be as
unwilling to see a French king as it had once a Spanish one. And how
would it be, if a son sprung from the marriage, to inherit both the
French and the English throne? was England to be ruled by a viceroy?
What an opposition the world would raise to the union of these mighty
kingdoms, into what complications might it not lead! Scotland would
again attach itself to the French: the Netherlands and the German
princes would be alienated.

The members of the Privy Council, after they had weighed all these
considerations, at last pronounced themselves on the whole against it.
They recommended the continuance of the present system,--the support
of the Protestants, especially in France, a good understanding with
the King of Scotland, and the maintenance of religion and justice in
England: thus they would be a match for every threat of the King of
Spain.[242]

But that sovereign had one ally against whom these precautions could
not suffice, the Order of Jesuits and the seminaries of English
priests under its guidance.

Young exiles from England, who were studying in the Universities of
the Netherlands, to prevent the Catholic priesthood from perishing
among the English at home, had been already in Alva's time brought
together in a college at Douay, which was then removed to Rheims as
the revolt spread in the Netherlands. Pope Gregory XIII was not
content with supporting this institution by a monthly subsidy; he was
ambitious of imitating Gregory the Great and exercising a direct
influence on England: he founded in Rome itself a seminary for the
reconversion of that country. He made over for this purpose the old
English hospital which was also connected with the memory of Thomas
Becket. The first students however fell out with each other, and there
was seen in Rome the old antagonism of the 'Welsh' and the 'Saxons';
in the end the latter gained the upper hand, it was mainly their doing
that the institution was given over to the Jesuits. Not long after its
activity began. Each student on his reception was bound to devote his
powers to spreading the Catholic doctrines in England; by April 1580 a
company of thirteen priests was ready, after receiving the Pope's
blessing, to set out with this object. The chief among them were
Robert Parsons, who passed into England disguised as a soldier, and
Edmund Campion as a merchant. The first went to Gloucester and
Hereford, the other to Oxford and Northampton: they and the friends
w