the transaction was a bargain. The papal pardon had
been thrust upon criminals, whose hearts were so culpably indifferent
that it was necessary to bribe them to accept it; and the conditions
of the compromise, even yet, were far from concluded.

[Footnote 399: Pallavicino.]

The sanction given to the secularisation of church property was a
cruel disappointment to the clergy, who cared little for Rome, but
cared much for wealth and power. Supported by a party in the House of
Commons who had not shared in the plunder, and who envied those who
had been more fortunate,[400] the ecclesiastical faction began to
agitate for a reconsideration of the question. Their friends in
parliament said that the dispensation was unnecessary. Every man's
conscience ought to be his guide whether to keep his lands or
surrender them. The queen was known to hold the same opinion, and
eager preachers began to sound the note of restitution.[401] Growing
bolder, the Lower House of Convocation presented the bishops
immediately after with a series of remarkable requests. The pope, in
the terms on which he was reinstated, was but an ornamental unreality;
and the practical English clergy desired substantial restorations
which their eyes could see and their hands could handle.

[Footnote 400: Renard to the Emperor: _Granvelle
Papers_, vol. iv.]

[Footnote 401: "It was this morning told me by one
of the Emperor's council, who misliked much the
matter, that a preacher of ours whose name he
rehearsed, beateth the pulpit jollily in England
for a restitution of abbey lands. It is a strange
thing in a well-ordered commonwealth that a subject
should be so hardy to cry unto the people openly
such learning, whereby your winter work may in the
summer be attempted with some storm. These
unbridled preachings were so much misliked in the
ill-governed time as men trusted in this good
governance it should have been amended; and so may
it be when it shall please my Lords of the Council
as diligently to consider it, as it is more than
necessary to be looked unto. The party methinketh
might well be put to silenc