but, however exalted in rank or power, they were not the leaders in the enterprise.  Men of a widely different description, men who redeemed great infirmities and errors by sincerity, disinterestedness, energy and courage, men who, with many of the vices of revolutionary chiefs and of polemic divines, united some of the highest qualities of apostles, were the real directors.  They might be violent in innovation and scurrilous in controversy.  They might sometimes act with inexcusable severity towards opponents, and sometimes connive disreputably at the vices of powerful allies.  But fear was not in them, nor hypocrisy, nor avarice, nor any petty selfishness.  Their one great object was the demolition of the idols and the purification of the sanctuary.  If they were too indulgent to the failings of eminent men from whose patronage they expected advantage to the church, they never flinched before persecuting tyrants and hostile armies.  For that theological system to which they sacrificed the lives of others without scruple, they were ready to throw away their own lives without fear.  Such were the authors of the great schism on the Continent and in the northern part of this island.  The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of Conde and the King of Navarre, the Earl of Moray and the Earl of Morton, might espouse the Protestant opinions, or might pretend to espouse them; but it was from Luther, from Calvin, from Knox, that the Reformation took its character.

England has no such names to show; not that she wanted men of sincere piety, of deep learning, of steady and adventurous courage.  But these were thrown into the background.  Elsewhere men of this character were the principals.  Here they acted a secondary part.  Elsewhere worldliness was the tool of zeal.  Here zeal was the tool of worldliness.  A King, whose character may be best described by saying that he was despotism itself personified, unprincipled ministers, a rapacious aristocracy, a servile Parliament, such were the instruments by which England was delivered from the yoke of Rome.  The work which had been begun by Henry, the murderer of his wives, was continued by Somerset, the murderer of his brother, and completed by Elizabeth, the murderer of her guest.  Sprung from brutal passion, nurtured by selfish policy, the Reformation in England displayed little of what had, in other countries, distinguished it; unflinching and unsparing devotion, boldness of speech, and singleness of eye.  These were indeed to be found; but it was in the lower ranks of the party which opposed the authority of Rome, in such men as Hooper, Latimer, Rogers, and Taylor.  Of those who had any important share in bringing the Reformation about, Ridley was perhaps the only person who did not consider it as a mere political job.  Even Ridley did not play a very prominent part.  Among the statesmen and prelates who principally gave the tone to the religious changes, there is one, and one only, whose conduct partiality itself can attribute to any other than interested motives.  It is not strange, therefore, that his character should have been the subject of fierce controversy.  We need not say that we speak of Cranmer.