_Violence of Mary's reign._--It seems hardly necessary to mention the momentary usurpation of Lady Jane Grey, founded on no pretext of title which could be sustained by any argument. She certainly did not obtain that degree of actual possession which might have sheltered her adherents under the statute of Henry VII.; nor did the Duke of Northumberland allege this excuse on his trial, though he set up one of a more technical nature, that the great seal was a sufficient protection for acts done by its authority.[53] The reign that immediately followed is chiefly remembered as a period of sanguinary persecution; but though I reserve for the next chapter all mention of ecclesiastical disputes, some of Mary's proceedings in re-establishing popery belong to the civil history of our constitution. Impatient, under the existence, for a moment, of rites and usages which she abhorred, this bigoted woman anticipated the legal authority which her parliament was ready to interpose for their abrogation; the Latin liturgy was restored, the married clergy expelled from their livings, and even many protestant ministers thrown into prison for no other crime than their religion, before any change had been made in the established laws.[54] The queen, in fact, and those around her, acted and felt as a legitimate government restored after an usurpation, and treated the recent statutes as null and invalid. But even in matters of temporal government, the stretches of prerogative were more violent and alarming than during her brother's reign. It is due indeed to the memory of one who has left so odious a name, to remark that Mary was conscientiously averse to encroach upon what she understood to be the privileges of her people. A wretched book having been written to exalt her prerogative, on the ridiculous pretence that, as a queen, she was not bound by the laws of former kings, she showed it to Gardiner, and on his expressing indignation at the sophism, threw it herself into the fire. An act passed, however, to settle such questions, which declares the queen to have all the lawful prerogatives of the Crown.[55] But she was surrounded by wicked counsellors, renegades of every faith and ministers of every tyranny. We must, in candour, attribute to their advice her arbitrary measures, though not her persecution of heresy, which she counted for virtue. She is said to have extorted loans from the citizens of London, and others of her subjects.[56] This, indeed, was not more than had been usual with her predecessors. But we find one clear instance during her reign of a duty upon foreign cloth, imposed without assent of parliament; an encroachment unprecedented since the reign of Richard II. Several proofs might be adduced from records of arbitrary inquests for offences, and illegal modes of punishment. The torture is, perhaps, more frequently mentioned in her short reign than in all former ages of our history put together; and probably from that imitation of