ould go well. That God would allow so noble and Christian a realm as
England to break away from Christendom and run the risk of perdition he
could not believe."

[Sidenote: Pius the Fourth.]

What was needed, Philip thought, was a change of policy in the Papacy.
The bigotry of Paul the Fourth had driven England from the obedience of
the Roman See. The gentler policy of Pius the Fourth might yet restore
her to it. Pius was as averse from any break with Elizabeth as Philip
was. He censured bitterly the harshness of his predecessor. The loss of
Scotland and the threatened loss of France he laid to the charge of the
wars which Paul had stirred up against Philip and which had opened a way
for the spread of Calvinism in both kingdoms. England, he held, could
have been easily preserved for Catholicism but for Paul's rejection of
the conciliatory efforts of Pole. When he ascended the Papal throne at
the end of 1559 indeed the accession of England to the Reformation
seemed complete. The royal supremacy was re-established: the Mass
abolished: the English Liturgy restored. A new episcopate, drawn from
the Calvinistic refugees, was being gathered round Matthew Parker. But
Pius would not despair. He saw no reason why England should not again be
Catholic. He knew that the bulk of its people clung to the older
religion, if they clung also to independence of the Papal jurisdiction
and to the secularization of the Abbey-lands. The Queen, as he believed,
had been ready for a compromise at her accession, and he was ready to
make terms with her now. In the spring of 1560 therefore he despatched
Parpaglia, a follower of Pole, to open negotiations with Elizabeth. The
moment which the Pope had chosen was a critical one for the Queen. She
was in the midst of the Scotch war, and her forces had just been
repulsed in an attempt to storm the walls of Leith. Such a repulse woke
fears of conspiracy among the Catholic nobles of the northern border,
and a refusal to receive the legate would have driven them to an open
rising. On the other hand the reception of Parpaglia would have
alienated the Protestants, shaken the trust of the Lords of the
Congregation in the Queen's support, and driven them to make terms with
Francis and Mary. In either case Scotland fell again under the rule of
France, and the throne of Elizabeth was placed in greater peril than
ever. So great was the Queen's embarrassment that she availed herself of
Cecil's absence in the nort