There were those who reminded Mary that she was by this measure impairing the dignity of the crown; but to such she honestly made answer, that “she set more by the salvation of her soul than by ten kingdoms.” Happy would it have been if her devotedness to the church in which she had been bred had shown itself in no less objectionable way than this. Prelates there were, of her own party too, who, had they been permitted to be keepers of such a conscience, would have guided it for good, for there was much in this sturdiness of purpose to be improved. Such a man was Tonstall, perhaps such a man was Pole; but she had surrendered herself to cruel advisers; and soon became persuaded, that when she was putting honest men to death, or driving them into exile, she was doing God service. Accordingly, a proclamation was now issued for expelling all foreigners, many of whom had established themselves in England under the encouragement of Cranmer, and had contributed at once by their religious opinions and their scholarship to forward the Reformation, and by their skill in manufactures to develope the industry of the country. Together with these not fewer than eight hundred Englishmen, students chiefly, anticipating more unquiet times still, also withdrew; and betaking themselves to Frankfort, Strasburgh, Basle, Zurich, Geneva, and other places, there contracted a disaffection for the church of England, such as paved the way for the crisis which came with the civil wars. The Queen’s marriage with Philip only tended to confirm her prejudices. He was a bigot at heart, though sometimes of fair profession; and of a bigoted nation; and his unwelcome arrival in England was but a signal for riots among the people, and still greater severity on the part of the government. Joan of Kent and the Dutchman had been executed, probably under the law against Anabaptists, enacted in Henry VIII.’s reign, a sect politically dangerous,[428] since they maintained community of goods, the duty of destroying the ungodly, and antinomianism in general. It was now, however, thought advisable to have a clearer warrant for the death of heretics, which was meditated upon a great scale; and the statutes against the Lollards, enacted under Richard II., Henry IV., and Henry V., were revived.[429] Gardiner has the infamous credit of the measure, though in its application he seems to have had some misgiving; and after convicting a few persons, and those the leaders of the Reformation, (he was even said to be bending his bow at the chief deer of all, the Lady Elizabeth,) he became weary of his work, and made over the service of blood to one who took his pastime in it like a leech--the brutal Bonner.[430] Fuller, who has no love for the Bishop of Winchester in general, makes grateful mention of an act of mercy done by him to his own maternal great-grandmother, one Mrs. Clark, who having ministered to the wants of the bishop when threatened with consumption and living in retirement