V., who, either entertaining
some jealousy of the influence of Pole with the queen, or at least
judging it fit to secure the great point of his son's marriage before
the patience of the people of England should be proved by the arrival of
a papal legate, had impeded the journey of the cardinal by a detention
of several weeks in his court at Brussels. But no sooner was Philip in
secure possession of his bride, than Pole was suffered to proceed on his
mission. The parliament, which met early in November 1554, reversed the
attainder which had laid him under sentence of death, and on the 24th of
the same month he was received at court with great solemnity, and with
every demonstration of affection on the part of his royal cousin.

From this period the cause of popery proceeded triumphantly: a reign of
terror commenced; and the government gained fresh strength and courage
by every exertion of the tyrannic power which it had assumed. After the
married clergy had been reduced to give up either their wives or their
benefices, and the protestant bishops deprived, and many of them
imprisoned, without exciting any popular commotion in their behalf, the
court became emboldened to propose in parliament a solemn reconciliation
of the country to the papal see. A house of commons more obsequious than
the former acceded to the motion, and on November 29th the legate
formally absolved the nation from all ecclesiastical censures, and
readmitted it within the pale of the church.

The ancient statutes against heretics were next revived; and the violent
counsels of Gardiner proving more acceptable to the queen than the
milder ones of Pole, a furious persecution was immediately set on foot.
Bishops Hooper and Rogers were the first victims; Saunders and Taylor,
two eminent divines, succeeded; upon all of whom Gardiner pronounced
sentence in person; after which he resigned to Bonner, his more brutal
but not more merciless colleague, the inglorious task of dragging forth
to punishment the heretics of inferior note and humbler station. In the
midst however of his barbarous proceedings, of which London was the
principal theatre, the bench of bishops thought proper in solemn
assembly to declare that they had no part in such severities; and
Philip, who shrank from the odium of the very deeds most grateful to his
savage soul, caused a Spanish friar his confessor to preach before him
in praise of toleration, and to show that Christians could bring no