grateful, and may sing the song of Mary. Now my duty to God and the Church bids me remind your Majesty to consider whence arose the late disturbance of justice and religion in your kingdom. The root, the cause, the spring of all was the counsel that the devil whispered to your father for the divorce of your mother. That crime was followed by the divorce of all his subjects from Catholic obedience and Apostolic reverence. Obedience and reverence to the Church were rejected: and after them went justice and religion. Obedience to the Church will not return till obedience to God enter into the minds of rulers. Your Majesty will believe your servant, who has suffered much, yea very much, in the cause of the Church and of your Majesty, and has never omitted any remedy that appeared within his reach. The time has been divinely delayed, that the fruits of suffering might be more precious, the fruits of a mind which I above all others have known, how gracious, from thy tenderest years. The more solicitous am I concerning thy inclination towards the great duty of obedience to the Church. At the distance of three hundred miles from Rome, the Holy Father has sent to me: he has made me legate to yourself, to the Cæsar, to the King of the French. It is my first business to know your mind: not that I doubt your excellent disposition so observant of the laws divine, which contain obedience to the Apostolic See: but it is necessary to enquire of yourself the time and means of best discharging my office of legate of the Vicar of Christ: for which purpose I send a messenger with this letter." * * The date of this was Aug. 15. Epist. Poli, iv. 116: Raynaldi, Annales 1553, § 10. There is an English translation of an Italian version of this letter, dated Aug. 13, two days before, given in Brown's Cal. of State Pap. Venetian, p. 389: also a letter of Pole to the Pope and another to the papal legate in Flanders, of the same date, Aug. 13. He kisses the pope's feet, and paves the way for his own dignified progress to the The messenger, by name Henry Penning, waiting on Cardinal Dandino on his way, who was the papal legate in Flanders, was by him dextrously associated with an immediate papal agent in the Pope's chamberlain, Giovanni Francesco Commendone, a Venetian who rose high in the Roman Church. This young and aspiring man eagerly undertook the enterprise of opening communications with a lost, peccant, and withal somewhat dangerous realm; and proceeded with caution as well as boldness in his mission. Disguised as a merchant travelling with his servant, who was personated by the other agent Penning, with the story in his mouth of a Britannic uncle deceased, whose affairs required the presence of an exterraneous nephew, the emissary of the Apostolic See made his way from Brussels to London, learning on the road the state of the kingdom. A relation of the Duke of Norfolk, with whom he fell in, having an office at court, was cautiously informed of his real capacity, and procured him a secret interview with the Queen: who explained her hopes and fears; her resolution of annulling the antipapal statutes of the preceding reigns, as popular feeling might allow and even gave some intimation of the negotiations concerning her marriage, which were proceeding with the Emperor on behalf of his son.* Commendone remained in England long enough to witness the execution of Northumberland. He then posted home with such expedition as to reach Rome in nine days, visiting Pole in his monastery on the Emperor's court as legate. This Venetian Calendar contains a great number of Pole's letters that are not in Quirini's collection. Vie de Commendon, by Gratiani (Fléchier's French version), ch. xi, xii. This writer seems to have based his work on Pallavicino's account of the same transaction. Concil. di Trent, Lib. XIII. c. xii. The latter relates that Commendone first won the notice of Pope Julius by some ingenious verses on his celebrated villa: "which," says he, Parnassus that received the muses of all the poets." was a way. * A Consistory was held immediately: it was rejoiced greatly nevertheless it prevailed not to send a legate into England, but to defer the question to another meeting. In this clandestine manner resumed Rome her broken relations with England.† The other adventurer Penning, the agent rather of Pole than of the Holy Father, held himself at liberty to remain in England beyond the opening of the Parliament: and seems to have been favoured by the Queen with several secret interviews. Before he returned, he sent to his master a letter from Mary, written by her own hand, in which she explicitly committed herself to the reconciliation with Rome. "As to the obedience which * See above, p. 32. +"On Commendone's arrival a consistory was held on the 15 Sept. whereat it was not thought meet that Cardinal Pole or any other legate should be sent into England. Many causes wherefore he should not be received were alleged: the schismatics there, according to Commendone, being greater in number than the heretics and all they enemies to the Church of Rome. These matters have been much debated between the Bishop of Rome and his cardinals: the opinion of some allowing of Pole's going, that he being an Englishman, noble, expert, and well friended, might find some mean for that good purpose, especially as Parliament was nigh at hand, where some order in the religion might be taken, and this once concluded might not be altered or revolted without great difficulty," &c. Vannes to Mary, Venice, Sept 23. Cal. of State Pap. Foreign, p. 14. Gratiani gives a glowing account of Commendone's reception by the Pope on his return from his English voyage: the embraces, the praises, the excess of joy. "Et toi, mon fils,” lui dit il, "tu n'es pas seulement le porteur de ces nouvelles, tu as été le ministre de ce glorieux succès": &c. All this gave great annoyance to Mary, who thought that her confidence had been violated by Commendone in making known to any but the pope himself that she was desirous to be reconciled: and was most indignant at receiving from her own ambasador at Venice the first intelligence that what she had said in secret was divulged, discussed, be praised in Consistory: so that it had got abroad, and greatly increased her difficulties and the suspicions of her subjects. See her letter to Pole, 21 Oct. Poli Epist. iv. 120. She was told by Pole, some months after, that she had more cause to be grateful than angry, if she only knew in what terms she was spoken of. See his Instructions to Goldwell, Strype's Cranm. App. LXXV. (Below, p. 109.) Pole wrote to the Pope, October 1, to say that he had received from I owe to the Catholic and Apostolic Church," said Mary to Pole, "the bearer of this letter will explain my grief that I cannot wholly prove the sincerity of of my intention. Whenever I can declare my mind, I will inform thee the first of all men. My hope is that the coming session will abrogate all the statutes that have brought calamity upon this realm: and that from the High Pontiff I may obtain pardon for my sins." * But before : his secretary Floribello at Brussels a courier who had come in six days, bringing him letters from the first messenger (Penning) sent by him to England: copies of which, translated ad verbum from the English, Pole now sent to the pope : observing that the Queen, by her request for absolution, confirmed in them the excellent disposition with which she had already made the same request of his Holiness himself through Commendone. Ven. Cal. p. 413. This courier went to Maguzzano, but Pole had started thence for Trent: he followed and overtook him before he reached Trent. As for Penning, he returned some weeks later from England and was sent by Pole to the Pope, to whom he made a full report. In that interesting document he said that he had seen the Queen more than once; and that "her Majesty did not impart her negotiations with him to any of the lords of the Council, nor to any one else having previously ordered him to conceal himself, as he did." This is the document that contains the Queen's desire to be absolved, or taken for absolved, before being crowned, and that the bishop of Winchester might crown her without sin, submitting her coronation oath for approval, etc. Ven. Cal. p. 429. Above, p. 54. "Ego dabo operam pro viribus ut monitis tuis satisfaciam, quippe quum neque sim neque (ut divinæ miserecordiæ confido) unquam futura sim Catholicæ adhortationi in tuis litteris contentæ adversaria. Quod attinet ad meam obedientiam et debitam observantiam erga sponsam Christi et matrem divinam suam Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam harum litterarum lator poterit te commode docere: is enim poterit explanare quanta sit animi mei molestia, quod non possim animi mei sententiam in hac re prorsus patefacere; sed quum primum data erit facultas sinceritatis animi mei erga divinum cultum explicandæ, obedientiæque quid sentiam exequendæ, faciam te primum per litteras certiorem. . . . Confido futurum ut hæc Commitia omnia statuta abrogent, unde omnium calamitatum hujusce regni semina pullularunt: spero autem futurum ut delictorum veniam a summi Pontificis clementia obtineam." 9 Oct. Raynaldus, anno 1553, § 11. We are reading (see last note) Pole's translation of Mary's English letter. Pallavicino says that it was "una lettera amorevolissima e religiosissima scrittagli datta reina di sua propria mano." Conc. di Trent. xiii. 8. 3. this missive was received, the hesitation of the Pope had disappeared; and, about the end of September, Pole, armed with a triple legacy, to the Emperor, to the French King, to the Queen of England, had left his monastery, and proceeded with dignity to Trent. There he remained three weeks, enjoying the hospitality of the archbishop, keeping his secretaries busy, and filling the roads with couriers. He then went forward to Dillingen, intending to advance to Brussels, and appear in the Imperial court. But the aspect of things began to change at Dillingen: he received from the Emperor a peremptory message to come no further, but stay where he was or return to Italy:* and his ardour began to abate. "How stormy a sea have I to cross," he cried, "who have been hitherto on the mainland in the midst of friends! I must now traverse the towns of the Lutherans, places suspected of plague, or infected with it. If I shall override these obstacles, the Imperial court, at which I shall arrive, is a very gulf of that sea, and there a contrary wind is blowing. Then will come the opposition that I shall meet in England, if it should please God that I ever get there."+ From Mary also he received at the end of the month of October a very different letter from that which she had sent at the beginning. She now told him that the Parliament from which she had hoped so much had done less than she hoped that there was more difficulty about the authority of the Holy See than about the restoration of true religion that his coming as legate was so suspected and odious to her subjects that it must be deferred: promising however to do the best she could, and not to wear the title of supreme head, if she could any way avoid : * Pole to Pope Julius; account of the communication from the Emperor through Mendoza. Dillingen. Venet. Cal. p. 434. + Pole to the Pope, Dillingen, 21 Oct. Venet. Cal. p. 428. |