must be acknowledged that it presents some symptoms of a mind yet scarcely escaped from the dangerous casuistry of the Roman Catholic doctors;--some touch of that jesuitical spirit which is so effectually exposed in the letters of Pascal; and against the insidious approaches of which even the native integrity of the single-hearted Cranmer was not altogether proof. In this instance, as in the instance of Sir T. More’s persecutions, and indeed of his own, it was a corrupted and corrupting creed that was in fault, rather than an evil heart or evil eye in the individuals themselves. Still many circumstances may be pleaded in extenuation of Cranmer’s conduct. He did not take the Pope by surprise; the name, the writings, and the person of Cranmer, were familiar to him; Cranmer had openly contended against his dispensing power in the case of the divorce both in Germany, and at Rome itself, nearly three years before; so that even had no protest been made on his part, the Pope must have been aware of the character and opinions of the man; and if he admitted him to the primacy, he must have been conscious that he did it at his peril. The truth was, the pope had no choice, and he felt that he had none: doubtless he would have been too glad to reject the King’s candidate and to substitute for him a creature of his own; but he knew with whom he had to deal in Henry, not with a tame monarch, and with what he had to deal in England, no longer with a tame people. He knew that the very point at issue, the necessity of his bull at all to legalise the appointment to the see of Canterbury, was even then disputed, and that to withhold it under such circumstances would be merely to hasten the crisis which he had too much reason to think was in any case at hand, the loss of his supremacy. The event proved this. He did not refuse the bull, (not that he was aware of Cranmer’s protest at the time; but of Cranmer’s character, which was equivalent to it, he was perfectly aware,) and accordingly he staved off the evil that menaced him for one year more, but it was only for one year. This was the last bull he sent into England during the reign of Henry; and had that capricious prince listened to the advice and entreaty of Cranmer, application would not have been made even for this,[235] and then Henry would have been sooner spared the dishonour of subjecting his bishops to a dilemma by which perjury to the Pope or to the King could scarcely be escaped, and Cranmer would have been spared the equivocation by which he laboured to reconcile oaths which were irreconcilable. Here, after all, was the grievance, and on those who exacted them was, in a great measure, the guilt. Nothing less was required of a bishop than to swear allegiance to two masters, who had no two interests in common:--to the Pope; that he would, from that hour forward, be faithful and obedient to St. Peter and to the holy church of Rome, to my Lord