Elizabeth
herself caused two Dutch Anabaptists to be burnt in Smithfield, though
it is but just to admit that, unlike her sullen sister, she preferred
rather to hang than to burn heretics. Lord Brougham has recently done
mankind another valuable piece of service by painting the portrait of
that Protestant princess in colours at once so lively and faithful that
none, save the lovers of vulgar fanaticism and murderous hypocrisy, will
gaze on it without horror. [81:1]
'Mary, honoured with the title of "bloody," appears to me a far more
estimable character than her ripping-up sister Elizabeth, who, when
Mary, on her death-bed, asked her for a real avowal of her religion,
"prayed God" that the earth might open and swallow her up if she was not
a true Roman Catholic.' She made the same declaration to the Duke of
Ferria, the Spanish Ambassador, who was so deceived that he wrote to
Philip, stating no change in religious matters would take place on her
accession, and soon afterwards began ripping up the bellies of
Catholics. That was quite the fashionable punishment in this and the
succeeding reign.
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