“The Emperor,” wrote the resident Pate, “when I declared my commission, gave me good air, with one gesture and countenance throughout, saving that suddenly, as I touched the pith of the matter, thereupon he steadfastly cast his eye upon me a pretty while, and then interrupting me, demanded what the causes were of the doubts concerning the marriage with the daughter of Cleves.” Pate was not commissioned to enter into details; and Charles, at the end, contented himself with sending his hearty recommendations, and expressing his confidence that, as the king was wise, so he was sure he would do nothing “which should not be to the discharge of his conscience and the tranquillity of his realm.”[611] In confidence, a few days later, he avowed a hope that all would now go well in England; the enormities of the past had been due to the pernicious influence of Cromwell; or were “beside the king’s pleasure or knowledge, being a prince,” the Emperor said, “no less godly brought up than endued and imbued with so many virtuous qualities as whom all blasts and storms could never alter nor move, but as vice might alter true virtue.”[612] On the whole, the impression left by the affair on the Continent was that Henry “had lost the hearts of the German princes, but had gained the Emperor instead.”[613] Both the loss and the gain were alike welcome to the English conservatives. The latter, happy in their victory, and now freed from all impediments, had only to follow up their advantage.
On the 12th of July the persecuting bill was passed, and the Tithe Bill also, after having been recast by the Commons.[614] On the 16th the Six Articles Bill was moderated, in favour not of heresy, but of the more venial offence of incontinency. Married clergy and incontinent priests by the Six Articles Bill were, on the first offence, to forfeit their benefices; if they persisted they were to be treated as felons. The King’s Highness, graciously considering “that the punishment of death was very sore, and too much extreme,” was contented to relax the penalty into three gradations. For the first offence the punishment was to be forfeiture of all benefices but one; for the second, forfeiture of the one remaining; for the third, imprisonment for life.[615] A few days later the extension given to the prerogative, by the Act of Proclamations, was again shortened by communicating to the clergy a share of the powers which had been granted absolutely to the crown; and the parliament at the same time restored into the hands of the spiritualty the control of religious opinion. The Protestants had shifted their ground from purgatory and masses to free-will and justification; and had thus defied the bishops, and left the law behind them. The king’s proclamations had failed through general neglect. A committee of religion was now constituted, composed of the archbishops, bishops, and other learned doctors of divinity; and an act, which passed three readings in the House of Lords in a single day, conferred on this body a power to declare absolutely, under the king’s sanction, the judgment of the English Church on all questions of theology which might be raised, either at home or on the Continent, and to compel submission to their decrees, under such pains and penalties as they might think proper to impose, limited only by the common law and by the restrictions attached to the Act of Proclamations.[616]
One important matter remained. This statute conferred no powers of life and death; and there were certain chosen champions of Protestantism who had resisted authority, had scoffed at recantation, and had insulted the Bishop of Winchester. Although a penal measure could not be extended to comprehend their doctrine by special definition, an omnipotent parliament might, by a stretch of authority, vindicate the bishop’s dignity, and make a conspicuous example of the offenders. A case of high treason was before the Houses. At the time when the invasion was impending, a party of conspirators, Sir Gregory Botolph, Clement Philpot, and three others, had contrived a project to betray Calais either to the French or the Spaniards. The plot had been betrayed by a confederate;[617] and the Anglo-Catholics did not intend to repeat the blunder of showing a leaning towards the Romanists, which had wrecked their fortunes in the preceding summer: they sentenced the offenders to death by an attainder; and after so satisfactory a display of loyalty, the friends of the bishops added three more names to the list in the following words:[618] “And whereas Robert Barnes, late of London, clerk, Thomas Garret, late of London, clerk, and William Jerome, late of Stepney, in the county of Middlesex, clerk, being detestable and abominable heretics, and amongst themselves agreed and confederated to set and sow common sedition and variance amongst the king’s true and loving subjects within this his realm, not fearing their most bounden duty to God nor yet their allegiance towards his Majesty, have openly preached, taught, set forth, and delivered in divers and sundry places of this realm, a great number of heresies, false, erroneous opinions, doctrines, and sayings; and thinking themselves to be men of learning, have taken upon them most seditiously and heretically to open and declare divers and many texts of Scripture, expounding and applying the same to many perverse and heretical senses, understandings, and purposes, to the intent to induce and lead his Majesty’s said subjects to diffidence and refusal of the true, sincere faith and belief which Christian men ought to have in Christian religion, the number whereof were too long here to be rehearsed.... Be it, therefore, enacted that the said persons Robert Barnes, Thomas Garret, and William Jerome, shall be convicted and attainted of heresy, and that they and every of them shall be deemed and adjudged abominable and detestable heretics, and shall have and suffer pains of death by burning or otherwise, as shall please the King’s Majesty.”
This was the last measure of consequence in the session. Three days after it closed. On the 24th the king came down to Westminster in person, to thank the parliament for the subsidy. The Speaker of the House of Commons congratulated the country on their sovereign. The chancellor replied, in his Majesty’s name, that his only study was for the welfare of his subjects; his only ambition was to govern them by the rule of the Divine law, and the Divine love, to the salvation of their souls and bodies. The bills which had been passed were then presented for the royal assent; and the chancellor, after briefly exhorting the members of both houses to show the same diligence in securing the due execution of these measures as they had displayed in enacting them, declared the parliament dissolved.[619]
The curtain now rises on the closing act of the Cromwell tragedy. In the condemned cells in the Tower, the three Catholics for whose sentence he was himself answerable—the three Protestants whom his fall had left exposed to their enemies—were the companions of the broken minister; and there for six weeks he himself, the central figure, whose will had made many women childless, had sat waiting his own unpitied doom. Twice the king had sent to him “honourable persons, to receive such explanations as he could offer. He had been patiently and elaborately heard.”[620] Twice he had himself written,—once, by Henry’s desire, an account of the Anne of Cleves marriage,—once a letter, which his faithful friend Sir Ralph Sadler carried to Henry for him; and this last the king caused the bearer three times to read over, and “seemed to be moved therewith.”[621] Yet what had Cromwell to say? That he had done his best in the interest of the commonwealth? But his best was better than the laws of the commonwealth. He had endeavoured faithfully to serve the king; but he had endeavoured also to serve One higher than the king. He had thrown himself in the breach against king and people where they were wrong. He had used the authority with which he had been so largely trusted to thwart the parliament and suspend statutes of the realm. He might plead his services; but what would his services avail him! An offence in the king’s eyes was ever proportioned to the rank, the intellect, the character of the offender. The via media Anglicana, on which Henry had planted his foot, prescribed an even justice; and as Cromwell, in this name of the via media, had struck down without mercy the adherents of the Church of Rome, there was no alternative but to surrender him to the same equitable rule, or to declare to the world and to himself that he no longer held that middle place which he so vehemently claimed. To sustain the Six Articles and to pardon the vicegerent was impossible. If the consent to the attainder cost the king any pang, we do not know; only this we know, that a passionate appeal for mercy, such as was rarely heard in those days of haughty endurance, found no response; and on the 28th of July the most despotic minister who had ever governed England passed from the Tower to the scaffold.
A speech was printed by authority, and circulated through Europe, which it was thought desirable that he should have been supposed to have uttered before his death. It was accepted as authentic by Hall, and from Hall’s pages has been transferred into English history; and “the Lord Cromwell” is represented to have confessed that he had been seduced into heresy, that he repented, and died in the faith of the holy Catholic Church. Reginald Pole, who, like others, at first accepted the official report as genuine, warned a correspondent, on the authority of persons whose account might be relied upon, that the words which were really spoken were very different, and to Catholic minds were far less satisfactory.[622] The last effort of Cromwell’s enemies was to send him out of the world with a lie upon his lips, to call in his dying witness in favour of falsehoods which he gave up his life to overthrow. Clear he was not, as what living man was clear? of all taint of superstition; but a fairer version of his parting faith will be found in words which those who loved him, and who preserved no record of his address to the people, handed down as his last prayer to the Saviour:—
“O Lord Jesu, which art the only health of all men living, and the everlasting life of them which die in Thee, I, wretched sinner, do submit myself wholly to thy most blessed will; and, being sure that the thing cannot perish which is submitted to thy mercy, willingly now I leave this frail and wicked flesh, in sure hope that Thou wilt in better wise restore it to me again at the last day in the resurrection of the just. I beseech Thee, most merciful Lord Jesu Christ, that Thou wilt by thy grace make strong my soul against all temptation, and defend me with the buckler of thy mercy against all the assaults of the devil. I see and acknowledge that there is in myself no hope of salvation; but all my confidence, hope, and trust is in thy most merciful goodness. I have no merits nor good works which I may allege before Thee: of sin and evil works, alas! I see a great heap. But yet, through thy mercy, I trust to be in the number of them to whom Thou wilt not impute their sins, but wilt take and accept me for righteous and just, and to be the inheritor of everlasting life. Thou, merciful Lord, wast born for my sake; Thou didst suffer both hunger and thirst for my sake; all thy holy actions and works Thou wroughtest for my sake; Thou sufferedst both grievous pains and torments for my sake; finally, Thou gavest thy most precious body and blood to be shed on the cross for my sake. Now, most merciful Saviour, let all these things profit me that Thou hast freely done for me, which hast given Thyself also for me. Let thy blood cleanse and wash away the spots and foulness of my sins. Let thy righteousness hide and cover my unrighteousness. Let the merits of thy passion and bloodshedding be satisfaction for my sins. Give me, Lord, thy grace, that the faith in my salvation in thy blood waver not, but may ever be firm and constant; that the hope of thy mercy and life everlasting never decay in me; that love wax not cold in me; finally, that the weakness of my flesh be not overcome with fear of death. Grant me, merciful Saviour, that when death hath shut up the eyes of my body, yet the eyes of my soul may still behold and look upon Thee; and when death hath taken away the use of my tongue, yet my heart may cry and say unto Thee, Lord, into thy hands I commend my soul. Lord Jesu, receive my spirit. Amen.”[623]
With these words upon his lips perished a statesman whose character will for ever remain a problem.[624] For eight years his influence had been supreme with the king—supreme in parliament—supreme in convocation; the nation, in the ferment of revolution, was absolutely controlled by him; and he has left the print of his individual genius stamped indelibly, while the metal was at white heat, into the constitution of the country. Wave after wave has rolled over his work. Romanism flowed back over it under Mary. Puritanism, under another even grander Cromwell, overwhelmed it. But Romanism ebbed again, and Puritanism is dead, and the polity of the Church of England remains as it was left by its creator.
And not in the Church only, but in all departments of the public service, Cromwell was the sovereign guide. In the Foreign Office and the Home Office, in Star Chamber and at council table, in dockyard and law court, Cromwell’s intellect presided—Cromwell’s hand executed. His gigantic correspondence remains to witness for his varied energy. Whether it was an ambassador or a commissioner of sewers, a warden of a company or a tradesman who was injured by the guild, a bishop or a heretic, a justice of the peace, or a serf crying for emancipation, Cromwell was the universal authority to whom all officials looked for instruction, and all sufferers looked for redress. Hated by all those who had grown old in an earlier system—by the wealthy, whose interests were touched by his reforms—by the superstitious, whose prejudices he wounded—he was the defender of the weak, the defender of the poor, defender of the “fatherless and forsaken”; and for his work, the long maintenance of it has borne witness that it was good—that he did the thing which England’s true interests required to be done.
Of the manner in which that work was done it is less easy to speak. Fierce laws fiercely executed—an unflinching resolution which neither danger could daunt nor saintly virtue move to mercy—a long list of solemn tragedies—weigh upon his memory. He had taken upon himself a task beyond the ordinary strength of man. His difficulties could be overcome only by inflexible persistence in the course which he had marked out for himself and for the state; and he supported his weakness by a determination which imitated the unbending fixity of a law of nature. He pursued an object the excellence of which, as his mind saw it, transcended all other considerations—the freedom of England and the destruction of idolatry: and those who from any motive, noble or base, pious or impious, crossed his path, he crushed, and passed on over their bodies.
Whether the same end could have been attained by gentler methods is a question which many persons suppose they can easily answer in the affirmative. Some diffidence of judgment, however, ought to be taught by the recollection that the same end was purchased in every other country which had the happiness to attain to it at all, only by years of bloodshed, a single day or week of which caused larger human misery than the whole period of the administration of Cromwell. Be this as it will, his aim was noble. For his actions he paid with his life; and he followed his victims by the same road which they had trodden before him, to the high tribunal, where it may be that great natures who on earth have lived in mortal enmity may learn at last to understand each other.
Two days after, Barnes, Garret, and Jerome died bravely at the stake, their weakness and want of wisdom all atoned for, and serving their Great Master in their deaths better than they had served Him in their lives. With them perished, not as heretics, but as traitors, the three Romanizing priests. The united executions were designed as an evidence of the even hand of the council. The execution of traitors was not to imply an indulgence of heresy; the punishment of heretics should give no hope to those who were disloyal to their king and country. But scenes of such a kind were not repeated. The effect was to shock, not to edify.[625] The narrow theory could be carried out to both its cruel extremes only where a special purpose was working upon passions specially excited.
END OF VOL. III.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] He told Sir Gregory Cassalis that he had been compelled by external pressure to issue threats, “quæ tamen nunquam in animo habuit ad exitum perducere.”—Sir Gregory Cassalis to Henry VIII.: MS. Cotton. Vitellius, B 14, fol. 215.
[2] Richard Ebbes to Cromwell: MS. Cotton. Vespasian, B 7, fol. 87.
[3] “There be here both Englishmen and Irishmen many that doth daily invent slander to the realm of England, with as many naughty Popish practices as they can and may do, and specially Irishmen.”—Ibid.
[4] “L’Empéreur a deux fois qu’il avoit parlè audit Evesque luy avoit faict un discours long et plein de grande passion de la cruelle guerre qu’il entendoit faire contre le dit Roy d’Angleterre, au cas qu’il ne reprinst et restituast en ses honneurs la Reyne Catherine sa tante, et luy avoit declarè les moyens qu’il avoit executer vivement icelle guerre, et principalement au moyen de la bonne intelligence ce qu’il disoit avoir avec le Roy d’Ecosse.” Martin du Bellay: Memoirs, p. 110.
[5] Reginald Pole states that the issue was only prevented by the news of Queen Catherine’s death.—Pole to Prioli: Epistles, Vol. I. p. 442.
[6] Sleidan.
[7] Du Bellay’s Memoirs, p. 135.
[8] “The Turks do not compel others to adopt their belief. He who does not attack their religion may profess among them what religion he will; he is safe. But where this pestilent seed is sown, those who do not accept, and those who openly oppose, are in equal peril.”—Reginald Pole: De Unitate Ecclesiæ. For the arch-enemy of England even the name of heretic was too good. “They err,” says the same writer elsewhere, “who call the King of England heretic or schismatic. He has no claims to name so honourable. The heretic and schismatic acknowledge the power and providence of God. He takes God utterly away.”—Apology to Charles the Fifth.
[9] “Sire, je pense que vous avez entendu du supplication que le Roy fit, estant la present luy même allant en ordre apres les reliques me teste portant ung torche en son mayn avecques ses filz, ses evesques, et cardinaulz devant luy, et les ducs, contes, seigneurs, seneschals, esquieres, et aultres nobles gens apres luy; et la Reyne portée par deux hommes avecques la fille du Roy et ses propres. Apres touts les grosses dames et demoiselles suivants a pié. Quant tout ceci fit fayt on brûlait vi. a ung feu. Et le Roy pour sa part remercioit Dieu qu’il avoit donne cognoissance de si grand mal le priant de pardon qu’il avoit pardonne a ung ou deux le en passé; et qu’il na pas este plus diligente en faysant execution; et fit apres serment que dicy en avant il les brulerait tous tous tant qu’il en trouveroit.”—Andrew Baynton to Henry VIII.: MS. State Paper Office, temp. Henry VIII., second series, Vol. IV.
[10] “The Duke of Orleans is married to the niece of Clement the Seventh If I give him Milan, and he be dependent only on his father, he will be altogether French ... he will be detached wholly from the confederacy of the Empire.”—Speech of Charles the Fifth in the Consistory at Rome. State Papers, Vol. VII. p. 641.
[11] Charles certainly did give a promise, and the date of it is fixed for the middle of the winter of 1535-36 by the protest of the French court, when it was subsequently withdrawn. “Your Majesty,” Count de Vigny said, on the 18th of April, 1536, “promised a few months ago that you would give Milan to the Duke of Orleans, and not to his brother the Duke of Angoulesme”—Ibid.: State Papers, Vol. VII.
[12] “Bien estoit d’advis quant au faict d’Angleterre, afin qu’il eust plus de couleur de presser le Roy dudit pays a se condescendre a l’opinion universelle des Chrêtiens, que l’Empereur fist que notre Sainct Pere sommast de ce faire tous les princes et potentats Chrêtiens; et a luy assister, et donner main forte pour faire obeir le dit Roy à la sentence et determination de l’Eglise.”—Du Bellay: Memoirs, p. 136.
[13] Du Bellay: Memoirs. “Hic palam obloquuntur de morte illius ac verentur de Puellâ regiâ ne brevi sequatur.”—“I assure you men speak here tragice of these matters which is not to be touched by letters.”—Harval to Starkey, from Venice, Feb. 5, 1535-36: Ellis, second series, Vol. II.
[14] Pole to Prioli: Epist., Vol. I. p. 442.
[15] “There hath been means made unto us by the Bishop of Rome himself for a reconciliation.”—Henry VIII. to Pace: Burnet’s Collectanea, p. 476.
[16] Henry VIII. to Pace: Burnet’s Collectanea, p. 476. Lord Herbert, p. 196. Du Bellay’s Memoirs.
[17] Du Bellay.
[18] Henry VIII. to Pace: Burnet’s Collectanea, p. 476.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Pole to Prioli, March, 1536; Epist. Reg. Poli, Vol. I.
[21] Sir Gregory Cassalis to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. VII. p. 641.
[22] An interesting account of these speeches and of the proceedings in the consistory is printed in the State Papers, Vol. VII. p. 646. It was probably furnished by Sir Gregory Cassalis.
[23] Sir Gregory Cassalis to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. VII.
[24] “Omnes qui sollerti judicio ista pensitare solent, ita statuunt aliquid proditionis in Galliâ esse paratum non dissimile Ducis Borboniæ proditioni. Non enim aliud vident quod Caæsarem illuc trahere posset.”—Sir Gregory Cassalis to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. VII.
[25] See Cassalis’s Correspondence with Cromwell in May, 1536: State Papers, Vol VII.
[26] The clearest account which I have seen of the point in dispute between Charles V. and Francis I. is contained in a paper drawn by some English statesman apparently for Henry’s use.—Rolls House MSS. first series, No. 757.
[27] When the English army was in the Netherlands, in 1543, the Emperor especially admired the disposition of their entrenchments. Sir John Wallop, the commander-in-chief, told him he had learnt that art some years before in a campaign, of which the Emperor himself must remember something, in the south of France.
[28] Pole, in writing to Charles V., says that Henry’s cruelties to the Romanists had been attributed wholly to the “Leæna” at his side; and “when he had shed the blood of her whom he had fed with the blood of others,” every one expected that he would have recovered his senses.—Poli Apologia ad Carolum Quintum.
[29] “The news, which some days past were divulged of the queen’s case, made a great tragedy, which was celebrated by all men’s voices with admiration and great infamy to that woman to have betrayed that noble prince after such a manner, who had exalted her so high, and put himself to peril not without perturbation of all the world for her cause. But God showed Himself a rightful judge to discover such treason and iniquity. All is for the best. And I reckon this to the king’s great fortune, that God would give him grace to see and touch with his hand what great enemies and traitors he lived withal.”—Harvel to Starkey, from Venice, May 26: Ellis, second series, Vol. II. p. 77.
[30] Pole to Contarini: Epist., Vol. I. p. 457.
[31] “Dicerem in ipso me adeo bonum animum reperisse ut procul dubio vestra Majestas omnia de ipso sibi polliceri possit.”—Sir Gregory Cassalis to Henry VIII.: MS. Cotton. Vitellius, B 14, fol. 215.
[32] Neque ea cupiditate laborare ut suas fortunas in immensum augeat aut Pontificales fines propaget unde accidere posset ut ab hâc . . . . institutâ ratione recederet.—Ibid. The MS. has been injured by fire—words and paragraphs are in places wanting. In the present passage it is not clear whether Paul was speaking of the Papal authority generally, or of the Pontifical states in France and Italy.
[33] Causâ vero matrimonii et in consistoriis et publice et privatim apud Clementem VII. se omnia quæ [potuerit pro] vestrâ Majestate egisse; et Bononiæ Imperatori per [horas] quatuor accurate persuadere conatum fuisse.—Sir Gregory Cassalis to Henry VIII.: MS. Cotton. Vitellius, B 14, fol. 215.
[34] Ibid.
[35] State Papers, Vol. VII., June 5, 1536.
[36] Since Pole, when it suited his convenience, could represent the king’s early career in very different colours, it is well to quote some specimens of his more favourable testimony. Addressing Henry himself, he says: “Quid non promittebant præclaræ illæ virtutes quæ primis annis principatûs tui in te maxime elucebant. In quibus primum pietas quæ una omnium aliarum, et totius humanæ felicitatis quasi fundamentum est se proferebat. Cui adjunctæ erant quæ maxime in oculis hominum elucere solent justitia clementia liberalitas, prudentia denique tanta quanta in illâ tenerâ ætate esse potuit. Ut dixit Ezechiel de Rege Assyriorum, in paradiso Dei cedrus te pulcrior non inveniebatur.”—De Unitate Ecclesiæ, lib. 3.
Again, writing to Charles V., after speaking of the golden splendour of Henry’s early reign, his wealth, his moderation, the happiness of the people, and the circle of illustrious men who surrounded his throne, he goes on—
“Hi vero illam indolem sequebantur quam Regi Deus ipsi prius dederat cujus exemplar in Rege suo viderunt. Fuit enim indoles ejus aliquando prorsus regia. Summum in eo pietatis studium apparebat et religionis cultus; magnus amor justitiæ; non abhorrens tamen natura ut tum quidem videbatur a clementiâ.”
And the time at which the supposed change took place is also marked distinctly:—
“Satanas in carne adhuc manentem naturâ hominis jam videtur spoliasse . . . . suâ induisse . . . in quâ nihil præter formam videtur reliquisse quod sit hominis; . . . . ne vitia quidem . . . sed cum omni virtute et donis illis Dei cœlestibus quibus cum optimis Regum comparari poterat antequam in vicariatum Filii ejus se ingereret [præditus est] postquam illum honorem impie ambivit et arripuit, non solum virtutibus omnibus privatus est sed etiam,” etc.—Poli Apologia ad Carolum Quintum.
It was “necessary to the position” of Romanist writers to find the promise of evil in Henry’s early life, after his separation from the Papacy, and stories like those which we read in Sanders grew like mushrooms in the compost of hatred. But it is certain that so long as he was orthodox he was regarded as a model of a Catholic prince. Cardinal Contarini laments his fall, as a fall like Lucifer’s: “Quî fieri potuit per Deum immortalem,” he wrote to Pole, “ut animus ille tam mitis tam mansuetus ut ad bene merendum de hominum genere a naturâ factus esse videatur sit adeo immutatus.”—Epist. Reg. Poli, Vol. II. p. 31.
[37] Pole to Henry VIII.: Strype’s Memorials, Vol. II. p. 305.
[38] Pole to the English Council: Epist., Vol. I.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Said by Cranmer to have been an able paper: “He suadeth with such goodly eloquence; both of words and sentences, that he is like to persuade many.”—Cranmer’s Works, edit. Jenkyns Vol. I. p. 2.
[41] Phillips’ Life of Cardinal Pole.
[42] Strype’s Memorials, Vol. II. p. 281.
[43] “Quibus si rem persuadere velis multa preæter rem sunt dicenda multa insinuanda.”—Epist. Reg. Pol., Vol. I. p. 434. And again: “Illum librum scribo non tam Regis causâ quam gregis Christi qui est universus Regni populus, quem sic deludi vix ferendum est.”—Ibid. p. 437. I draw attention to these words, because in a subsequent defence of himself to the English Privy Council, Pole assured them that his book was a private letter privately sent to the king; that he had written as a confessor to a penitent, under the same obligations of secrecy: “Hoc genere dicendi Regem omnibus dedecorosum et probrosum reddo? Quibus tandem illustrissimi Domini? Hisne qui libellum nunquam viderunt? an his ad quos legendum dedi? Quod si hic solus sit Rex ipse, utinam ipse sibi probrosus videretur Ad eum certe solum misi; quocum ita egi ut nemo unquam a confessionibus illi secretior esse potuisset hoc tantum spectans quod confessores ut illi tantum sua peccata ostenderem.”—Apologia ad Ang. Parl.: Epist., Vol. I. p. 181. So considerable an inconsistency might tempt a hasty person to use hard words of Pole.
[44] Pole to Prioli: Epist., Vol. I. p. 441.
[45] Ibid. p. 442.
[46] Pole to Prioli: Epist., Vol. I. p. 445.
[47] Tunc statim misi cum ille e medio jam sustulisset illam quæ illi et regno totius hujus calamitatis causa existimabatur.—Apologia ad Carolum Quintum.