par l'execution de plusieurs du royaulme, voir du
sang royal, pour s'asseurer et maintenir leur
royaulme, dont ils out acquis le renom de tyrans et
cruelz."--Ibid.]

To these dark hints Mary ever listened eagerly--meantime she was
harassed painfully from another quarter.

{p.065} Reginald Pole, as might have been expected from his
temperament, could ill endure the delay of his return to England. The
hesitation of the queen and the objections of the emperor were
grounded upon arguments which he assured himself were fallacious; the
English nation, he continued to insist, were devoted to the Holy See;
so far from being himself unpopular, the _Cornish_ in the rebellion
under Edward had petitioned for his recall, and had even designated
him by the forbidden name of cardinal; they loved him and they longed
for him; and, regarding himself as the chosen instrument of Providence
to repair the iniquities of Henry VIII., he held the obstructions to
his return not only to be mistaken, but to be impious. The duty of the
returning prodigal was to submit; to lay aside all earthly
considerations--to obey God, God's vicegerent the pope, and himself
the pope's representative.

Mendoza had been sent by Charles to meet Pole on his way to Flanders,
and reason him into moderation. In return the legate wrote himself to
Charles's confessor, commanding him to explain to his master the sin
which he was committing. "The objection to his going to England," as
Pole understood, "was the supposed danger of an outbreak". Were the
truth as the emperor feared, the queen's first duty would be,
nevertheless, to God, her own soul, and the souls of the millions of
her subjects who were perishing in separation from the church; for no
worldly policy or carnal respect ought she to defer for a moment to
apply a remedy to so monstrous a calamity.[150] But the danger was
imaginary--or, rather, such danger as there was, arose from the
opposite cause. The right of the queen to the throne did not rest on
an act of parliament; it rested on her birth as the lawful child of
the lawful marriage between Henry and Catherine of Arragon.
Parliament, he was informed, would affirm the marriage legitimate, if
nothing was said about the pope; but, unless the pope's authority was
first recognised, parliament would only stultify itself; the papal
dispensation alone made valid a connection which, if the pope had no
pow