ally mild and candid, we feel a consolation in allowing
it in all its force;--but by no particle of such indulgence should
Bonner or Gardiner be permitted to benefit. It would be credulity, not
candor, to yield to either of these bad men the character of sincere,
though over zealous, religionists. True it is that they had subjected
themselves to the loss of their bishoprics, and to a severe
imprisonment, by a refusal to give in their renunciation of certain
doctrines of the Romish church; but they had previously gone much
further in compliance than conscience would allow to any real catholic;
and they appear to have stopped short in this career only because they
perceived in the council such a determination to strip them, under one
pretext or another, of all their preferments, as manifestly rendered
further compliance useless. Both of them had policy enough to restrain
them, under such circumstances, from degrading their characters
gratuitously, and depriving themselves of the merit of having suffered
for a faith which might soon become again predominant. They received
their due reward in the favor of Mary, who recognised them with joy as
the fit instruments of all her bloody and tyrannical designs, to which
Gardiner supplied the crafty and contriving head, Bonner the vigorous
and unsparing arm.

The proud wife of the protector Somerset,--who had been imprisoned, but
never brought to trial, as an accomplice in her husband's plots,--was
now dismissed to a safe insignificance. The marchioness of Exeter,
against whom, in Henry's reign, an attainder had passed too iniquitous
for even him to carry into effect, was also rescued from her long
captivity, and indemnified for the loss of her property by some valuable
grants from the new confiscations of the Dudleys and their adherents.

The only state prisoner to whom the door was not opened on this occasion
was Geffrey Pole, that base betrayer of his brother and his friends by
whose evidence lord Montacute and the marquis of Exeter had been brought
to an untimely end. It is some satisfaction to know, that the
commutation of death for perpetual imprisonment was all the favor which
this wretch obtained from Henry; that neither Edward nor Mary broke his
bonds; and that, as far as appears, his punishment ended only with his
miserable existence.

Not long, however, were these dismal abodes suffered to remain
unpeopled. The failure of the criminal enterprise of Northumberland
first