d empowered the King to name his own
successor.

Chapuys, however, was able to console himself with the reflection that the
Bastard, as he called Elizabeth, was now out of the question. The Duke of
Richmond was ill--sinking under the same weakness of constitution which
had been so fatal in the Tudor family and of which he, in fact, died a few
weeks later. The prevailing opinion was that the King could never have
another child. Mary's prospects, therefore, were tolerably "secure. I must
admit," Chapuys wrote on the 8th of July, "that her treatment improves
every day. She never had so much liberty as now, or was served with so
much state even by the little Bastard's waiting-women. She will want
nothing in future but the name of Princess of Wales,[445] and that is of
no consequence, for all the rest she will have more abundantly than
before."

Mary, in fact, now wanted nothing save the Pope's pardon for having
abjured his authority. Chapuys had undertaken that it would be easily
granted. The Emperor had himself asked for it, yet not only could not
Cifuentes obtain the absolution, but he did not so much as dare to speak
to Paul on the subject. The absolution for the murder of an Archbishop of
Dublin had been bestowed cheerfully and instantly on Fitzgerald. Mary was
left with perjury on her conscience, and no relief could be had. There
appeared to be some technical difficulty. "Unless she retracted and
abjured in the presence of the persons before whom she took the oath, it
was said that the Pope's absolution would be of no use to her." There was,
perhaps, another objection. Cifuentes imperfectly trusted Paul. He feared
that if he pressed the request the secret would be betrayed and that
Mary's life would be in danger.[446]

Time, perhaps, and reflection alleviated Mary's remorse and enabled her to
dispense with the Papal anodyne, while Cromwell further comforted the
Ambassador in August by telling him that the King felt he was growing old,
that he was hopeless of further offspring, and was thinking seriously of
making Mary his heir after all.[447]

Age the King could not contend with, but for the rest he had carried his
policy through. The first act of the Reformation was closing, and he was
left in command of the situation. The curtain was to rise again with the
Lincolnshire and Yorkshire rebellion, to be followed by the treason of the
Poles. But there is no occasion to tell a story over again which I can
tell no bette