regarded as a political one. On the
other hand religion was very directly affected by the proposal to
repeal the alterations in the church service which had been introduced
under Edward VI, and to abolish the Common Prayer-book. On this ensued
the hottest conflict. Once the proposal had to be laid aside: when it
was resumed, the debate on it lasted six days: a third of the members
were steadily against it. But in the majority the opinion again
prevailed that Henry VIII's church constitution--retention of the
Catholic doctrines and emancipation from the Papacy--was the most
suitable for England: a resolution was carried to the effect that only
such books as were in use under Henry VIII should be henceforth used
in the church. The new forms of divine service, which contained a
clearly marked body of doctrine, were abolished and the old ones
restored.

The position which the Parliament took up in relation to another
scarcely less important question coincided with this sense of national
independence.

It was a very widespread wish in England that the Queen should give
her hand to young Courtenay, son of that Marquis of Exeter who had
himself once thought of marrying Mary against her father's wishes. He
was a young man of suitable age, handsome figure, and mental activity;
Mary had not merely freed him from the prison in which her brother had
kept him, but also endowed him with the Earldom of Devon, one of his
father's possessions; in this act many saw a token of personal
inclination. Bishop Gardiner was decidedly in his favour, and we can
conceive how a great ecclesiastic, who had the power of the state in
his hands, wished to altogether exclude every foreign influence; he of
course knew that Courtenay would also conform in church matters.

Gardiner spoke once with the Queen about it and was very pressing: she
was absolutely against it. The old chronicle is entirely in error when
it repeats the then widespread rumour of Mary's inclination for
Courtenay. Mary told the Imperial ambassador that she was altogether
ignorant of what love was; she had never seen Courtenay but once in
her life, at the moment when she released him. She intended to marry,
since she was assured that the welfare of the realm required it, but
not an Englishman, not one who was a subject. As in other things, so
in this, she requested the Emperor to give her his advice.

Charles V would not have been absolutely against the plan of his
cousin giving h