Rome has two modes of bringing back princes under her yoke—flattery and abuse. The pope had adopted the first: a person, at that time without influence, Reginald Pole, an Englishman, and also a relative and _protégé_ of Henry's, undertook the second. In 1535 he was in the north of Italy; burning with love for the papacy and hatred for the king, his benefactor, he wrote _ab irato_ a defence of the unity of the Church, addressed to Henry VIII., and overflowing with violence. The wise and pious Contarini, to whom he showed it, begged him to soften a tone that might cause much harm. As Pole refused, Contarini entreated him at least to submit his manuscript to the pope; but the young Englishman, fearing that Paul would require him to suppress the untoward publication, declined acceding to his friend's request. His object was, not to convert the king, but to stir up the English against their lawful prince, and induce them to fall prostrate again before the Roman pontiff. The treatise, finished in the winter of 1536, before Anne's trial, reached London the first week in June. Tonstall, bishop of Durham, and Pole's friend, read the book, which contained a few truths mixed up with great errors, and then communicated it to the king. Never did haughty monarch receive so rude a lesson. [Sidenote: POLE'S APPEAL TO THE KING.] 'Shall I write to you, O prince,' said the young Englishman, 'or shall I not? Observing in you the certain symptoms of the most dangerous malady, and assured as I am that I possess the remedies suitable to cure you, how can I refrain from pronouncing the word which alone can preserve your life? I love you, sire, as son never loved his father, and God perhaps will make my voice to be like that of his own Son, _whose voice even the dead hear_. O prince, you are dealing the most deadly blow against the Church that it can possibly receive, you rob it of the chief whom it possesses upon earth. Why should a king, who is the supreme head of the State, occupy a similar place in the Church? If we may trust the arguments of your doctors, we must conclude that Nero was the head of the Church.[363] We should laugh, if the laughter were not to be followed by tears. There is as great a distance between the ecclesiastical and the civil power, as there is between heaven and earth. There are three estates in human society: first, the people; then the king, who is the son of the people; and lastly, the priest, who being the _spouse of the people_ is consequently the _father of the king_.[364] But you, in imitation of the pride of Lucifer, set yourself above the vicar of Jesus Christ.