moval of
Premunire. That spectre remained unexorcised in all its shadowy
terror; and while it survived, the penitence of England went no deeper
than the lips, however fine the words and eloquent the phrases in
which it was expressed. As some compensation, the Mortmain Act was
suspended for twenty years. Yet, as if it were in reply to Pole's
appeal, a mischievous provision {p.185} closed the act, that,
notwithstanding anything contained in it, laymen entitled to tithes
might recover them with the same readiness as before the first day of
the present parliament.[428]

[Footnote 428: 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 8,
sec. 31.]

Such was the great statute of reconciliation with Rome, with which, in
the inability to obtain a better, the legate was compelled to be
satisfied, and to reconsider his threat of going back to Italy.

This first conflict was no sooner ended than another commenced. The
Commons would not consent that Philip should be crowned; but, as the
queen said she was _enceinte_, provision had to be made for a regency,
and a bill was introduced into the Upper House which has not survived,
but which, in spirit, was unfavourable to the king.[429] Gardiner, in
the course of the debate, attempted to put in a clause affecting
Elizabeth,[430] but the success was no better than usual. The act went
down to the Commons, where, however, it was immediately cancelled.
Though the Commons would give Philip no rights as king, they were
better disposed towards him than the Lords; and they drew another bill
of their own, in which they declared the father to be the natural and
fitting guardian of the child. The experience of protectorates, they
said, had been uniformly unfortunate, and should the queen die leaving
an heir, Philip should be regent of the realm during the minority; if
obliged to be absent on the Continent, he might himself nominate his
deputy;[431] and so long as it should be his pleasure to remain in
England, his person should be under the protection of the laws of high
treason.

[Footnote 429: "It was suspected," says Renard,
"que le dict act se proposoit a maulvais fin, qu'il
estoit contre les traictez et capitulation de
marriage pour hereder la couronne qui venoit de
maulvais auteurs quilz plustot desiroient le mal
dudict S. roy et inquietude dudict royaulme