The queen regent governed the kingdom by prudent and moderate counsels; and as she was not disposed to sacrifice the civil interests of the state to the bigotry or interests of the clergy, she deemed it more expedient to temporize, and to connive at the progress of a doctrine which she had not power entirely to repress.

When informed of the death of Edward, and the accession of Mary to the crown of England, she entertained hopes that the Scottish reformers, deprived of the countenance which they received from that powerful kingdom, would lose their ardor with their prospect of success, and would gradually return to the faith of their ancestors.

But the progress and revolutions of religion are little governed by the usual maxims of civil policy; and the event much disappointed the expectations of the regent.

Many of the English preachers, terrified with the severity of Mary's government, took shelter in Scotland, where they found more protection, and a milder administration; and while they propagated their theological tenets, they filled the whole kingdom with a just horror against the cruelties of the bigoted Catholics, and showed their disciples the fate which they must expect, if ever their adversaries should attain an uncontrolled authority over them.
A hierarchy, moderate in its acquisitions of power and riches, may safely grant a toleration to sectaries; and the more it softens the zeal of innovators by lenity and liberty, the more securely will it possess those advantages which the legal establishments bestow upon it.

But where superstition has raised a church to such an exorbitant height as that of Rome, persecution is less the result of bigotry in the priests, than of a necessary policy; and the rigor of law is the only method of repelling the attacks of men who, besides religious zeal, have so many other motives, derived both from public and private interest, to engage them on the side of innovation.