extraneous elements in which it was involved. The consequence was that there was a reaction in Edward VI.'s reign, due to foreign influence. Then some of the worst, the most incapable and the most selfish men who have ever governed England were prepared to loose the country from its old moorings and drive it into the stream of continental Protestantism. They were afraid that England, if it continued in its existing position, judging, weighing, verifying without any violence, constantly making its appeal to common-sense and to the intellect, would not be able to maintain itself against the Roman reaction. They consequently sought for it the strength which they thought might be gained by an alliance with German Protestantism. That attempt was politically disastrous; it did not correspond with the wishes of the English people. The result was the reaction under Mary. The nation was afraid of the new forms of ecclesiastical polity that might be invented, and so the very men who in Henry VIII.'s reign had been the foremost in making changes now hastened to undo their work. Gardiner, who had to do with most of these changes, was thoroughly alarmed, and thought that the only safe course was to go back to the old state of things. But he felt that this could not be done entirely; for he saw that the country, though it might be willing to accept again the old system, would never again submit to foreign interference. It is well known how his policy failed, how England was made the handmaid of Spain, and how the only way to the old state of things proved to be through persecution.
In consequence Elizabeth had to accept an exceed-
