disgorge their spoil to appease the discontent. At the close
of 1549 therefore the Council withdrew openly from Somerset, and forced
the Protector to resign.

[Sidenote: Warwick's Protectorate]

His office passed to the Earl of Warwick, to whose ruthless severity the
suppression of the revolt was mainly due. The change of governors
however brought about no change of system. Peace indeed was won from
France by the immediate surrender of Boulogne; but the misgovernment
remained as great as ever, the currency was yet further debased, and a
wild attempt made to remedy the effects of this measure by a royal
fixing of prices. It was in vain that Latimer denounced the prevailing
greed, and bade the Protestant lords choose "either restitution or else
damnation." Their sole aim seemed to be that of building up their own
fortunes at the cost of the State. All pretence of winning popular
sympathy was gone, and the rule of the upstart nobles who formed the
Council of Regency became simply a rule of terror. "The greater part of
the people," one of their creatures, Cecil, avowed, "is not in favour of
defending this cause, but of aiding its adversaries; on that side are
the greater part of the nobles, who absent themselves from Court, all
the bishops save three or four, almost all the judges and lawyers,
almost all the justices of the peace, the priests who can move their
flocks any way, for the whole of the commonalty is in such a state of
irritation that it will easily follow any stir towards change." But
united as it was in its opposition the nation was helpless. The system
of despotism which Cromwell built up had been seized by a knot of
adventurers, and with German and Italian mercenaries at their disposal
they rode roughshod over the land.

[Sidenote: The Reformation]

At such a moment it seemed madness to provoke foes abroad as well as at
home, but the fanaticism of the young king was resolved to force on his
sister Mary a compliance with the new changes, and her resistance was
soon backed by the remonstrances of her cousin, the Emperor. Charles was
now at the height of his power, master of Germany, preparing to make the
Empire hereditary in the person of his son, Philip, and preluding a
wider effort to suppress heresy throughout the world by the
establishment of the Inquisition in the Netherlands and a fiery
persecution which drove thousands of Walloon heretics to find a refuge
in England. But heedless of dangers from with