and the bishops might be made use
of at some future time, indirectly or directly, to disturb the
settlement. A fresh pontiff might refuse to recognise the concessions
of his predecessors. The papal supremacy, the secularisation of the
church property, and the authority of the episcopal courts should,
therefore, be interwoven inextricably to stand or fall together; and
as the lawyers denied the authority of the Holy See to pronounce upon
the matter at all, the legal opinion might be embodied also as a
further security.

After a week of violent discussion, the lay interest in the House of
Lords found itself the strongest. Pole exclaimed that, if the
submission and the dispensation were tied together, it was a
simoniacal compact; the pope's holiness was bought and sold for a
price, he said, and he would sooner go back to Rome, and leave his
work unfinished, than consent to an act so derogatory to the Holy See.
But the protest was vain; if the legate was so anxious, his anxiety
was an additional reason why the opposition should persevere; if he
chose to go, his departure could be endured.[404]

[Footnote 404: "Le parlement faict instance que, en
statut de la dicte obedience la dicte dispense soit
inseree, ce que le dict cardinal ne veult admettre,
a ce que ne semble la dicte obedience avoir este
rachetee; et est passee si avant la dicte
difficulte que le dict cardinal a declare qu'il
retourneroit plutot a Rome et delaisseront la chose
imparfaite que consentir a chose contre l'auctorite
dudict S. Siege, et de si grande
prejudice."--Renard to the Emperor, December:
_Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv.]

So keen was the debate that there was not so much as a Christmas
recess. Christmas Day was kept as a holyday. On {p.180} the 26th the
struggle began again, and, fortunately, clouds had risen between the
House of Commons and the court. Finding more difficulty than he
expected in embroiling England with France, Philip, to feel the temper
of the people, induced one of the peers to carry a note to the Lower
House to request an opinion whether it was not the duty of a son to
assist his father. An answer was instantly returned that the question
had been already disposed of by the late parliament in the marriage
treaty, and the furt