ees, but on the ordinances once
enacted by King and Parliament. They could not deceive themselves as
to the fact that Elizabeth, though she conformed outwardly, yet
remained true at heart to the Protestant faith; but not on that
account would the Parliament deny her right to the English throne. It
also by no means entertained exactly Spanish sentiments. The Emperor
expressed the wish that his son might be crowned: his ambassador's
advice however was against proposing it in Parliament; since, with the
high ideas entertained in England of the rights implied in the
coronation, this would never be allowed. In the event of the Queen's
dying before Philip, and leaving children, the guardianship was
reserved to him: but even for this object conditions had been
originally proposed which would have been much more advantageous to
him: these the Upper House threw out. So little was even then the
policy of the Queen and King at the same time the policy of the nation
and Parliament. In the Privy Council the old discords continued. The
government obtained a greater unity by the fact that Gardiner, who now
followed the Queen's lead in every respect, carried most of the
members with him by the authority which her favour gave him. As Paget
and Arundel, since they could effect nothing, refused to appear any
more, there always remained a secret support for the discontent that
was stirring. In the beginning of 1555 traces of a conspiracy in
favour of Courtenay were again detected: if the inquiry into it led to
no discovery, it was because--so it was thought--the commission
entrusted with it did not wish to make any.

At this moment the revived heresy-laws began to be put into execution.
Prosecutions were instituted for statements that under another order
of things would have been considered as fully authorised. Still more
than to single offences was attention directed to any variations in
doctrine. In these proceedings we can remark the points which were
then chiefly in question.

The first of the accused, one of the earliest and most influential of
the martyrs, John Rogers, was reminded of the article which speaks of
the faith in one holy catholic church; he replied that by it was meant
the universal church of all lands and times, not the Romish, which on
the contrary had deviated in many points from the main foundation of
all churches, Holy Scripture. Rowland Taylor, who gloried in a
marriage blest with children, which Gardiner would n