The first was to substantiate the legitimacy of her birth by annulling her mother's divorce; the second was to effect the restoration of the old religion in England, and to reconcile this country to Rome; and thirdly, she eagerly desired to obtain the consent of Parliament to her marriage with Prince Philip of Spain. In all these difficult and important matters Bishop Gardiner aided her with marvellous sagacity and unflagging zeal. Thus it came to pass that the same man who procured the divorce for the father, obtained for the daughter the reversal of that divorce. Now it was, in these days of triumph and success, that Gardiner gave evidence of his ambition, and of his time-serving nature. To preserve his ascendency over a weak and obstinate woman, he allowed himself to yield many points of which he disapproved, and then, having begun to swim with the stream, he found himself compelled to go faster and farther than he had intended. The Spanish match was as distasteful to him as it was to the bulk of the nation, foreseeing, as he did, that it would involve this country in great expense, and that it would not tend to increase either the happiness or the good disposition of the Queen. Unhappily, Mary had inherited obstinacy and violence of temper from her father, and a jealous and melancholy temperament from her ill-used mother. All the early years of her life had been overshadowed by misfortune and insult, and she had been taught to believe that her sorrows mostly arose from the sinfulness of the nation in resisting the authority of the Church to which she belonged. Unattractive in mind as well as in person, she loved a man who cared but little, if at all, for her, who had only consented to the marriage from motives of policy, and whose morose and sullen manners embittered the rare visits he accorded to his wife. However great were Gardiner's errors, not only as a religious bigot, but as an unscrupulous and ambitious statesman, it must be remembered to his credit, that he was ever zealous in preserving what he deemed the constitution of his country, especially so in guarding her from the encroachments of foreigners. To preserve his own power, he yielded against his judgment to the Queen's desire for her marriage with Philip of Spain, but in drawing up the articles of the marriage contract he took care so to frame them, that they would not only be passed easily by the English Parliament, but also that the Spaniards should be entirely excluded from any share in the Government of England. To Philip was granted the "Title" of King of England, and his likeness was to be united to that of the Queen upon every coin and seal, but Mary's signature alone sufficed to give authority to all deeds and acts. No Spaniard could hold office in this country. The Queen could not be obliged to leave England, nor any child, should there be children, without the consent of Parliament.