Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/215

1545.] and the scale and scope of his intentions were soon displayed so clearly as to dispel all uneasiness, by the foundation of the Hospital of St Bartholomew, and of Trinity College at Cambridge.

But the session, if the debates had been preserved to us, would have presented a less tranquil appearance than it wears in the records of its accomplished legislation. From the 'Journals of the House of Lords ' we discover that, on the 27th of November, four days after the meeting of Parliament, a fresh heresy bill was brought forward in the Upper House. It was referred to a committee, again brought in, discussed at length, and again set aside for consideration; finally, it was passed without a dissentient voice, and sent down to the Commons, where it disappeared. No hint remains of the provisions of this bill. The objects of it are described as the abolition of heresies, and the suppression of certain books infected with false opinions. Perhaps it was some severe measure of arbitrary repression, introduced by the reactionaries; perhaps it was a moderate endeavour to check Anabaptist and Puritan excesses, and was withdrawn or relinquished from experience of the past feebleness of legislative interference with opinion. The progress of the bill may have been stopped by the Lower House; it may have been arrested by the Crown. But, at all events, the phenomenon of