t the
Government ventured on an open defiance of law; and a statute of the
realm was set aside at the imperious bidding of a boy of fifteen. Master
of the royal forces, wielding at his will the royal authority,
Northumberland used the voice of the dying Edward to set aside rights of
succession as sacred as his own. But the attempt proved an utter
failure. The very forces on which the Duke relied turned against him.
The whole nation fronted him in arms. The sovereign whom the voice of
the young king named as his successor passed from the throne to the
Tower, and a sovereign whose title rested on parliamentary statute took
her place.

[Sidenote: The religious reaction.]

At the opening of August Mary entered London in triumph. Short and thin
in figure, with a face drawn and colourless that told of constant
ill-health, there was little in the outer seeming of the new queen to
recall her father; but her hard, bright eyes, her manlike voice, her
fearlessness and self-will, told of her Tudor blood, as her skill in
music, her knowledge of languages, her love of learning, spoke of the
culture and refinement of Henry's Court. Though Mary was thirty-seven
years old, the strict retirement in which she had lived had left her as
ignorant of the actual temper of England as England was ignorant of her
own. She had founded her resistance to the changes of the Protectorate
on a resolve to adhere to her father's system till her brother came of
age to rule, and England believed her to be longing like itself simply
for a restoration of what Henry had left. The belief was confirmed by
her earlier actions. The changes of the Protectorate were treated as
null and void. Gardiner, Henry's minister, was drawn from the Tower to
take the lead as Chancellor at the Queen's Council-board. Bonner and the
deposed bishops were restored to their sees. Ridley with the others who
had displaced them was again expelled. Latimer, as a representative of
the extreme Protestants, was sent to the Tower; and the foreign
refugees, as anti-sacramentarians, were ordered to leave England. On an
indignant protest from Cranmer against reports that he was ready to
abandon the new reforms the Archbishop was sent for his seditious
demeanour to the Tower, and soon put on his trial for treason with Lady
Jane Grey, her husband, and two of his brothers. Each pleaded guilty;
but no attempt was made to carry out the sentence of death. In all this
England went with the Queen. T