devoting his spare hours to the composition of a dialogue on the Duties of the Papacy. At last the necessary majority was secured. It was night in the early part of January. Pole was roused from sleep by a deputation of Cardinals, come to request his presence in the chapel to receive the homage of his associates. "I cannot approve," replied Pole, unmoved, “of any hasty or tumultuous proceedings. Put it off until to-morrow, and if it is God's good pleasure that I be elected it will happen then as well as now." On the morrow the coalition formed overnight was dissolved, and on the 7th day of February, 1550, Cardinal del Monte was chosen and ascended the Papal throne under the name of Julius III. Pole returned to Viterbo, whence he was frequently summoned by Pope Julius for counsel. Three years' further service as Governor of the Patrimony determined him to give up an office which he had admirably administered for twelve. His health was now broken. The ties which had bound him to life were nearly all sundered. Gasper Contarini was dead, so was Bembo and Giberti, Sadoleto and Vittoria Colonna.

An address on union with the Holy See, to the Privy Council on the accession of Edward VI., had failed to evoke the answer his soul thirsted for. At Magguzzano, a monastery of the Benedictines, of whom he was Cardinal Protector, he entered on what he intended should be his final retirement from public life. Little did he dream of how splendid a mission was to glorify the evening of his days. The death of Edward in 1553 placed Mary on the throne, and opened the fairest prospect of England's reconciliation with Rome. Reginald Pole was immediately called forth from his retreat. It was known that Mary's early affection for him had deepened, and with ample reason, as time went on. Her first and dearest recollections were associated with his name. In the dark days when no man else had courage or fitting opportunity to speak, he was the champion of her mother's honor, and, therefore, of her The sufferings he had endured in that cause were not less than hers, and, so to say, their very counterpart. There could be no doubt, therefore, that any advances made through Pole, looking to the religious pacification of England, would be favorably received. He was once again accordingly appointed legate with ample powers, and the entire project committed exclusively to his management. His mature age and experience, knowledge of his countrymen and of the manifold and peculiar difficulties besetting the execution of his design, combined to make him act with extreme caution. He proceeded slowly. His first step was to dispatch a letter to the queen by a secret messenger, disclosing his appointment and seeking her advice as to the time and circumstances most likely to conduce to the success of his embassy. In

own.

her answer Mary pledged herself to secure the abolition of such laws as were opposed to the religious welfare of the people, and requested him to come invested with full authority for the settlement of all matters necessary to a perfect reconciliation with the Holy See. Unforeseen and vexatious interference, however, put off his return far beyond the term prescribed by prudence. He had no sooner set foot in the imperial dominions than he was met by an order forbidding his advance. Under various pleas he was prevented for more than a year from pursuing his journey. Letters were brought him from the queen stating that the people were not yet disposed to receive him, that Parliament thus far had not repealed obnoxious statutes, that his attainder was still unreversed, that his appearance in England would be attended with serious commotions, and be made at the risk of his life. On the part of the emperor, who beheld in Pole a rival to his son, the negotiation of a marriage treaty between Mary and Philip furnished a pretext for indefinite delays. Meanwhile the legate's instructions led him again to attempt the fruitless task of making peace between monarchs who were unwilling to be reconciled. He returned from the court of Henry II. to that of Charles, to find rumor busy with charges to his disadvantage and to the injury of the main object of his mission. About this time he wrote to Philip, who was now King of England as well as Prince of Spain, urging him to allow no further hindrance to be put to the fulfilment of his office towards England. "It is just a year," he says, " since he knocked at the door of Philip's house. If Philip were to say, 'Who's there?' the answer might be, 'One who for twenty years had been exiled from his home and country to prevent her from being excluded from her home whose home is now shared by Philip.' If as such a one he were to demand admittance he might expect the door to be opened to him. But it was not as a private man that he stood there; he was knocking as the representative of the successor of St. Peter; yet, strange to say, while the ambassadors from every other realm. are freely admitted, the ambassador of the first among kings and pastors upon earth is waiting at the outside." The letter was effective.

By the marriage of his son the jealous fears of Charles were quieted, and even his sinuous policy could invent no fresh excuse to stay the legate's departure. The tide had turned; the inexhaustible patience of more than a score of years was about to receive a fitting reward. For being a thorough patriot Reginald Pole had been declared a traitor. Philip and Mary went to the House to see his attainder repealed, his rights restored, and his conduct vindicated and applauded. Honors came thick and fast upon him. A deputation of forty gentlemen, headed by the Lords Hastings and Paget, was sent to Brussels to bring him to England.

His progress homeward was a triumph. A royal yacht and ten of Her Majesty's men-of-war waited for him at Calais, and on the 20th of November, 1554, he landed at Dover. His arrival in England was hailed with a genuine outburst of enthusiasm. The tale of his sufferings melted the popular heart. The country rose to do him honor and give him hearty greeting. He was saluted as a herald of glad tidings, a messenger of peace. After all that had been said and done for a full generation to root out allegiance to the See of Peter, it was evident that the spirit of loyalty still dwelt in the mass of the people. The gentry and nobility, as well as the clergy, thronged about him, and he was borne along from place to place in the midst of a splendid pageant. Everywhere he was met with unequivocal signs of reverential affection. At Canterbury, with the royal permission, he assumed the insignia of his high office, and cross, and pillar, and poleaxe were carried before him as he continued his way from the See of St. Thomas. At Gravesend he took the gorgeous state barge prepared for him, and, accompanied by a gayly decorated flotilla, was swiftly rowed up the Thames to Whitehall. Here Philip and Mary received him with a cordial welcome, and upon leaving he was conducted by Lord Chancellor Gardyner and a large number of the nobles to the palace, magnificently furnished for him at the queen's cost, at Lambeth. The crowning hour of Pole's checkered career was close at hand when the great work, so much in harmony with his gentle, loving, and deeply religious nature, was to be accomplished. It was the hour of reconciliation for which, with his whole soul, he had prayed and wrought, and when, as he had fondly hoped, the religious dissensions of his country were to have an end, and the old time peace of the Catholic unity was to possess the land. Both Houses of Parliament were summoned to meet together at Whitehall. Thither on the morning of the appointed day-the 28th of November-Pole proceeded, and in company with the king and queen was ushered into the Hall of Assembly. Gardyner opened the proceedings in an address, stating the object of the legation, and closed it by introducing Cardinal Pole. And he had need of an introduction. A new generation had grown up since he had been last seen in England. Old men who remembered Reginald Pole in the flush and exuberance of his youth found it hard to recognize him in the wasted, yet stately form of the venerable personage who rose to address them. Before its time old age had set its stamp upon his features. A mild expression softened the austerity of his aspect, and even before he opened his lips the hearts of the gazers were drawn towards him. A breathless silence pervaded the assembly as in at low and feeble voice he expressed his thanks for the reversal of his attainder, and his reinvestiture in the rights of which he had been

unjustly deprived.

'But," said he, "in return I have come to restore to you rights which you have forfeited, and enable you to become inhabitants of a heavenly country. And as you have repealed the acts which made me an exile, now that I am restored to my native land I ask you to repeal the statutes against the Church, by which you have made real exiles of yourselves." The following day the feast of St. Andrew was made memorable in English annals. The representatives of the English people in its sovereigns, its peers, spiritual and temporal, its commoners, were come together to take part in a proceeding which stands solitary in their history. Such a position as Cardinal Pole filled on that day has never had its parallel. It was the day of his triumph; and the triumph was not official only, it was, likewise, eminently personal. He was there, not simply as representing the Vicar of Christ, and, as such, bringing back a nation to the obedience of the Chief Shepherd; it was he-Reginald Pole-whom God had chosen to do it. He, the hunted outlaw, on whose head a price had been set, who was come back to receive from the power which had declared him worthy of death an acknowledgment of its fault. Cromwell had once savagely said: "I'll make this Cardinal eat his own heart;" and while he himself was yet in exile, Cromwell had paid penalty for his misdeeds to the executioner. The vengeance that had so long pursued him had broken and lifted and vanished like a cloud. The double cause for which he had suffered was in the ascendant. The work of his foes was undone. The daughter of Catharine stood by his side the anointed queen of her father's subjects. The doctrine of royal supremacy had just been solemnly abjured. In a few moments, the absolution, which it was his duty to bestow, would put an end to the schism which Henry had created. Surely the Lord had arisen and his enemies were scattered. All preliminaries had been brought to a close when the Cardinal, in a spirit of thanksgiving and gratitude to God, rose to perform the great function with which he was charged. As he did so the entire assemblage knelt. Extending his arms he pronounced clearly and distinctly the form of absolution which restored England to the Catholic communion; and as, in conclusion, he traced in the name of the Trinity the absolving sign above the prostrate throng, a glad Amen, Amen, burst forth from every side. Te Deum was then chanted in the royal chapel; after which Pole indited a brief dispatch to the Pope, acquainting him with the joyous intelligence. And so the proudest and happiest day of Pole's life came to an end.

The affairs which occupied his few remaining years may be briefly summarized. A great work lay before him, and though he grew daily more infirm his spirit never flagged in its performance.

He found England, in all that regarded religion, in a state of almost absolute anarchy. From the date of the royal supremacy, ecclesiastical property, movable and immovable, had passed in great part into the holding of laymen, who were determined never to relinquish it. Among the clergy strict discipline no longer existed; and faith had weakened and piety was at a low ebb among the people. It was for him to build up where others had pulled down; to restore fervor where laxity and lukewarmness prevailed; to reduce confusion to order; to bring harmony out of the clashings of discord; to lift up with God's help, not one diocese, but an entire kingdom to the plane of an active and energetic faith. It was indeed a stupendous task, but Pole was not to be affrighted. The problem of England's and the world's reformation was long familiar to his thoughts. His manhood had been spent among men of the highest order of mind, who had made a life-study of this very subject. He himself was among the foremost of those who had given shape and fashion and impulse to the immortal council whose sessions were yet far from being concluded. Had he lived, had he been let alone, there is no doubt but that he would have succeeded. In reviewing this period of history Ranke did not hesitate to say of him: He was the man above all others best fitted to labor for the restoration of Catholicism in England. Affairs proceeded most prosperously under his guidance." And when Pius IV. succeeded to his austere predecessor, Paul IV., he said: "Had Cardinal Pole been supported in his measures England might have been retained with perfect ease." In attempting a national reformation, he adopted the only course which could ultimately issue in success. A leading difficulty which faced him on the very threshold of his labors was the question of the sequestrated abbey lands. This difficulty, however, his instructions had anticipated, and he was enabled to bring it to a prompt and satisfactory termination. With his concurrence, Parliament guaranteed and secured the ownership of such property to the present owners and their heirs forever. By this act alone a great step was made towards subsequent measures of reform. It was an evident and indisputable earnest, on the part of the Supreme Pontiff, of candor and good-will to a somewhat doubting people, and therefore calculated to inspire confidence and bring about that mutual and perfect trust essential to a solid and lasting reformation. While this act was producing its effects on the nation, Pole was maturing his plans for its spiritual advancement. A year had passed away since his arrival in England before he deemed the time ripe for the convocation of a national synod. The matter submitted to its consideration, and which received its sanction, he had drawn up in the form of decrees, only twelve in number, but