for being less indiscriminate. But it was no less deliberate, and in the early and effective days of the Royal Supremacy, when Bishops were regarded as ecclesiastical sheriffs, their resistance to authority was as little tolerated as that of the soldier or the civil servant would be now. Gardiner was sent to this Fleet, but he was treated by Somerset with what was considered excessive lenience; and in January, 1548, he was, by the King's general pardon, released. He returned to his diocese, and preached obedience to the Council on the ground that to suffer evil was a Christian's duty. The reason was scarcely pleasing to the government, and on June i29 he was ordered to preach a sermon at Whitehall declaring the supreme ecclesiastical authority of the young King during his minority; at the same time he was forbidden to deal with the doctrines that were in dispute. On neither point did he give satisfaction, and on the following day he was sent to the Tower. Bonner was sent to the Marshalsea for a similar reason. He had protested against the visitation of 1547, but withdrew his protest, and after a few weeks in the Fleet remained at liberty until September, 1549. He was then accused of not enforcing the new Book of Common Prayer and was ordered to uphold the ecclesiastical authority of the King in a sermon at St Paul's; on his failure to do so he was imprisoned and deprived by Cranmer of his bishopric; and at the same time his chaplain Feckenham was sent to the Tower. These, however, are practically the only instances of religious persecution exercised during Somerset's protectorate.
This comparative moderation, while consonant with the Protector's own inclination, was also rendered advisable by the critical condition of England's relations with foreign powers. Any violent breach with Catholicism, any bitter persecution of its adherents, would have turned into open enmity the lukewarm friendship of Charles V, precipitated that hostile coalition of Catholic Europe for which the Pope and Cardinal Pole were intriguing, and rendered impossible the union with Scotland on which the Tudors had set their hearts. For this reason Somerset declined (March, 1547) the proffered alliance of the German Protestant Princes; and, to strengthen his position, he began negotiations for a treaty with France, and discussed the possibility of a marriage between the Princess Elizabeth and a member of the French royal family. The treaty was on the point of ratification when the death of Francis I (March 31) produced a revolution in French policy. The new King, Henry II, had, when Dauphin, proclaimed his intention of demanding the immediate retrocession of Boulogne; but his designs were not confined to the expulsion of the English from France. He also dreamt of a union with Scotland. Through Diane de Poitiers the Guise influence was strong at Paris; through Mary de Guise, the 'Queen Regent of Scotland, it was almost as powerful at Edinburgh; and England was menaced with a pacte de famille more threatening than that of the Bourbons two centuries later. Even Francis had considered a scheme
