in Edward Courtenay, the imprisoned
son of the Marquis of Exeter. The interest of the public in the long
confinement of this young nobleman had invested him with all imaginary
graces of mind and body. He was the grandchild of a Plantagenet, and a
representative of the White Rose. He had suffered from the tyranny,
and was supposed to have narrowly escaped murder at the hands of the
man whom all England most hated. Nature, birth, circumstances, all
seemed to point to him as the king-consort of the realm.[58] The
emperor had thought of Mary for his son; and it has been seen that the
fear of such an alliance induced the French to support Northumberland.
To prevent the injury which the report, if credited in England, would
have done to her cause, Mary, on her first flight to Keninghal,
empowered Renard to assure the council that she had no thought at all
of marrying a stranger. The emperor and the bishop of Arras, in
assuring Sir Philip Hoby that the French intended to strike for the
Queen of Scots, declared that, for themselves they wished only to see
the queen settled in her own realm, as her subjects desired; and
especially they would prevent her either from attempting innovations
in religion without their consent, or from marrying against their
approbation.[59]

[Footnote 57: I must again remind my readers of the
distinction between Catholic and Papist.
Three-quarters of the English people were
Catholics; that is, they were attached to the
hereditary and traditionary doctrines of the
Church. They detested, as cordially as the
Protestants, the interference of a foreign power,
whether secular or spiritual, with English
liberty.]

[Footnote 58: "Adversity is a good thing. I trust
in the Lord to live to see the day her Grace to
marry such an one as knoweth what adversity
meaneth; so shall we have both a merciful queen and
king to their subjects; and would to God I might
live to have another virtuous Edward."--Epistle of
Poor Pratt to Gilbert Potter, written July 13:
_Queen Jane and Queen Mary_, Appendix, p. 116. The
occasion of this curious epistle was the punishment