the victim.

"When I was yet a lamb, I gave myself as a
sacrifice to the pontiff, who chose me for a
cardinal. Thus I thought of myself; thus I spoke
when I lay prostrate before the altar. Little did I
then think the time would come, when I should be
offered up by my father's hands a second time,
especially when the Bishop of Rochester was here
hanging as a ram among the briars ready to be
immolated," etc.--Pole to the Pope: _Epistolae_,
vol. v. p. 31.]

And again, though there was peace with the pope, there was still war
with France; there was still war with Scotland. The events which had
taken place in Scotland will be related hereafter. It is enough for
the present to say that the Scots had been true as usual to their old
allies; no sooner was an English army landed in France, than a Scotch
army was wasting and burning on the Border. A second force had to be
raised and kept in the field to meet them, and the scantily supplied
treasury was soon empty.

{p.293} Money had to be found somewhere. The harvest, happily, had
been at last abundant, and wheat had fallen from fifty shillings a
quarter to four or five. The country was in a condition to lend, and a
commission was sent out for a forced loan, calculated on the
assessment of the last subsidy. Lists of the owners of property in
each county were drawn out, with sums of money opposite to their
names, and the collectors were directed "to travail by all the best
ways they might for obtaining the sums noted." Persons found
conformable were to receive acknowledgments. Should "any be froward"
they were to find securities to appear when called on before the privy
council, or to be arrested on the spot and sent to London.[608] A
hundred and ten thousand pounds were collected under the commission,
in spite of outcry and resistance;[609] but it was not enough for the
hungry consumption of the war, and the court was driven to call a
parliament.

[Footnote 608: Commission for the Loan: _MS. Mary,
Domestic_, vol. xi.]

[Footnote 609: Ibid. vol. xii.]

The writs went out at the beginning of December, accompanied with the
usual circulars; to which the queen added a promise, that if the
mayors and sheriffs[610] would consult her wish