Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/223

1546.] authority as yet discovered, diluted through Protestant tradition for two generations, till it reached the ears of Foxe, the popular legend can pretend to no authenticity of detail. We can believe, however, that, if the Queen had been actively encouraging the more vehement forms of Protestantism in the palace, she must have added materially to the difficulties of the King's position; that Gardiner brought complaints against her; that the King examined into them, and finding that the story was either an invention, or was maliciously exaggerated, dismissed the accusers with a reproof, as he had dismissed them before in their attacks upon Cranmer.

Success in a lower quarter, however, was still possible to the persecutors. John Lascelles, one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber, had been examined with Crome and Latimer. He had declined to reply to the