approaching House of Commons had been ascertained, she gained
the consent of the council, a week before the beginning of the
session, to send commissioners to Brussels to see Pole and inspect his
faculties. With a conclusive understanding on the central question,
they might tell him that the hope of his life might be realised, and
that he might return to his country. But the conditions were explicit.
He must bring adequate powers with him, or his coming would be worse
than fruitless. If those which he already possessed were insufficient,
he must send them to Rome to be enlarged;[380] and although the court
would receive him as legate _de latere_, he had better enter the
country only as a cardinal and ambassador, till he could judge of the
state of things for himself.[381] On these terms the commissioners
might conduct him to the queen's presence.

[Footnote 380: The greatest and only means to
procure the agreement of the noblemen and others of
our council was our promise that the Pope's
Holiness would, at our suit, dispense with all
possessors of any lands or goods of monasteries,
colleges, or other ecclesiastical houses, to hold
and enjoy their said lands and goods without any
trouble or scruple; without which promise it had
been impossible to have had their consent, and
shall be utterly impossible to have any fruit and
good concord ensue. For which purpose you shall
earnestly pray our said cousin to use all possible
diligence, and say that if he have not already, he
may so receive authority from the See Apostolic to
dispense in this manner as the same, being now in
good towardness, may so in this Parliament take the
desired effect; whereof we see no likelihood except
it may be therewithal provided for this matter of
the lands and goods of the Church.--Instructions to
Paget and Hastings, November 5; Tytler, vol. ii. p.
446.]

[Footnote 381: Tytler, vol. ii. p. 446.]

The bearers of this communication were Lord Paget and Sir {p.161}
Edward Hastings, accompanied, it is curious to observe, by Sir William
Cec