with which Somerset, Cranmer, and Northumberland had
attempted to carry out the Reformation, was thus followed by a natural
recoil. Protestant theology had erected itself into a system of
intolerant dogmatism, and had crowded the gaols with prisoners who
were guilty of no crime but Nonconformity; it had now to reap the
fruits of its injustice, and was superseded till its teachers had
grown wiser. The first parliament of Mary was indeed more Protestant,
in the best sense of that word, than the statesmen and divines of
Edward. While the House of Commons re-established the Catholic
services, they decided, after long consideration, that no punishment
should be inflicted on those who declined to attend those
services.[164] There was to be no pope, no persecution, no restoration
of the abbey {p.071} lands--resolutions, all of them disagreeable to
a reactionary court. On the Spanish marriage both Lords and Commons
were equally impracticable. The Catholic noblemen--the Earls of Derby,
Shrewsbury, Bath, and Sussex were in the interest of Courtenay. The
chancellor had become attached to him in the Tower when they were
fellow-prisoners there; and Sir Robert Rochester, Sir Francis
Englefield, Sir Edward Waldegrave, the queen's tried and faithful
officers of the household, went with the chancellor. Never, on any
subject, was there greater unanimity in England than in the
disapproval of Philip as a husband for the queen, and, on the 29th of
October, the Lower House had a petition in preparation to entreat her
to choose from among her subjects.

[Footnote 164: Ibid. December 8.]

To Courtenay, indeed, Mary might legitimately object. Since his
emancipation from the Tower he had wandered into folly and debauchery;
he was vain and inexperienced, and his insolence was kept in check
only by the quality so rare in an Englishman of personal timidity. But
to refuse Courtenay was one thing, to fasten her choice on the heir of
a foreign kingdom was another. Paget insisted, indeed, that, as the
Queen of Scots was contracted to the Dauphin, unless England could
strengthen herself with a connection of corresponding strength, the
union of the French and Scottish crowns was a menace to her
liberties.[165] But the argument, though important in itself, was
powerless against the universal dread of the introduction of a foreign
sovereign, and it availed only to provide Mary with an answer to the
protests and entreaties of her other