380.

Strype, vol.i.p.

29.
A sovereign of this disposition was not likely to offend her subjects by any useless or violent exertions of power; and Elizabeth, though she threw out such hints as encouraged the Protestants delayed the entire change of religion till the meeting of the parliament, which was summoned to assemble.

The elections had gone entirely against the Catholics, who seem not indeed to have made any great struggle for the superiority;[*] and the houses met in a disposition of gratifying the queen in every particular which she could desire of them.

They began the session with a unanimous declaration, "that Queen Elizabeth was, and ought to be, as well by the word of God, as the common and statute laws of the realm, the lawful, undoubted, and true heir to the crown, lawfully descended from the blood royal, according to the order of succession settled in the thirty-fifth of Henry VIII."[**] * Notwithstanding the bias of the nation towards the Protestant sect, it appears that some violence, at least according to our present ideas, was used in these elections: five candidates were nominated by the court to each borough, and three to each county; and by the sheriff's authority the members were chosen from among these candidates.