The advice of the Emperor was preferred to all other. Next to Mary’s devotion to her faith was her loyalty to the Hapsburgs. She had grown up in the belief that Charles was her best friend and only refuge; and now whenever she considered herself free to choose an independent policy, she chose to follow his advice. Indeed, it is scarcely thinkable, that at thirty-seven she should have awoke from the dream of a lifetime, by the mere fact of ascending the throne. In many ways, the Emperor advised her well. He had vast experience of the kind of religious revolution that was agitating the greater part of Europe. He had been twice in England, but more perhaps by his genius for government, and his habit of working out national problems on paper, than by his actual knowledge of the English people, the knowledge that comes from contact, did he realise the amount of pressure that could with any chance of success be brought to bear upon them. So long as he applied general principles in his advice to Mary, so long was his guidance of service to her; but where his own interests were concerned, and those of the empire, he ceased to consider her advantage at all, and involved her in a policy that ultimately became her ruin. If he had so willed, she would have gone to the block cheerfully for the principles for which More and Fisher died; but her martyrdom would have availed the Emperor nothing. Rather would it have embroiled him further with Henry, whose friendship he was just then anxious to obtain. Therefore he did not scruple to entangle her conscience in the meshes of an indefensible sophistry. When Edward’s Council had brought the country to so miserable a condition that the Government, neither feared nor respected abroad, dared not try conclusions with him, it was a small matter for him to declare that he had rather Mary died on the scaffold than abandon one jot or tittle of her faith. Having therefore been the arbiter of her destiny during the years of her bondage, it was not likely that he would cease to exercise his influence when the majesty of England was centred in her person.