Though Leo the Isaurian and his son Constantine had for thirty years worked so energetically in stamping out image worship, yet at the death of the latter a reaction was brought about. The Emperor Leo, grandson of the Isaurian, married an Athenian wife, Irene, who was constitutionally devoted to image worship and sensuous art, and her devotion to these so worked on her irresolute husband as to baffle the labour of years. She took care to procure all the important vacancies in the Church to be filled by monks. Her household officers were encouraged to practise in secret the adoration of images, and there were concealed some figures under her pillow; and though the Emperor, on discovering this petty treason, ordered the chief actors to be scourged, yet on his death in 780 Irene assumed the government and changed everything. She took care to get a patriarch appointed who was of her way of thinking, and for that purpose first induced the then holder of the office to resign and retire into a monastery. She then spread the report that this change was due to remorse of conscience; and the new patriarch, acting in concert with her, professed his inability to assume the high office unless she would convoke a council to review the late heresy of the iconoclasts. After great manoeuvring on the part of the monks, and secret meetings to canvas the chief men of the assembly, and by the Empress deciding to attend in person and with great state, she so managed affairs that a council of three hundred and fifty bishops met, and they all in her presence returned to the old traditions, declaring the worship of images agreeable to Scripture and reason, and shouted their approval and ended with the enthusiastic exclamation, "Long live the orthodox Queen Regent!" EMPRESS THEODORA CONQUERING FOR THE IMAGES (A.D. 842).