Charles V. was then at Brussels, occupied in ceding the empire of Germany to his brother Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and in making over the crown of Spain and the countship of Flanders to his son. This policy was useful to Charles V., as it threw the weight of the embarrassment on Philip, who had just arrived from England to receive his father's instructions how to govern Spain. The circumstances in which they found themselves required the greatest prudence, for they not only had to fear the abuse which the Pope might make of his apostolical and temporal power, but also the consequences of the alliances which his holiness had just signed with the King of France. Besides the Council of State (which Charles and Philip always consulted before they decided on any subject) they deemed it necessary to have judgments of _conscience_, to balance the authority of the supreme head of the Catholic Church. On the 15th of November, 1555, the famous consultation of Brother Melchior Cano was framed at Valladolid, which was published at Madrid in 1809, in my _collection of different papers, ancient and modern, on matrimonial dispensations, and other ecclesiastical dispensations_. The decision of Cano was, that in all similar cases the only and proper remedy is not only to deprive the temporal sovereign of Rome of the power of injuring, but to reduce him to the necessity of accepting reasonable terms, and of acting with more prudence in future. Other theologians decided that the concessions made by the Court of Rome were irrevocable, and had the force of a true contract passed for the benefit of an empire or kingdom. The Pope, informed of these decisions, commanded the inquisitor-general to punish the authors of it; he was supported by most of the prelates of the kingdom, at the head of whom was the Cardinal Siliceo, Archbishop of Toledo, who had been the king's preceptor. Philip, who had been King of Spain from January, 1556, wrote from London, in the month of July following, the letter to his sister, the governess of the kingdom, which I have inserted in my diplomatic collection. It is as follows:--