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 immoral act in itself; but even had that mistake not been made, it is very doubtful whether Mary could ever have succeeded in her aim. Henry VIII. 's policy in destroying the monasteries and using their lands for the purpose of raising up a new territorial nobility, whether we believe it to have been deliberate and far-sighted or not, was that which made the successful re-establishment of the old Church system in England almost, if not altogether, impossible. The new families had risen to wealth and importance solely on the plunder of the Church; they could defend their own newly-acquired possessions only by a steady resistance to the claims of the Church, and the readiest means of making good that resistance was to take sides with the anti-Church or Protestant faction. Hence the new nobles—most of whom had probably first risen into importance by showing some useful abilities—formed, as a whole, the backbone of the Protestant party, and were pledged, by every consideration which ordinarily governs human actions, to oppose the rehabilitation of the old Church to the utmost.

With the accession of Elizabeth the Reformation entered upon a new phase. There was never any real doubt felt by the nation in general but that she would take the Protestant side, while there was comparatively little danger of a re-establishment of the Protestant misrule which had existed in her brother's time; for with Elizabeth there was no lack of personal will or force of character. That she did not in every particular re-enact the whole of her brother's ecclesiastical legislation, is a fact which has been dwelt upon with no little insistance by many modern historians; but they have been less careful to observe to how great an extent she