ose of another. Above all, they dreaded the fanaticism
of the Spaniards; and the gloomy spectre of the Inquisition moving in
their train made even the good Catholic shudder at the thought of the
miseries that might ensue from this ill-omened union.

It was not difficult for Noailles and the chancellor to communicate
their own distrust to the members of the parliament, then in session. A
petition to the queen was voted in the lower house, in which the commons
preferred an humble request that she would marry for the good of the
realm, but besought her, at the same time, not to go abroad for her
husband, but to select him among her own subjects.[75]

Mary's ministers did not understand her character so well as Charles the
Fifth did, when he cautioned his agent not openly to thwart her.
Opposition only fixed her more strongly in her original purpose. In a
private interview with Renard, she told him that she was apprised of
Gardiner's intrigues, and that Noailles, too, was _doing the impossible_
to prevent her union with Philip. "But I will be a match for them," she
added. Soon after, taking the ambassador, at midnight, into her oratory,
she knelt before the host, and, having repeated the hymn _Veni Creator_,
solemnly pledged herself to take no other man for her husband than the
prince of Spain.[76]

This proceeding took place on the thirtieth of October. On the
seventeenth of the month following, the commons waited on the queen at
her palace of Whitehall, to which she was confined by indisposition, and
presented their address. Mary, instead of replying by her chancellor, as
was usual, answered them in person. She told them, that from God she
held her crown, and that to him alone should she turn for counsel in a
matter so important;[77] she had not yet made up her mind to marry; but
since they considered it so necessary for the weal of the kingdom, she
would take it into consideration. It was a matter in which no one was so
much interested as herself. But they might be assured that, in her
choice, she would have regard to the happiness of her people, full as
much as to her own. The commons, who had rarely the courage to withstand
the frown of their Tudor princes, professed themselves contented with
this assurance; and, from this moment, opposition ceased from that
quarter.

Mary's arguments were reinforced by more conciliatory, but not less
efficacious persuasives, in the form of gold crowns, gold chains, and
other compl