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1553.] enough,' Northumberland answered violently, 'no doubt of that;' 'the fruits of the Gospel in this life were sufficiently meagre.' Assailed in the pulpit, thwarted in the Commons, hated by the people, the haughty minister found his temper failing him, and the smooth exterior less easy to maintain. 'Those about me,' he complained to Cecil, 'are so slack as I can evil bear it; indeed, of late, but for my duty to the State, my heart could scarce endure the manner of it.' He had secured the subsidy; the continued sitting of a Parliament was inconvenient when his own nominees had opposed him; on the last of March, within a month of the meeting, it was dissolved.

It is a question on which much depends, yet one which, nevertheless, there is little chance of adequately answering, whether the fortunes of Northumberland were not now bringing him to a point where he must either rise higher or fall utterly, irrespective of the life or death of the young King. The enthusiastic correspondents of Bullinger assured him that Edward regarded the Duke as a father, and Edward by his conduct at the close of his life proved that his own confidence was not yet shaken; but the power of English ministers rarely survived intense unpopularity. By the accidents of the revolution, by 'stout courage and proudness of stomach,' by dexterity, perhaps by crime, Northumberland was become almost