isimo conferiscono
dell'intrinseco oltra certi frati Theologi suoi predicatori huomini
certo di stima, et anco altri che ogni di trattano con lui, che nelle
cose della conscientia non desiderano ne piu pia, ne miglior
intentione." Relatione di Gio. Micheli, MS.

[118] Ibid.

[119] Ibid.

Mason, the English minister at the imperial court, who had had much
intercourse with Pole, speaks of him in terms of unqualified admiration.
"Such a one as, for his wisdom, joined with learning, virtue, and
godliness, all the world seeketh and adoreth. In whom it is to be
thought that God hath chosen a special place of habitation. Such is his
conversation adorned with infinite godly qualities, above the ordinary
sort of men. And whosoever within the realm liketh him worst, I would he
might have with him the talk of one half-hour. It were a right stony
heart that in a small time he could not soften." Letter of Sir John
Mason to the Queen, MS.

[120] If we are to credit Cabrera, Philip not only took his seat in
parliament, but on one occasion, the better to conciliate the good-will
of the legislature to the legate, delivered a speech which the historian
gives _in extenso_. If he ever made the speech, it could have been
understood only by a miracle. For Philip could not speak English, and of
his audience not one in a hundred, probably, could understand Spanish.
But to the Castilian historian the occasion might seem worthy of a
miracle,--_dignus vindice nodus._

[121] "Obraron de suerte Don Felipe con prudencia, agrado, honras, y
mercedes, y su familia con la cortesia natural de Espana, que se reduxo
Inglaterra toda a la obediencia de la Iglesia Catolica Romana, y se
abjuraron los errores y heregias que corrian en aquel Reyno," says
Vanderhammen, Felipe el Prudente, p. 4.

[122] Strype, Memorials, vol. III. p. 209.

[123] Philip, in a letter to the Regent Joanna, dated Brussels, 1557,
seems to claim for himself the merit of having extirpated heresy in
England by the destruction of the heretics. "Aviendo apartado deste
Reyno las sectas, i reduzidole a la obediencia de la Inglesia, i aviendo
ido sempre en acrecentamiento con el castigo de los Ereges tan sin
contradiciones como se haze en Inglaterra." (Cabrera, Filipe Segundo,
lib. II. cap. 6.) The emperor, in a letter from Yuste, indorses this
claim of his son to the full extent. "Pues en Ynglaterra se han hecho y
hacen tantas y tan crudas justicias hasta obispos, por la orden que al