t work of
supernatural agency. Lords and Commons had received separately the
same proposition; they had discussed it, voted on it, and come to a
conclusion, each with closed doors, and the messengers of the two
Houses encountered each other on their way to communicate their
several decisions.[395] The chancellor arranged with Pole the forms
which should be {p.171} observed, and it was agreed that the Houses
should present a joint petition to the king and queen, acknowledging
their past misconduct, engaging to undo the anti-papal legislation,
and entreating their majesties, as undefiled with the offences which
tainted the body of the nation, to intercede for the removal of the
interdict. A committee of Lords and Commons sate to consider the words
in which the supplication should be expressed, and all preparations
were completed by the evening.

[Footnote 395: "Mentre la casa alta mandava a far
sapere la sua conclusione alla casa bassa, la casa
bassa mandava anch' ella per fare intendere il
medesimo alla casa alta, sicche i messi s'
incontrarono per via; segno evidentissimo che lo
Spirito di Dio lavorava in amendue i luoghi in un
tempo i di una medesima conformita."--Descriptio
Reductionis Angliae.]

And now St. Andrew's Day was come; a day, as was then hoped, which
would be remembered with awe and gratitude through all ages of English
history. Being the festival of the institution of the Order of the
Golden Fleece, high mass was sung in the morning in Westminster Abbey;
Philip, Alva, and Ruy Gomez attended in their robes, with six hundred
Spanish cavaliers. The Knights of the Garter were present in gorgeous
costume, and nave and transept were thronged with the blended chivalry
of England and Castile. It was two o'clock before the service was
concluded. Philip returned to the palace to dinner, and the brief
November afternoon was drawing in when the parliament reassembled at
the palace. At the upper end of the great hall a square platform had
now been raised several steps above the floor, on which three chairs
were placed as before; two under a canopy of cloth of gold, for the
king and queen; a third on the right, removed a little distance from
them, for the legate. Below the platform, benches were placed
longitudinally towards either wall. The bishops sat on the side of