Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/267

1553.] Northumberland had been a faithful subject and a fearless soldier, and, with a master's hand over him, he might have lived with integrity and died with honour. Opportunity tempted his ambition—ambition betrayed him into crime—and, given over to his lower nature, he climbed to the highest round of the political ladder, to fall and perish like a craven. He was one of those many men who can follow worthily, yet cannot lead; and the virtue of the beginning was not less real than the ignominy of the end.

Gates was the second sufferer. He, too, spoke in the same key. He had been a great reader of Scripture, he said, but he had not read it to be edified, but to be seditious—to dispute, to interpret it after his private