gon and Henry was repealed, she must then, as a bastard, be cut
off from her expectations. Had Elizabeth's prospects been liable to be
affected by the legitimisation of her sister, the queen would have
sued as vainly for it as she sued afterwards in favour of her husband.
With unmixed mortification Renard learnt that Elizabeth, in the eye of
the law, had been as illegitimate as Mary, and that her {p.069}
place in the order of succession rested on her father's will. He
flattered himself, at first, that Henry's dispositions could be set
aside;[159] but he very soon found that there was no present hope of
it.

[Footnote 159: Renard to Charles V., October 21:
_Rolls House MSS._]

These general features of the temper of parliament were elicited in
conversation in the first few days of the session. The Marchioness of
Exeter, during the same days, was released from her attainder,
Courtenay was restored in blood, and a law, similar to that with which
Somerset commenced his Protectorate, repealed all late treason acts,
restricted the definition of treason within the limits of the statute
of Edward III., and relieved the clergy of the recent extensions of
the Premunire. The queen gave her assent to these three measures on
the 21st of October; and there was then an interval of three days,
during which the bishops were consulted on the view taken by
parliament of the queen's legitimacy. Renard told the Bishop of
Norwich, Thirlby, that they must bend to the times, and leave the pope
to his fortunes. They acted on the ambassador's advice. An act was
passed, in which the marriage from which the queen was sprung, was
declared valid, and the pope's name was not mentioned; but the
essential point being secured, the framers of the statute were willing
to gratify their mistress by the intensity of the bitterness with
which the history of the divorce was related.[160] The bishops must
have been glad to escape from so mortifying a subject, and to apply
themselves to the more congenial subject of religion.

[Footnote 160: 1 Mary, cap. 1.]

As soon as the disposition of parliament had been generally
ascertained, the restoration of the mass was first formally submitted,
for the sake of decency, to the clergy of Convocation.

The bench had been purged of dangerous elements. The Lower House
contained a small fraction of Protestants just large enough to permit
a controversy, and to ins