Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/513

1549.] second moderately, Catholic; the Earl of Warwick himself was untroubled with religious convictions of any kind, and might take either side with equal unconscientiousness; and the executors, acting as a body, would have relapsed into the groove which Henry VIII. had marked for them. But equality of influence could not co-exist with inequality of power. The part which Warwick had taken in putting down the insurrection had given him for the moment the control of the position; and Warwick, whose single and peculiar study was the advancement of himself and his family, determined, it may be after some hesitation, to adhere to the party of which he could be the undisputed chief. Had he brought the conservatives into power, he must have released the Duke of Norfolk from the Tower, and Gardiner with him. Shrewsbury, Oxford, Rutland, Derby, the lords of the old blood, would have reappeared in public life; and in such a circle Lord Warwick must soon have sunk to the level of his birth. It was more tempting for him to lead those who had made their way into rank through the revolution, or had still their fortunes to make, than to sink into a satellite of the Howards, the Stanleys, and the Talbots.

Southampton, therefore, retired again into obscurity, and soon died. A charge of peculation was brought against Arundel, who was removed from his office of Lord Chamberlain, and fined 12,000l., and the petitions