It was his last public act. A few days later he followed Ridley and Latimer to the grave; dying stoutly, in harness almost to the last. He was of the old school of ecclesiastical statesmen. Five and twenty years before, he had been statesman first, churchman afterwards; but when he found that the ecclesiastical organisation as well as the Pope was the objective of Henry's attack, he took his stand by his Order, though stubbornly loyal to the King. In Henry's later years, he tried a fall with Cranmer and was worsted through the King's favour. All through the reign of Edward, he watched with continual protest--mostly from prison--the toppling over of the fabric which Henry had established; himself, as he judged, the victim of unconstitutional oppression. Released and restored to power by Mary, he repented what he conceived to have been his initial error, the repudiation of Roman authority, and was not averse to exacting the full penalty from those who had dealt hardly with him; was zealous to restore the power of the Church and to stamp out heresy. But to the last, he stood for the Law, and for English freedom from foreign domination, and to the last he fought for his Queen. His wildest panegyrist would not call him a saint; but according to his lights he was rarely cruel or even unjust, though often harsh; the records of his life have been written almost entirely by bitterly hostile critics; [Footnote: This applies not only to the Protestant historians, but also to the correspondence of Renard (on account of the Chancellor's anti-Spanish attitude), and of Noailles who detested him personally.] and his name deserves more honour and less obloquy than is usually attached to it. [Sidenote: Mary's difficulties] An embassy to Rome earlier in the year, which had been charged with the formal announcement of the reconciliation, had also intimated Mary's intention of restoring to the Church such of the alienated property as still remained in the hands of the Crown. The new Pope was with difficulty restrained from demanding more. Parliament however, when a bill was proposed for the restoration of "first-fruits and tenths" displayed so much resentment at the suggestion that it was so modified as only to authorise the Queen to dispose personally of the "tenths" actually remaining in her hands. Even this was not carried without vehement opposition. An impoverished exchequer which required replenishment by a subsidy could not afford to surrender a solid portion of revenue to Rome. The hostility to any such tribute was no less active than it had been twenty-five years ago: and the Pope's attitude served only to intensify the feeling, and to stir up general animosity towards the Papacy. The Opposition was so outspoken that some of the members were sent to the Tower. Parliament was dissolved before Christmas. [Sidenote: 1556; The Dudley conspiracy; Foreign complications]