g dismissed and ordered to keep
their houses in London during the King's pleasure.

Mrs Rose and Thekla came several times to visit Isoult, and she returned
the compliment. And one day in February came Philippa Basset, who was
about to go into Cheshire, to visit her sister, Lady Bridget Carden,
with whom she passed nearly a year before Isoult saw her again. Lady
Bridget really was not her sister at all, she being Lord Lisle's
daughter, and Philippa Lady Lisle's; but they had been educated as
sisters, and as sisters they loved. Not long afterwards, Sir Francis
Jobson resigned his office at the Tower, and went home to his own estate
of Monkwich, in Essex. His wife was the Lady Elizabeth, sister of Lady
Bridget; and with her Philippa had lived ever since she came to London.
When she came back, therefore, she was forced to look out for another
home, for she did not wish to follow them into Essex: and she went to
her own youngest brother, Mr James Basset, who had a house in London.

All this while the Reformation was quietly progressing. On the 19th of
April, Bishop Ridley came to Saint Paul's Cathedral, in communion-time,
and received the sacrament, together with Dr May, the Dean, and Dr
Barne; both the Dean and the Bishop took the consecrated bread in their
hands, instead of holding out the tongue, for the priest to put the
wafer upon it. And before the Bishop would come into the choir, he
commanded all the lights that were on the Lord's Table to be put out.
The Dean, who was a Lutheran, was well pleased at all this; but not so
other men who were more kindly disposed towards Popery; and there was
much murmuring and disputing.

At this time the Princess Mary was hanging between life and death at
Kenninghall. We know now how all things had been changed had she died.
But God could not spare her who was to be (however unwittingly or
unwillingly) the purifier of His Church, to show which was the dross,
and which the gold.

Some turmoil was also made concerning Joan Boucher, an Anabaptist girl
who had been condemned for heresy, and was burned in Smithfield on the
2nd of May. The Papal party, ever ready to throw stones at the
Protestants, cried that "the old burning days were come again," and that
Archbishop Cranmer was just as much a persecutor as Bishop Gardiner.
They saw no difference between a solitary victim of the one (if Joan
Boucher can be called so), and the other's piles of martyrs. Isoult,
rather puzzled a