Page:Church and State under the Tudors.djvu/158

 REIGN OF MARY

have witnessed the worst excesses of the reforming party. We have seen how the Lords of the Council cared little enough for either religion or morality, or the prosperity of the State or the good of the people, or any other thing except power and honour and wealth for themselves and their friends. We are now to see how, the moment the pressure was taken off, the Catholic party ran into excesses even more extreme than those of their opponents; how the reaction even exceeded the action which provoked it, and that to such an extent that its effects have continued, though in a gradually diminishing degree, up to times within the memory of still living men.

It is unnecessary here to enter into the mere facts of the political history; how Northumberland's ill-arranged and almost childish scheme fell to pieces and collapsed, and how, within a few days of Edward's death, Mary found herself undisputed Queen of England, and those who opposed her had not only gained nothing, but had put themselves entirety at her mercy. Mary was herself, perhaps, as unfit to rule as any sovereign who ever arrived at a throne in mature age. Of the Roman Emperors it has often been remarked that those who had attained mature years before they ascended the throne mostly became good rulers. But with Mary it was not so. Again, we are told that