The cardinal was not a man to be daunted by this repulse, and in April, 1557, he procured a bull from Pius IV. ordering the establishment of an inquisitorial tribunal of which himself and the Cardinals of Bourbon and Chatillon were named directors, with authority to set up new courts of bishops and doctors of divinity, with full power to arrest, imprison, and put to death, without regard to rank or quality, all persons suspected of heresy. The king seems to have been as eager as the cardinal to obtain this bull, his embassador at Rome being ordered to press the matter as “the only means of extirpating false doctrine.”[53] The pope also sent Henry a sword and helmet as symbols of the war he had declared against heresy. We shall see ere long to what use the sword was put. Again the Parliament stood forward and resisted the establishment of the irresponsible tribunal. If their motives were selfish, their object was good, and farther proceedings were adjourned for a year. It is possible too that Henry yielded from opposition of another kind, having discovered that the new doctrines had made greater progress than he had imagined among the nobles, who were not the men to suffer patiently like poor scholars and mechanics. A certain amount of toleration was therefore conceded, until the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis made persecution an international duty. Although the persecution never ceased in France during the reign of Henry II., there were intervals of reaction when the fires burned dim and the sword of the executioner hung idle on the wall. These were usually connected with the foreign policy of the government--a subject not within the scope of these pages. It may be sufficient to mention generally that as the basis of every diplomatic arrangement with the Pope, the Emperor, or the King of Spain, was the extirpation of heresy, so a certain toleration accorded to heretics was a means of showing dissatisfaction with one or all of those three powers. The furious outburst of persecution which occurred at the period we have now reached, may be partly traced to the changes that had taken place in foreign countries. Mary was fiercely persecuting her English subjects, Cranmer having atoned for his weaknesses by his heroic martyrdom in 1556; Philip II. had succeeded to the throne of Spain and re-enacted his father’s cruel edict of 1550; and Paul IV., the restorer of the Inquisition, sat in St. Peter’s chair. France was at war with Spain and had suffered many reverses; Francis, Duke of Guise, was unsuccessful in Italy, where Alva, as yet unstained by blood, was carrying all before him; while on the northern frontier the Constable Montmorency tried in vain to make head against the impetuous attacks of Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, who commanded the Spanish troops in Flanders. Philibert laid siege to St. Quentin, where Admiral Coligny held out stubbornly against overwhelming odds. Montmorency marched to the relief of the