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1549.] disturbed by the religious discussions in Parliament, and by the change in the services; while even the Protestants were frightened by the wild opinions which were spreading under the shelter of the repeal of the heresy laws. 'How dangerously,' Hooper wrote to Bullinger, 'England is afflicted by heresies, God only knows. There are some who say the soul of a man is no better than the soul of a beast, and is mortal and perishable. There are wretches who dare, in their conventicles, not only to deny that Christ is our Saviour, but to call that blessed Child a mischief-maker and a deceiver. A great part of the country is Popish, and sets at nought God and the magistrates. The people are oppressed by the tyranny of the nobles; England is full of misery.'

The Protector could not blind himself to symptoms so broad as these, but he was bent on going his own way, and the obstacles which he encountered made him impatient of advice, imperious, and headstrong. Sir William Paget, by far the ablest man upon the council, and a true friend to Somerset, implored him to be cautious; but he was so violent, that others durst not speak to him at all; and though Paget persevered, it was only to be 'whipped with sharp words.' 'How it cometh to pass I cannot tell,' Paget wrote at last, 'but of late your Grace is grown into great cholerick fashions, whensoever you are contraried in that which you have conceived in your head. A