place were in the minority, and but few dared to give open expression to adverse opinions. The tone of the people was reverent, and charged with deep emotion. Parliament met in the early dusk of a November afternoon at Whitehall. On a raised dais sat the king and queen, under a canopy of cloth of gold, with the cardinal on their right, his chair slightly in advance of the royal seat. Facing the distinguished three, crowding every inch of the great hall, were the nobles and the commons, with such spectators as had obtained permission to attend. When silence had been restored, Gardyner, now lord chancellor, at the bidding of their majesties, opened the proceedings. He read from a written paper, and his words were to the effect that England, represented by her Parliament, expressed her deep repentance for her past schism and disobedience, and implored the apostolic see to receive her again into the bosom and unity of Christ's Church. The perusal finished, all eyes were fixed upon Pole. The moment that he had so long prayed for in his cell, by the waters of the Lago di Guarda, had at last arrived; the end for which he had defied sickness and fatigue had been attained; the goal of his ambition had been reached; and before him stood the once proud, rebellious England, penitent and submissive, begging grace for her misdeeds. His heart was full, and his voice trembled as he spoke a few prefatory words from his chair. England, he said, should indeed be grateful to the Almighty for bringing her to the unity of the Church and to the obedience of the see apostolic. As in the days of the primitive Church, she had been the first to be called from heathenism to Christianity, so now she was the first of the Protestant peoples to whom grace had been granted to repent her of her past heresy. If heaven, he exclaimed, rejoiced over the conversion of one penitent sinner, how great must be the celestial joy over the conversion of an entire nation! Then he rose from his seat and lifted his right hand.

The moment of reconciliation had arrived; the whole au

dience fell on their knees and awaited in the stillest silence, broken only now and then by the smothered sob of an emotion that could not be controlled, the removal of the ban of excommunication. "Our Lord Jesus Christ," said the legate, in tones that filled every corner of the chamber, "who has, through his most precious blood, redeemed and washed us from all our sins and iniquities, that he might purchase unto himself a glorious spouse without spot or wrinkle, whom the Father has appointed head over all his Church; He by his mercy absolves you, and we, by apostolic authority given unto us by the Most Holy Lord Pope, Julius the Third, his vicegerent on earth, do absolve and deliver you, and every of you, with this whole realm and the dominions thereof, from all heresy and schism, and from all and every judgment, censure, and pain for that cause incurred. And we do restore you again into the unity of our mother, the Holy Church, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." His words ended, there rose up from the relieved, yet awestricken, congregation "a spontaneous and repeated shout of Amen, Amen." Their majesties now made a move, followed by their subjects, to the palace chapel, where the organ pealed forth the jubilant strains of the Te Deum.

England had sworn fealty to the pope; still, the object of the legate was twofold-to have the papal supremacy acknowledged, and to stamp out the heresies that had sprung up in the English Church. A kind and amiable man in private life, Pole was severity itself when the favorite tenet of his creed was concerned. He would use all his persuasive powers to convert the heretic from his errors; but if such a one persistently refused to turn toward the light, let him at once be put away and cast into outer darkness. In the memorable Marian persecutions Cardinal Pole took a leading part. His voice was ever in favor of mercy, provided there seemed a prospect of a recantation from the heretic; but when no such hope was held out, no judge was sterner or

more inflexible than the legate. Hard and intolerant as he was on these occasions, his conduct was but the logical result of a sincere belief in his creed. Outside the pale of the Catholic Church he thought there was no salvation; to bring all within the fold was, therefore, the object of every true son of the Church; those who created schisms and disseminated heresies were guilty of the most awful of all crimes the eternal destruction of immortal souls. To the man who destroyed the body the penalty of death was dealt out; was he who damned the soul to be more mercifully treated? In the eyes of Pole a heretic was the greatest enemy of God and man. "For be you assured," said he, when lecturing the citizens of London upon their sympathy with the Protestant martyrs, "there is no kind of men so pernicious to the commonwealth as these heretics be; there are no thieves, no murderers, no adulterers, nor no kind of treason to be compared to theirs, who, as it were, undermining the chief foundation of all commonwealths, which is religion, maketh an entry to all kinds of vices in the most heinous manner." The conduct of Pole, during the short period he held office in England, reveals the true nature of the creed of Rome where its actions are unfettered by the civil power. As a consistent Catholic, possessing the opportunity of enforcing his principles, the legate could not, and ought not to, have acted otherwise.

XXXIII.

CHARACTER AND POLICY OF ELIZABETH.-GREEN.

[The terrible persecution of Mary's reign, and her anti-national policy, led to a strong reaction against her. If she had lived longer, it is probable that she would have been hurled from the throne by a revolution. At her death the English people eagerly welcomed her successor. But the young queen was not inclined, at first, to play the role of a Protestant leader. She wished to become queen of the nation, and not of a party; and throughout her reign she followed public opinion rather than led it.]

QUEEN ELIZABETH.

amazing self-confidence.

To the world about her the temper of Elizabeth recalled, in its strange contrasts, the mixed blood within her veins. She was at once the daughter of Henry and of Anne Boleyn. From her father she inherited her frank and hearty address, her love of popularity and of free intercourse with the people, her dauntless courage, and her Her harsh, manlike voice, her impetuous will, her furious outbursts of anger, came to her with her Tudor blood. She rated great nobles as if they were school-boys; she met the insolence of Lord Essex with a box on the ear; she broke now and then into the gravest deliberations to swear at her ministers like a fish-wife. Strangely in contrast with these violent outlines of her father's temper stood the sensuous, self-indulgent nature she drew from Anne Boleyn. Splendor and pleasure were with Elizabeth the very air she breathed Her delight was to move in perpetual progresses from castle to castle through a series of gorgeous pageants, fanciful and extravagant as a caliph's dream. She loved gayety, and laughter, and wit. A happy retort or a finished compliment never failed to win her favor. She

hoarded jewels. Her dresses were innumerable. Her vanity remained, even to old age, the vanity of a coquette in her teens. No adulation was too fulsome for her, no flattery of her beauty too gross. She would play with her rings that her courtiers might note the delicacy of her hands; or dance a coranto that an embassador, hidden dexterously behind a curtain, might report her sprightliness to his master. Her levity, her frivolous laughter, her unwomanly jests, gave color to a thousand scandals. Her character, in fact, like her portraits, was utterly without shade. Of womanly reserve or self-restraint she knew nothing. No instinct of delicacy veiled the voluptuous temper which broke out in the romps of her girlhood, and showed itself almost ostentatiously through her later life. Personal beauty in a man was a sure passport to her liking. She patted handsome young squires on the neck when they knelt to kiss her hand, and fondled her "sweet Robin," Lord Leicester, in the face of the court.

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It was no wonder that the statesmen whom she outwitted held Elizabeth to be little more than a frivolous woman, or that Philip of Spain wondered how a wanton " could hold in check the policy of the Escurial. But the Elizabeth whom they saw was far from being all of Elizabeth. Wilfulness and triviality played over the surface of a nature hard as steel, a temper purely intellectual, the very type of reason untouched by imagination or passion. Luxurious and pleasure-loving as she seemed, the young queen lived simply and frugally, and she worked hard. Her vanity and caprice had no weight whatever with her in state affairs. The coquette of the presence-chamber became the coolest and hardest of politicians at the council-board Fresh from the flattery of her courtiers, she would tolerate no flattery in the closet; she was herself plain and downright of speech with her counselors, and she looked for a corresponding plainness of speech in return. The very hoice of her advisers, indeed, showed Elizabeth's ability. She