Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/309

1553.] among themselves, as more competent to conduct it with decency. In eight days the various changes introduced by Edward VI. were argued in the House of Commons, and points were treated of there, said Renard, which a general council could scarcely resolve. At length, by a majority, which exceeded Gardiner's most sanguine hopes, of 350 against 80, the mass was restored, and the clergy were required to return to celibacy.

The precipitation with which Somerset, Cranmer, and Northumberland had attempted to carry out the Reformation, was thus followed by a natural recoil. Protestant theology had erected itself into a system of intolerant dogmatism, and had crowded the gaols with prisoners who were guilty of no crime but Nonconformity; it had now to reap the fruits of its injustice, and was superseded till its teachers had grown wiser. The first Parliament of Mary was indeed more Protestant, in the best sense of that word, than the statesmen and divines of Edward. While the House of Commons reestablished the Catholic services, they decided, after long consideration, that no punishment should be inflicted on those who declined to attend those services. There was to be no Pope, no persecution, no restoration of the abbey lands,—resolutions, all of them disagreeable to a reactionary Court. On the Spanish marriage both Lords and Commons were equally impracticable. The Catholic noblemen—the Earls of Derby, Shrewsbury, Bath, and Sussex were in the interest of Courtenay.