grew fainter, schemes were talked of, and were
perhaps tried, for cutting the knot in a decisive
manner. In revolutionary times men feel that if
to-day is theirs, to-morrow may be their enemies';
and they are not particularly scrupulous. The
anxious words of Sussex did not refer to the merely
barring a prisoner's door.]

In this condition of the political atmosphere parliament assembled on
the 2nd of April. The Oxford scheme had been relinquished as
impracticable. The Lord Mayor informed the queen that he would not
answer for the peace of the city in the absence of the court; the
Tower might be surprised and the prisoners released; and to lose the
Tower would be to lose the crown. The queen said that she would not
leave London while her sister's fate was undetermined.[296] The Houses
met, therefore, as usual, as Westminster, and the speech from the
throne was read in Mary's presence by the chancellor.

[Footnote 296: Renard.]

Since the last parliament, Gardiner said, the people of England had
given proofs of unruly humour. The queen was their undoubted
sovereign, and a measure would be submitted to the Lords and Commons
to declare, in some emphatic manner, her claim to her subjects'
obedience.

Her majesty desiring, further, in compliance with her subjects'
wishes, to take a husband, she had fixed her choice on the Prince of
Spain, as a person agreeable to herself and likely to be a valuable
friend to the realm: the people, however, had insolently and
ignorantly presumed to mutiny against her intentions, and, in her
affection for the commonwealth, her majesty had consented to submit
the articles of the marriage to the approval of parliament.

{p.129} Again, her majesty would desire them to take into their
consideration the possible failure of the blood royal, and adopt
necessary precautions to secure an undisturbed succession to the
crown. It would be for the parliament to decide whether the privilege
which had been granted to Henry VIII. of bequeathing the crown by will
might not be, with propriety, extended to her present majesty.[297]

[Footnote 297: Noailles, vol. iii. p. 141.]

Finally, and at great length, the chancellor spoke of religion. The
late rebellion, he said, was properly a religious rebellion: it was
the work of men who despise