Et que sa Sainctete le fonde in
pietate Christiana et ecclesiastica quia, nunquam
Ecclesia claudit gremium, semper indulget exemplo
Salvatoris, et Evangelium semper consolatur, semper
remittit, et sur plusieurs aultres fondemens
generaulx.--Ibid. p. 326.]

Pole himself had found the emperor more gracious. Charles professed
the greatest anxiety that the papal authority should be restored. He
doubted only if the difficulties could be surmounted. Pole replied
that the obstacles were chiefly two--one respecting doctrine, on which
no concession could be made at all; the other respecting the lands, on
which his holiness would make every concession. He would ask for
nothing, he would exact nothing; he would abandon every shadow of a
claim.

If this was the case, the emperor said, all would go well.
Nevertheless, there was the reservation in the brief, and the pope,
however generous he might wish to be, was uncertain of his power. The
doctrine was of no consequence. People in England believed one
doctrine as little as another;[378] but they {p.160} hated Rome,
they hated the religious orders, they hated cardinals; and, as to the
lands, _could_ the church relinquish them?[379] Pole might believe
that she could; but the world would be more suspicious, or less easy
to convince. At all events, the dispensing powers must be clogged with
no reservations; nor could he come to any decision till he heard again
from England.

[Footnote 378: Perciocche quanto alla Doctrina
disse che poco se ne curavano questo tali non
credendo ne all' una ne all' altra via.--Pole to
the Pope, October 13: Burnet's _Collectanea_.]

[Footnote 379: Disse anche che essendo stati questi
beni dedicati a Dio non era da concedere cosi ogna
cosa a quelli che la tenevano.--Burnet's
_Collectanea_.]

The legate was almost hopeless; yet his time of triumph--such triumph
as it was--had nearly arrived. The queen's supposed pregnancy had
increased her influence; and, constant herself in the midst of general
indecision, she was able to carry her point. She would not mortify the
legate, who had suffered for his constancy to the cause of her mother,
with listening to Renard's personal objections; and when the character
of the