hearts of all. It is from that moment that we may trace the
bitter remembrance of the blood shed in the cause of Rome; which,
however partial and unjust it must seem to an historic observer, still
lies graven deep in the temper of the English people. But the Queen
struggled desperately on. She did what was possible to satisfy the
unyielding Pope. In the face of the Parliament's significant reluctance
even to restore the first-fruits to the Church, she refounded all she
could of the abbeys which had been suppressed. One of the greatest of
these, the Abbey of Westminster, was re-established before the close of
1556, and John Feckenham installed as its abbot. Such a step could
hardly fail to wake the old jealousy of any attempt to reclaim the
Church lands, and thus to alienate the nobles and gentry from the Queen.
They were soon to be alienated yet more by her breach of the solemn
covenant on which her marriage was based. Even the most reckless of her
counsellors felt the unwisdom of aiding Philip in his strife with
France. The accession of England to the vast dominion which the Emperor
had ceded to his son in 1555 all but realized the plans of Ferdinand the
Catholic for making the house of Austria master of Western Christendom.
France was its one effective foe; and the overthrow of France in the war
which was going on between the two powers would leave Philip without a
check. How keenly this was felt at the English council-board was seen in
the resistance which was made to Philip's effort to drag his new realm
into the war. Such an effort was in itself a crowning breach of faith,
for the king's marriage had been accompanied by a solemn pledge that
England should not be drawn into the strifes of Spain. But Philip knew
little of good faith when his interest was at stake. The English fleet
would give him the mastery of the seas, English soldiers would turn the
scale in Flanders, and at the opening of 1557 the king again crossed the
Channel and spent three months in pressing his cause on Mary and her
advisers.

[Sidenote: Loss of Calais.]

"He did more," says a Spanish writer of the time, "than any one would
have believed possible with that proud and indomitable nation." What he
was most aided by was provocation from France. A body of refugees who
had found shelter there landed in Yorkshire in the spring; and their
leader, Thomas Stafford, a grandson of the late Duke of Buckingham,
called the people to rise against the tyran