the measures which brought about a
severance between England and the Papacy; as Bishop of Winchester he had
written a famous tract "On True Obedience" in which the Papal supremacy
had been expressly repudiated; and to the end of Henry's days he had
been looked upon as the leading advocate of the system of a national and
independent Church. Nor had his attitude changed in Edward's reign. In
the process for his deprivation he avowed himself ready as ever to
maintain as well "the supremacy and supreme authority of the king's
majesty that now is as the abolishing of the usurped power of the Bishop
of Rome."

[Sidenote: The submission to Rome.]

But with the later changes of the Protectorate Gardiner had seen his
dream of a national yet orthodox Church vanish away. He had seen how
inevitably severance from Rome drew with it a connexion with the
Protestant Churches and a repudiation of Catholic belief. In the hours
of imprisonment his mind fell back on the old ecclesiastical order with
which the old spiritual order seemed inextricably entwined, and he was
ready now to submit to the Papacy as the one means of preserving the
faith to which he clung. His attitude was of the highest significance,
for Gardiner more than any one was a representative of the dominant
English opinion of his day. As the moderate party which had supported
the policy of Henry the Eighth saw its hopes disappear, it ranged
itself, like the Bishop, on the side of a unity which could now only be
brought about by reconciliation with Rome. The effort of the Protestants
in Wyatt's insurrection to regain their power and revive the system of
the Protectorate served only to give a fresh impulse to this drift of
conservative opinion. Mary therefore found little opposition to her
plans. The peers were won over by Philip through the pensions he
lavished among them, while pressure was unscrupulously used by the
Council to secure a compliant House of Commons. When the Parliament met
in November these measures were found to have been successful. The
attainder of Reginald Pole, who had been appointed by the Pope to
receive the submission of the realm, was reversed; and the Legate
entered London by the river with his cross gleaming from the prow of his
barge. He was solemnly welcomed in full Parliament. The two Houses
decided by a formal vote to return to the obedience of the Papal See; on
the assurance of Pole in the Pope's name that holders of Church lands
should not