Thus the ascendency of Protestantism in England, from the reign of Elizabeth to a time within the memory of living men, was so complete and so universal, that all the questions concerning it had come to be looked upon by the mass of Englishmen as finally settled, and had ceased to be a subject of study or interest even with the majority of educated persons, who were mostly bred up with the notion that all the right was, and had always been, on the Protestant, and all the wrong on the Roman, side of all questions between the two parties.
It is no exaggeration to say that this was the general opinion of Englishmen of all classes throughout the reign of George III. and for some years after its close. Two causes mainly have led to a reaction since—the great spread, in later years, of a taste for historical and antiquarian research, consequent upon the institution of the Camden and other Societies, and of the enormously increased facilities recently given for the consultation of ancient records in every direction and of every kind; and, secondly, the extension to England of the great Catholic reaction, which began on the Continent towards the close of the last century and dates with us from the rise of what is known as the Tractarian movement in 1833. The first of these, by letting men see the letters and writings of members of the defeated party, put matters in a new light, and displayed, for the first time, the other side of the Reformation questions—the many good points of the sufferers, and too often the meanness, tyranny, and unfairness, on the side of the victors—and so at last there were found English Churchmen who began to write as if the Reformation had been the triumph of wrong, and the real martyrs of the sixteenth century were to be found among
