So the balance trembled. But Southampton was no match for "that most faithful and intrepid soldier of Christ," as Hooper styled Warwick. "England," he went on, "cannot do without him." Neither could the Earl afford to discard such zealous adherents as the Reformers; in them he found his main support. They compared him with Moses and Joshua, and described him and Dorset as "the two most shining lights of the Church of England." They believed that Somerset had been deposed for his slackness in the cause of religious persecution; Warwick resolved to run no such risk. The tendency towards religious change, which Henry VIII had failed to stop, was still strong, and Warwick threw himself into the stream. Privately he seems, if he believed in anything, to have favoured Catholic doctrines; and the consciousness of his insincerity made him all the louder in his professions of Protestant zeal, and all the more eager to push to extremes the principles of the Reformers. He became, in Hooper's words, "a most holy and fearless instrument of the Word of God."
But this policy could not be combined with the conciliation of Catholics; and the coalition which had driven Somerset from power fell asunder, as soon as its immediate object had been achieved, and it was called upon to formulate a policy of its own. Southampton ceased to attend the Council after October; and Parliament, which had completely reversed the Protector's liberal and social programme, effected almost as great a change in the methods and aims of his religious policy. The direction may have been the same, but it is pure assumption to suppose that the Protector would have gone so far as his successors or employed the same violence to attain his ends. The difference in character between the two administrators was vividly illustrated in the session of Parliament which began a month after the change. Under Somerset there had always been a good attendance of Bishops, and a majority of them had voted for all his religious proposals; at the opening of the first session after his fall there were only nine Bishops, and a majority of them voted against two of the three measures of ecclesiastical importance passed during its course. One was the Act for the destruction of all service books other than the Book of Common Prayer and Henry's Primer; and the other was a renewal of the provision for the reform of Canon Law. A majority of Bishops voted for the bill appointing a commission to draw up a new Ordinal; but, when they complained that their jurisdiction was despised and drafted a bill for its restoration, the measure was rejected.
The prorogation of Parliament (February, 1550) was followed by the final overthrow of the Catholic party and the complete establishment of Warwick's control over the government. He had already begun to pack the Council, which had remained practically unchanged since Henry's death, by adding to it five of his own adherents. Southampton was now expelled from the Council, Arundel was deprived of his office of Lord Chamberlain, and Southwell was sent to the Tower. The offices vacated
