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THE PROTESTANTS
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His business was to prepare the measures which were to be submitted to Parliament by the Government. His influence, therefore, grew necessarily with the rapidity with which events were ripening; and when the conclusive step was taken, and the King was married, the virtual conduct of the Reformation passed into his hands. His Protestant tendencies were unknown as yet, perhaps, even to his own conscience; nor to the last could he arrive at any certain speculative convictions. He was drawn towards the Protestants as he rose into power by the integrity of his nature, which compelled him to trust only those on the sincerity of whose convictions he could depend.
