et que tout ainsi que nous les avions faicts amys
avecques les Escossoys, ce marriage seroit aussy
cause que nous serions amys avecques
l'Empereur."--Noailles to the King of France,
December 26. Compare also the letter of December
23, _Ambassades_, vol. ii. pp. 334-356.]

Paget, however, was detested as an upstart, and detested still more as
a latitudinarian; he could form no party, and the queen made use of
him only to support her in her choice of the Prince of Spain, as in
turn she would use Gardiner to destroy the Protestants; and thus the
two great factions in the state neutralised each other's action in a
matter in which both were equally anxious; and Mary, although with no
remarkable capacity, without friends and ruined, if at any moment she
lost courage, was able to go her own way in spite of her subjects.

The uncertainty was, how long so anomalous a state of things would
continue. The marriage, being once decided on, Mary could think of
nothing else, and even religion sank into the second place. Reginald
Pole, chafing the imperial bridle between his lips, vexed her, so
Renard said, from day to day, with his untimely importunities;[183]
the restoration of the mass gave him no pleasure so long as the papal
legate was an exile; and in vain the queen laboured to draw from him
some kind of approval. He saw her only preferring carnal pleasures to
her duty to Heaven; and, indifferent himself to all interests save
those of the See of Rome, he was irritated with the emperor, irritated
with the worldly schemes to which he believed that his mission had
been sacrificed. He talked angrily of the marriage. The queen heard,
through Wotton the ambassador at Paris, that he had said openly, it
should never take place;[184] while Peto, the Greenwich friar, who was
in his train, wrote to her, reflecting impolitely on her age, and
adding Scripture commendations of celibacy as the more perfect
state.[185] It was even feared {p.081} that the impatient legate had
advised the pope to withhold the dispensations.

[Footnote 183: Renard to Charles V.: November 14,
November 28, December 3, December 8, December 11:
_Rolls House MSS._]

[Footnote 184: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House
MSS._ The queen wrote to Wotton to learn his