Page:Church and State under the Tudors.djvu/183

 been in vain: some, doubtless, were insincere, and those which were not so, coming from whence they came, can be attributed to policy only, and not to honest conviction; but, by whatever motive dictated, they all met the same fate. Mary went on her way without pity, without remorse, and not less without reason. And yet Mary's conduct must, in fairness, be attributed to pure religious fanaticism. It breaks from her at every opportunity, from the beginning of her reign to the end of it. Her reply to the Commons, when they remonstrated about the Spanish marriage, that in this matter she would take counsel of God, and of none other; her statement, also to Parliament, on the subject of the firstfruits and tenths, that she could not take them with a clear conscience; her profound belief that she had been preserved, almost miraculously, for the special purpose of restoring England to the unity of the Catholic Church; all these and other indications, while they are no way inconsistent with the self-willed, narrow, sour, and ignorant woman which Mary certainly was, all point also to one completely under the power of a dominant religious belief, as sincere and brave as it was narrow and mischievous. Nay, it would almost seem, if the whole circumstances be fairly considered, that the very act of her reign which has been especially pointed out as dictated by private and personal revenge, viz. her ferocious persecution of Cranmer, was really due to the same conviction. On what principle, or for what reason, was Mary's conduct to Gardiner and to Cranmer so widely different? During the greater part,