ABSTRACT
It would be difficult to find a stronger contrast than that presented by the French and English methods of settling their religious difficulties. In France the issues had been set clearly before the whole nation and decided by the prolonged arbitrament of war. In England one issue, the break with Rome, had been presented to the nation as an accomplished fact. Having been given this taste of national independence, the people had then had their opportunity to sample two extreme presentations of Christianity and had been disgusted with both. To most it seemed that there must be some way of reconciling what was best in both types without losing what was essential in either. It was left to Elizabeth to guide this attempt at a new synthesis. If, as a wit has remarked, she made of it ‘a regular woman’s business—a parcel of bits tied up with string and held together with sealing-wax', the same criticism might be made of the whole British constitution and might be met by pointing out that the apparently inchoate pieces have a way of subtly transforming themselves into an organism that is extremely adaptable to changing circumstances.
