Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/299

1540.] have any more children for the comfort of the realm.'

The union of France and the Empire, which had obliged the accomplishment of this unlucky connection, meanwhile prevented, so long as it continued, either an open fracas or an alteration in the policy of the kingdom. The relations of the King and Queen were known only to a few of the council. Cromwell continued in power, and the Protestants remained in security. The excitement which had been created in London by the persecution of Dr Watts was kept alive by a controversy between the Bishop of Winchester and three of the Lutheran preachers—Dr Barnes, for ever unwisely prominent; the Vicar of Stepney, who had shuffled over his recantation; and Garrett, the same who had been in danger of the stake at Oxford for selling Testaments, and had since been a chaplain of Latimer. It is difficult to exaggerate the audacity with which the orators of the moving party trespassed on the patience of the laity. The disputes, which had been slightly turned out of their channel by the Six Articles, were running now on justification—a sufficient subject, however, to give scope for differences, and for the full enunciation of the Lutheran gospel. The magistrates in the