It was "necessary to the position" of Romanist writers to find the promise of evil in Henry's early life, after his separation from the Papacy, and stories like those which we read in Sanders grew like mushrooms in the compost of hatred. But it is certain that so long as he was orthodox he was regarded as a model of a Catholic prince. Cardinal Contarini laments his fall, as a fall like Lucifer's: "Quî fieri potuit per Deum immortalem," he wrote to Pole, "ut animus ille tam mitis tam mansuetus ut ad bene merendum de hominum genere a naturâ factus esse videatur sit adeo immutatus."--_Epist. Reg. Poli_, Vol. II. p. 31. [37] Pole to Henry VIII.: Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. II. p. 305. [38] Pole to the English Council: _Epist._, Vol. I. [39] Ibid. [40] Said by Cranmer to have been an able paper: "He suadeth with such goodly eloquence; both of words and sentences, that he is like to persuade many."--Cranmer's _Works_, edit. Jenkyns Vol. I. p. 2. [41] Phillips' _Life of Cardinal Pole_. [42] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. II. p. 281. [43] "Quibus si rem persuadere velis multa preæter rem sunt dicenda multa insinuanda."--_Epist. Reg. Pol._, Vol. I. p. 434. And again: "Illum librum scribo non tam Regis causâ quam gregis Christi qui est universus Regni populus, quem sic deludi vix ferendum est."--Ibid. p. 437. I draw attention to these words, because in a subsequent defence of himself to the English Privy Council, Pole assured them that his book was a private letter privately sent to the king; that he had written as a confessor to a penitent, under the same obligations of secrecy: "Hoc genere dicendi Regem omnibus dedecorosum et probrosum reddo? Quibus tandem illustrissimi Domini? Hisne qui libellum nunquam viderunt? an his ad quos legendum dedi? Quod si hic solus sit Rex ipse, utinam ipse sibi probrosus videretur Ad eum certe solum misi; quocum ita egi ut nemo unquam a confessionibus illi secretior esse potuisset hoc tantum spectans quod confessores ut illi tantum sua peccata ostenderem."--Apologia ad Ang. Parl.: _Epist._, Vol. I. p. 181. So considerable an inconsistency might tempt a hasty person to use hard words of Pole. [44] Pole to Prioli: _Epist._, Vol. I. p. 441. [45] Ibid. p. 442. [46] Pole to Prioli: _Epist._, Vol. I. p. 445. [47] Tunc statim misi cum ille e medio jam sustulisset illam quæ illi et regno totius hujus calamitatis causa existimabatur.--_Apologia ad Carolum Quintum._