doubt, the religious changes had something to do with these revolts, it is probable that the general misgovernment of the time, the shameless greediness of the courtiers, the financial distress, and the depreciation of the coinage had at least as much, probably a good deal more. But the contentions about the Princess Mary's mass, the execution of Joan Bocher, and the deprivation of Bonner, were all of them directly ecclesiastical transactions.
The close of this year, however, was distinguished by an event of a peculiar and very significant character. In the King's council, no less than in the nation at large, it had become recognised that Somerset's administration was a failure. Abroad and at home it had been equally unsuccessful, and the knot of unscrupulous new nobles who had at first accepted him as their leader, finding that he was unequal to the post, at last compelled him to resign it. Somerset, in fact, had ruled as chief of a faction of rapacious upstarts, who had cared throughout more for their own gain than for the good of the country. They had absorbed the Church lands, and enclosed the commons, and raised the rents, and ruined the tenants. When the revolts took place, they were thoroughly alarmed; but, being many of them men of great energy and courage, they took what means lay ready to their hands, used their own resources freely, and risked their own lives, and thus at last put down the revolts. Thus it was that the same faction remained at the head of affairs; but Somerset fell, and Warwick (better known as the Duke of Northumberland), the most successful of the leaders against the. rebels, became his successor, and thus it was also that Warwick, though any religion which he had appears to have been of the older sort, came into power on the implied condition
