Other Continental divines who held the same views as the Swiss likewise dedicated some theological writings both to the king and to Cranmer. Capito, who was at the time at Strasburg, dedicated to Henry VIII. a book in which he treated, among other subjects, of the mass (_de missa_, &c.). The king, as usual, handed it to two persons belonging to the two opposing parties, in order to get their opinions. He then examined their verdict, and announced his own. Cranmer wrote to Capito that the king 'could by no means digest' his piece on the mass,[228] although at the same time he approved some of the other pieces. Bucer, a colleague of Capito, having written a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, dedicated it to Cranmer, and wrote to him as follows:--'It is not enough to have shaken off the yoke of the pope, and to be unwilling to take upon us the yoke of Christ; but if God be for us who can be against us? and Christianity is a warfare.'[229] While the Swiss and the Strasburgers were seeking to enlighten England, the Roman party on the Continent and the Catholic party in England itself were striving to keep her in darkness. The pope, in sorrow and in anger, saw England lost to Rome. Nevertheless the Catholic rising in the northern counties allowed him still to cherish hope. The king of France and the emperor, both near neighbors of England, could if necessary strike with the sword. The pope must therefore stir up to action not only the English Catholics, but also the courts of Paris and Brussels. Whom should he select for the mission? Reginald Pole, an Englishman, a zealous Roman Catholic, and a kinsman of Henry VIII., seemed to be the man made for the occasion. It was he who had lately written these words--'There was never a greater matter entreated, of more importance to the wealth of the realm and the whole church than this [the re-establishment of papal authority]. And this same that you go about to take away, the authority of one head in the church, was a more principal and groundless cause of the loss of the Orient, to be in infidels' hands, and all true religion degenerate, than ever was the Turk's sword, as most wisest men have judged. For if they had agreed all with the Occidental Church, they had never come to that misery; and like misery if God have not mercy on us to return to the church, is most to be feared in our realm.... Your sweet liberty you have got, since you were delivered from the obedience papal, speaketh for itself. Whereof the rest of the realm hath such part that you be without envy of other countries, that no nation wisheth the same to have such liberty granted them.'[230] This last assertion was doubtful.