General Council, and a protest of the nature of which she could learn nothing. Chapuys was of opinion that Warham, on the score of being entitled by special privilege to conduct the case, had protested against his jurisdiction being transferred to Wolsey and Campeggio, but he added that his timidity and his age were so great that he thought much reliance could not be placed on him. Chapuys seems to have been well informed as to what was happening, and remarkably sagacious in guessing what was about to transpire. Things were just passing into Cromwell's hands, and the proceedings in Parliament owed their origin to this unscrupulous minister's suggestion. But Eustace Chapuys was not sufficiently behind the scenes as yet to know this, and there is no mention of the name of Cromwell in this volume. But several of the contents of this letter are remarkably verified by hints which appear in other documents of the period, which have hitherto been somewhat difficult to understand. One instance of this is the suggested conference with Fisher. No notice of this has been taken by historians. Burnet (i. 143) found a letter from Stokesley to Fisher on the subject, which he assigned to January, 1533, forgetting that there was no Archbishop of Canterbury living at the time. Whether he supposed that it was Warham or Cranmer who offered to debate the matter with Fisher cannot be ascertained, nor does it much matter, as the whole transaction belongs to a period two years antecedent to what Burnet supposed. The letter itself has been printed at length in the Records of the Reformation,' but the editor has unfortunately also mistaken the date, attributing it to 1533 instead of 1531. The despatch from Chapuys to the Emperor not only settles this point, but explains the whole tenor of the letter, which is inexplicable if referred to any other than its true date.

The same despatch supplies another instance in point. And it relates to a more important subject than the settling of the date of a conference to discuss the matter of the divorce. It has long been known that Reginald Pole was in France, and at Paris during the time when the opinions of the doctors and canonists of that university were being procured for the King; but it is only since the publication of the Records of the Reformation' at Oxford in 1870 that Pole has appeared as at one moment an active partisan for the King, using all his influence, and that not very honestly, to bias the doctors of theology and canon law. The subsequent interview between Pole and the King has indeed been graphically described by himself, and the story appears in most of the

histories of the period. But we have in Chapuys' despatch of December 21, 1530, a confirmation of the proceeding, as well as a remarkable addition to it, though Chapuys seems not to have known even the name of the young agent for the King, whose change of purpose he describes, and even the editor of the Calendar appears to be in entire ignorance of the person intended.

The paragraph we are alluding to is as follows. It is, as usual in the most important particulars of the ambassador's despatches, written in cipher :

'There remains but little to say excepting that the King has offered to the son of the Princess's governess, who is a relative of his, the archbishopric of York, on condition of his being one of the two neutral judges above mentioned, and complying with the King's wishes in that respect; but he has declined the appointment, saying very candidly that he considered he had already sinned against his conscience, when, in obedience to the King's command, he had tried to forward the King's case at Paris.' (P. 854.)

Now, the first few lines of this paragraph plainly prove that Reginald Pole is the person meant, the son of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, and daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, the younger brother of Edward IV., who had been selected by Katharine as governess to the Princess Mary, partly, it is supposed, from a desire of cultivating a friendship with an illustrious member of the House of York, whose brother, the heir of that house, had been put to death before the marriage of Prince Arthur with Katharine, in order to secure the throne from a possible claimant from that family. The offer of the Archbishopric of York to Pole is a matter of history, but it is entirely new that the northern primacy was offered him under the condition of accepting conjointly with Warham the decision of the question as to the legitimacy of the marriage of the King with his brother's virgin widow. Of course the bargain was that the decision should be in favour of the King, and possibly it was the very form of the proposal that opened Pole's eyes to the iniquity he had been already guilty of in endeavouring to procure the favourable sentence of the University of Paris. It is not a little remarkable that thus early in the course of the proceedings Pole had begun to falter. Chapuys says of him: Being pressed by me to speak ' according to his conscience, he depreciated those doctors 'much more than I had done to the Duke of Norfolk, and 'strongly commended the doctrine of those who held for the Queen.' Whether Pole is the person alluded to in another letter of August 2 is perhaps not quite so certain. After ob

serving that the Queen had been informed of the disgraceful way in which the sentence had been obtained at Paris, he adds that she is perfectly indifferent to all that has been done there in the cause, and that he thinks she is right to disregard the opinion extorted by such unfair means; for he says: 'I have certain information that one of those who went over to agitate for the King has said the same thing since his return from that capital, and expressed his great surprise that there ⚫ should have been so many distinguished men in that university 'ready of their own accord to speak out so boldly and firmly in support of the Queen's cause.' (P. 673.) Now, this paragraph, in all probability, refers to Pole, and fits in extremely well with what is said elsewhere in these letters, and with the two letters to him from the King, which were first produced by the editor of the Records of the Reformation.'

The volume ends with a most interesting letter written in Spanish by the Queen herself to the Pope, imploring him no longer to delay trying her case and giving sentence upon it. It is without date, but must be the letter which Chapuys alludes to as included in the parcel which carried his own two letters of December 21 to the Emperor. The editor has assigned it to December 17. The exact date of the day of the month on which it was written is of little importance, but the contents of the letter gives us information which is not to be had elsewhere. It is certainly not a little remarkable that Katharine, knowing the terms of familiarity on which Henry was living with Anne Boleyn, should have expressed such confidence in what she calls his natural goodness and virtues. She tells the Pope that if she could only have him two months with herself, as he used to be, she had power enough to make him forget the past. She attributes his persistent infatuation for his mistress entirely to evil counsellors, who were her real enemies, and who, she says, wage constant war against me. Some of them, that the bad counsel they gave the King should not become public, though they have been already well paid for it, and others that they may rob and plunder as much as they can, thus endangering the estate of the King, my lord, 'to the risk of his honour and the eternal perdition of his soul." These are the people,' she continues, from whom spring the threats and bravadoes preferred against your Holiness; 'they are the sole inventors of them, not my lord.' (P. 856.)

6

6

The last despatch that the Imperial ambassador wrote is dated December 29, but it was kept open by desire of the Queen till the 31st, when he enclosed a ciphered communication she had received from Rome, from an unknown writer, who is

6

described as a person in authority,' informing her that an excusator had appeared on the part of the King, claiming that the cause should be heard elsewhere than in Rome, and advising that every effort should be made to counteract the design of the opposite party. The despatch ends with the words: I write as a faithful servant of the King, my lord, and of your Highness, that you should save your husband's honour 'from those who are daily heaping disgrace upon him.'

Here we must take leave of this remarkable volume of State papers. The remaining part, which will probably be published in the course of this year, will, we have no doubt, contain further revelations, though it can scarcely give us more important contributions to the history of the period.

ART. XI.-The New Parliament, 1880. By WILLIAM SAUNDERS. London: June, 1880.

TH

HIS little volume is a useful compendium of the causes, incidents, and results of the late election. It is, to borrow the language of the racing season, the correct card' of the contest, with the names and colours of the riders, comprising within a modest compass a narrative of the events immediately preceding the dissolution, a selection from the addresses and speeches of the principal candidates, and a full account of the numbers polled on each side, with a biographical sketch of some 240 new Members of Parliament. With this opportune guide we may venture to offer some remarks on the composition of the Legislature and the Administration to which the government of the British Empire has been entrusted by the people of England, perhaps for several years.

In looking back on this record of a period of excitement we find a good deal which might have been left unsaid, or which might have been better said, even by eminent men, on both sides. Perhaps Lord Beaconsfield has had cause to reflect in the shades of Hughenden that his letter to the Duke of Marlborough-intended, doubtless, to open the lists with the blast of a trumpet-was not felicitous in the choice of topics or in the choice of language. The constitutional tie is not broken; the expediency of the Imperial character of this 'realm' is not assailed; the power of England and the peace of Europe' are not impaired. The address of Lord Hartington, on the contrary, was by general consent the most sensible and statesmanlike which the occasion called forth. It is entirely free from exaggeration; it leaves nothing to be

retracted or explained; and, viewed by the light of subsequent events, it affords a sufficiently clear view of the policy of the present Government on the principal questions of the times. For the rest, the majority of these addresses and speeches, struck off on the spur of the moment, present as little interest as a last year's almanac, and are already forgotten; if remembered at all, they are sometimes quoted to establish a charge of inconsistency against those who delivered them.

Inconsistency! Long life to it! There is a vast deal of inconsistency in politics which may not only be condoned, but received with approbation and gratitude. Inconsistency is the staff of halting politicians, the salve of wounded consciences, and the only remedy for political intoxication. It makes the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. It is the bridge by which men pass from wrong to right, from passion to reason, from error to truth, from the impossible to the possible, from the polemics of the hustings to the responsibilities of government. Inconsistency turned Saul, the persecutor, into Paul, the apostle; inconsistency taught King Clovis to burn what he had adored, and to adore what he had burnt. By inconsistency the Duke of Wellington emancipated the Roman Catholics; by inconsistency Sir Robert Peel abolished the Corn Laws; by inconsistency Mr. Disraeli introduced household suffrage; by inconsistency Mr. Gladstone has more than once modified at one time of life, and in a more liberal sense, the opinions and measures he entertained or advocated at another time. Indeed without the grace of inconsistency our Prime Minister might still be a hot Tory and a bigoted Churchman. Men of a fiery temperament, especially if they are endowed with the perilous gift of eloquence and wit, are apt to say a good deal more than they will ever do. Sir William Harcourt at Scarborough or at Oxford, and Sir William Harcourt dealing with the Water Supply of London or the Game Laws from the Treasury bench, would do well to assume a different attitude, and change his arms from those of offensive to those of defensive warfare. But why should we cite personal instances of inconsistency, when the House of Commons itself-the new House of Commons of the young Parliament has given the world a transcendent example of this virtue by rescinding in one week the resolution it had passed by an equally large majority in the week before? After such a proof of its ductility, who can doubt the fine temper of the metal?

As far as the country is concerned and the public interests, such changes are hailed with general satisfaction, when they