schismatic, whom he refused to recognise as King of England, whom he talked of deposing from all his realms, placed the Legate in difficulty. He hesitated to welcome in public the King, or to join in greeting him: and so, not it may be without the consent of his private inclination, he retreated before him. But at the same time, uneasy at appearing to slight his Majesty, and feeling how enormous the void in public ceremony that his absence made, he devised a characteristic mode of relieving himself. To the King he paid a secret visit in his chamber: to the Pope he wrote to say that he had paid a secret visit to the King, but not as Legate, as a private person. But the matter was not hidden from others than the Pope: and Pole earned the indignant contempt of the French King. He resumed also his favourite character of mediator, and wrote an eloquent expostulation to the high Pontiff. "Let the Vicar of Christ invite this King to peace," cried Pole, “let the example of concession be made by him who holds the place of father: then shall I see Satan hurled from his triumphal car, and the serpent bruised who has never for

* The Pope had already told Carne, the English ambassador at Rome, that he would not acknowledge him as coming from the King, but only from the Queen. Ib. 987.

"Even yesterday we had a letter from the Cardinal of England telling us that on the arrival of Philip in London he departed for his bishopric and he did well, for he could not in honour remain there. He says that he visited King Philip in his own name, as he could not do so in ours, seeing that he has no commission to that effect, as we on the contrary have revoked legations and recalled nuncios and all ministers of the Apostolic See in the realms of that individual, to deprive him of the means of doing injury to God and to us." So spoke the Pope to Navagero, the Venetian ambassador at Rome. Ven. Cal. 1039.

"His Majesty added that Cardinal Pole had sent to apologise to King Philip for not going to visit him, he being the Pope's enemy; and then one evening he went alone and in secret to the King's chamber, which seemed to his Most Christian Majesty an unbecoming act on the part of the said Cardinal." So wrote Soranzo the Venetian ambassador in France of a conversation held with the French King. Ven. Cal. 1015.

ages exulted more than in the discord between your Holiness and this King. Then shall the Most Christian, who is arming in your defence, convert his warlike succour into peaceful aid, and vie with his adversary whether of the two by conceding the more shall gain the truer honour in which glorious rivalry yet may I behold the palm of victory snatched from both by your Holiness, to the benefit of the whole Christian republic."*

The weight of this mediator was trembling in the balances of a pontiff who regarded no privileges but his own, to whom opposition on any matter appeared mere impiety, who had no scruple in the use of language. He had been of old an enemy to Pole, of whose weakness he may have had an instinctive perception : and one of Pole's most elaborate essays on his own career was drawn forth by the pain that he suffered under the hostile countenance of the Theatine Cardinal.† But it is not likely that the dauntless and arrogant nature of Paul, ever living in the present, was moved by past recollection. The Cardinal of England was to him his officer within the realm of the titular King of England, concerned with the English affairs, with which he felt dissatisfied. It was against the abdicated Emperor and his son, the house of Austria, and the Spanish nation that the rage of the aged hierarch was directed. "The accursed soul of Charles," he exclaimed, "never dreamed but of possessing the Papal States: he made many attempts, but failed, because God chooses His Church to have this temporal State: many tyrants have sought to occupy it and incurred such ruin that scarce a record of their name remains. Of the father it might be said *Poli Epist. v. 22, or Ven. Cal. 994.

I allude to the long letter of Pole to the Magister Sacri Palatii (Mezzorelli) in the time of Pope Julius III. when Paul was Cardinal of Naples, and was often called the Theatine Cardinal. Epist. iv. 91: comp. Philips, Pole, ii. 241.

that if he be in a manner a dead wasp, he has left his sting, which is his accursed son, who has the same designs."- "That accursed young fool," he exclaimed, "and that iniquitous father of his, would God they had never been born."- They did worse to this wretched city than the Goths and other devils," he exclaimed, "that other generation, the French, have overrun Italy, but have afterwards gone back etiam nobis tacentibus, and these provinces have been their grave: but these demons never let go till their hands are well hammered." * When he heard that Philip was in England, he remarked, "The English are not very easy to cook, and we cannot believe that they will remain under the dominion of the Spaniards: we will willingly separate the Queen's cause from that of her, we know not what to call him, of her husband or cousin or nephew: let her govern her kingdom, and do nothing to the detriment of our allies, especially the French; for we will spare none, but conclude all under our maledictions and anathemas, who shall desert the cause of God. Cardinal Pole has written that Philip would be reconciled to us, but this reconciliation fails because his heart is hardened: he will never be reformed till he has been well hammered on his head. God knows that we pray for quiet, which granted, we would close these eyes contented." He showed his vexation with English affairs in several ways. He omitted to invite Carne to his chapel throughout Easter, though his officers had intimated the chapel to him

* Ven. Cal. 924, 941, 948. These speeches are made to various ambassadors: the calendar is full of such all the ambassadors agree in their descriptions of the furious rages of the Pope. He was an extraordinary old man: but the excellent Soames makes him a menagery of evils, more than one character could contain. “He was vain, selfopinionated, tenacious, ostentatious, eager to advance his own kindred, lofty, impetuous, choleric, inflexibly severe, foolhardy, indiscreet, suspicious, and revengeful." Reform. iv. 577.

He neg

aforetime as regularly as to the cardinals.* lected in Consistory to expedite the filling of several English Sees, for which Pole had sent him recommendations and when Cardinal Morone, the Viceprotector of England, reminded him of it, he called the Queen of England the wife of a schismatic, who had promised to help her husband. When at length he conferred the sees, the Queen was named in the instrument but not the King, and the English ambassador was informed. that the Pope would never give him audience there as ambassador for the King but for the Queen.†

Suddenly, a month after Philip's return to England, he let fall a terrific stroke. Assembling his Consistory, he announced to the trembling cardinals that he was resolved to recall to Rome all his ecclesiastical ministers, ambassadors, nuncios, and collectors, from the King's realms, and to deprive Cardinal Pole in particular of the office of legate, that he might no longer intervene in England in any matter whatever as minister of the Apostolic See. The astonished Carne went round to the cardinals to enquire what might be the reason of that. "We neither know the cause nor can help it," said the cardinals.§ And Morone added, "he would

* Ven. Cal. p. 1038.

† Foreign Cal. p. 297. Poli Epist. v. p. 22.

Navagero to the Doge, April 10. He adds that not one of the Sacred College dared to speak, because His Holiness proposed it as a settled matter, not to be debated. Ven. Cal. 1008.

§ Carne wrote, April 10, to the King and Queen, giving this account of the Consistory, which was held the day before: the bishoprics which the Pope would not expedite were Chichester and Meath. For. Cal. 292. Lingard says, "There was no reason to suppose that Pole was included in this revocation" (v. 125). But both Navagero and Carne say that Pole was specially and particularly named and revoked and Pole himself says the same in his long subsequent letter to the Pope: see further on, p. 673. To the same effect Pallavicino says, "Il pontifice revocò il legato Polo e tutti gli altri nunzi e representatori della sedia apostolica ne' paesi di Carlo quinto e di Filippo secondo." xvi. 1, 8.

not suffer me to propose in consistory two other bishoprics that want his Bulls."* A week afterwards Carne wrote that the Pope had not yet published the decree, and talked of referring the matter to the Congregation of the Inquisition.

This outrage upon a man who had lost himself in the cause of the Papacy, was not met in England with dignity. To have said nothing until the decree should have been authentically notified: and thereupon to have withdrawn the English ambassador from Rome, might seem the proper course of public resentment. But King Philip warred on the Father of Christendom throughout with reluctant deference. He answered Paul's abuse with a respectful sigh. His captains sought absolution when they fired a volley; and prayed for forgiveness as they routed the Lutheran and Zwinglian mercenaries whom the Pope for his part hesitated not to take into his pay. As soon as the news of Pole's impending disgrace reached them through Carne, the King and Queen of England wrote to the Pontiff a joint letter filled with very humble expressions, imploring him not to deprive an unsettled reformation and an unconfirmed obedience of the necessary aid of the wisest and most proper person that could present the Apostolic See: the more so, in that they were informed that the revocation of legacy excepted not the ancient the innate legacy Canterbury. To the same effect another remonstrance was written in the name of the Parliament, although there was no parliament in session to write it, containing the same lament, that it was believed that not only Pole's occasional legatine power, but the innate legatine prerog

* Carne to the King and Queen, April 17, May 2, May 8, May 15. For. Cal. 295, 302, 304, 306. Comp. Ven. Cal. 1091, 1092. The last of these letters of Carne's, that of May 15, may be read in Burnet, Coll. Pt. II. Bk. ii. No. 35. (Vol. v. 485 of Pocock's Edn.)