at the unhindered presence of Cardinal Farnese in
Germany, as a man of blood. The original purpose, therefore, was lost
beforehand. The Council did not tend to reconcile, but to confirm,
separation. It met in 1545, and ended in 1563, having been
interrupted by two long intervals. Questions of doctrine were
considered at the beginning, questions of reform chiefly at the end.
Pole, who was one of the presiding legates, proposed that they should
open the proceedings with a full confession of failings and of
repentance on the part of Rome. Then the others would follow. The
policy of his colleagues, on the contrary, was to postpone all inquiry
into internal defects, and to repel the Protestant aggression.
Therefore, the doctrines at issue were defined. Many things were
settled which had remained open, and no attempt was made to meet the
Protestant demand. Pole, who had hailed the compromise of Ratisbon,
spoke with the grace and moderation that were in his character. At
the next Conclave he was so near obtaining a majority of votes that
the cardinals bowed to him as they passed before his place, and Pole,
ignorant of the force at work against him, put on paper what he meant
to say by way of thanks. But Caraffa reminded them that he had spoken
as a Lutheran during the Council, and he replied that he had put the
argument for the sake of discussion only, that Protestants might not
say that they had been condemned undefended. The feud continued, and
when Pole was legate in England, Caraffa, who was then Pope, recalled
him in disgrace, appointing Peto as his successor; and he sent his
friend, Cardinal Morone, to the prison of the Inquisition. The effect
of these rigours was that Pole, whose friends in Italy were men
afterwards burnt by the Holy Office, sent poor people to the flames at
Canterbury when he knew that the reign of Mary was nearing its end;
and Morone, the colleague of Contarini at Ratisbon, and an admirer of
the "Benefizio," having been rescued from prison by the mob, who tore
it down at the death of Caraffa, wound up the Council, obedient to
orders from Rome, under his successor.

A more persuasive means of expressing opposition was money. When a
divine appeared at Trent, the legates, or Visconti, the agent of the
Cardinal nephew, decided whether he was to receive payment for his
prospective services. Even the Cardinal of Lorraine, the head of the
Gallican party, and one of the first men in Europe, gav