they were called from their leader Robert Browne, the advocate of _Reformation without Tarrying for Any_.

He had been a refugee in the Netherlands, where he may have come under Anabaptist influence.

His disciples differed from the followers of Cartwright in separating themselves from the state church, in which they found many "filthy traditions and inventions of men." Beginning to organize hi separate congregations about 1567, they were said by Sir Walter Raleigh to have as many as 20,000 adherents in 1593.

Though heartily disliked by re-actionaries and by the _beati possidentes_ in both church {346} and state, they were, nevertheless, the party of the future.
[1] A.O.

Meyer: _England und die katholische Kirche unter Elizabeth_, p.