Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/248

228 and returned to their dioceses. The Bishop of Ely was deposed from the chancellorship, and the seals were given to Gardiner. 'On the 5th of August,' says the Grey Friars' Chronicle, 'at seven o'clock at night, Edmond Bonner came home from the Marshalsea like a bishop, and all the people by the wayside bade him welcome home, both man and woman, and as many of the women as might kissed him; and so he came to Paul's, and knelt on the steps, and said his prayers, and the people rang the bells for joy.'

While Mary was repairing acts of injustice, Gardiner, with Sir William Petre, was looking into the public accounts. The debts of the late Government had been reduced, the currency unconsidered, to 190,000l. A doubt had been raised whether, after the attempt to set aside the succession, the Queen was bound to take the responsibility of these obligations, but Mary preferred honour to convenience; she promised to pay everything as soon as possible. Further, there remain, partly in Gardiner's hand, a number of hasty notes, written evidently in these same first weeks of Mary's reign, which speak nobly for the intentions with which both Mary