n {p.030} the course which she chose
to follow she believed that she could compel, and she would govern as
God should direct her. The emperor, she added, had written to her
about her marriage, not specifying any particular person, but desiring
her to think upon the subject. She had never desired to marry while
princess, nor did she desire it now; but if it were for the interests
of the church, she would do whatever he might advise."

[Footnote 70: She, perhaps, imagined that she was
not exceeding her statutable right in the refusal.
The 17th of the 28th of Henry VIII. empowered any
one of the heirs to the crown named in the king's
will, on arriving at the age of twenty-four, to
repeal laws passed not only in his or her own
minority; but under circumstances such as those
which had actually occurred, where the first heir
had died before coming of age. The 11th of the 1st
of Edward VI. modified the act of Henry, limiting
the power of repeal to the sovereign in whose own
reign the law to be repealed had been passed. But
this act of Edward's was, itself, passed in a
minority, and Mary might urge that she might repeal
that as well as any other statute passed in his
reign in virtue of the act of her father.]

On this last point Renard knew more of the emperor's intentions than
Mary, and was discreetly silent; on other point he used his influence
wisely. He constrained her, with Charles's arguments, to relinquish
her burial scheme. "Edward, as a heretic, should have a heretic
funeral at Westminster Abbey; she need not be present, and might
herself have a mass said for him in the Tower. As to removing to
London, in his opinion she had better go thither at once, take
possession of her throne, and send Northumberland to trial. Her
brother's body ought to be examined also, that it might be ascertained
whether he had been poisoned; and if poisoned, by whom and for what
purpose."[71]

[Footnote 71: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House
MSS._]

Mary rarely paused upon a resolution. Making up her mind that, as
Renard said, it would be better for her to go to London, she set out
thither the followin