Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/170

150 minds of all men with the name of the Princess as their fature sovereign, should Edward leave no children. The question had been mooted, had been discussed, had been decided; and on grounds of public safety there was no disposition to raise further doubt on a subject of so much magnitude. Although a queen was a novelty in the constitution, the people would rather submit to a queen, and to a queen of ambiguous legitimacy, than risk the chance of another War of the Roses

Personally Mary was popular. She had lived in retirement, and her objections to the later developments of the Reformation were well known; but on this point she had the support of a powerful party. The sufferings of her mother, and the religious persecution which she had herself undergone, had secured her the affection of the people, which as yet she had done nothing to forfeit. A return to communion with the See of Rome was unthought of. Mary herself was not supposed to desire what, in common with the rest of the country, she had renounced under her father. A return to the constitution of religion as her father left it, was probably the wish of three quarters of the English nation. The orthodox Catholics were outraged by the imprisonment of the bishops, and the establishment by law of opinions which they execrated as heresy. The moderate English party had no sympathy with a tyranny which had thrust the views of foreign Reformers by force upon the people. Even the citizens of London, where Protestantism had the strongest hold, had been exasperated by the offensive combination of sacrilege and spoliation with a