Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

instantly passed from the realm of Great Britain.
The prisons were opened, the men whom Mary had
left to be burned were released, the fires which
were blazing all over England were extinguished;
and the machinery of persecution which up to that
moment had been vigorously worked, inspiring
fear and terror in the heart of every friend of
religious liberty, was arrested and stood still. The
yoke of the tyrant and the bigot now rent from off
the nation's neck, England rose from the dust, and
rekindling the lamp of truth, started on a career of
political freedom and commercial prosperity, in
which, with a few exceptional periods, there has
been no pause from that day to this. When
Elizabeth received the intelligence of her sister's
death and her own accession she repaired to the
Tower, as was the ancient custom of the sovereigns
of England before being crowned. On crossing its
threshold, remembering that but a few years before
she had entered it as a prisoner, with little hope of
ever leaving it save for the scaffold, she fell on her
knees, and gave thanks to God for preserving her
life in the midst of so many enemies and intrigues
as had surrounded her during her sister's lifetime.
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