Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/482

462 Lord Dacres there was to the last some uncertainty. He was brought out to the scaffold, when an order arrived to stay the execution; probably to give time for a last appeal to Henry. But if it was so, the King was inexorable. Five hours later the sheriff was again directed to do his duty; and the full penalty was paid.

Neither crimes nor the punishment of crimes are grateful subjects. The nation, grown familiar with executions, ceased to be disturbed at spectacles which formed, after all, but a small portion of their daily excitements and interests. The historian, whose materials are composed, in so large part, of those exceptional occurrences which men single out for mention and record, sickens over these perpetual entries in the register of death. Yet, on the whole, Providence gives little good in this world, for which suffering, in large measure or small, is not exacted as payment, and the King and the country alike had reason to be on the whole well satisfied. A revolution, as beneficent as it was mighty, had been effected in a series of rapid and daring measures. The nation had reeled under the impulse, but the shock had spent its force. The Pope was a name of the past. The idle monks were working for their bread. The idle miracles had ceased to deceive. An English Bible was in every church, and the contents of it were fast passing into every English mind, bringing forward, inevitably as destiny, those further changes for which only