[Footnote 380: The greatest and only means to procure the agreement of the noblemen and others of our council was our promise that the Pope's Holiness would, at our suit, dispense with all possessors of any lands or goods of monasteries, colleges, or other ecclesiastical houses, to hold and enjoy their said lands and goods without any trouble or scruple; without which promise it had been impossible to have had their consent, and shall be utterly impossible to have any fruit and good concord ensue. For which purpose you shall earnestly pray our said cousin to use all possible diligence, and say that if he have not already, he may so receive authority from the See Apostolic to dispense in this manner as the same, being now in good towardness, may so in this Parliament take the desired effect; whereof we see no likelihood except it may be therewithal provided for this matter of the lands and goods of the Church.--Instructions to Paget and Hastings, November 5; Tytler, vol. ii. p. 446.] [Footnote 381: Tytler, vol. ii. p. 446.] The bearers of this communication were Lord Paget and Sir {p.161} Edward Hastings, accompanied, it is curious to observe, by Sir William Cecil.[382] [Footnote 382: Cecil had taken no formal part in Mary's government, but his handwriting can be traced in many papers of State, and in the Irish department he seems to have given his assistance throughout the reign. In religion Cecil, like Paget, was a latitudinarian. His conformity under Mary has been commented upon bitterly; but there is no occasion to be surprised at his conduct--no occasion, when one thinks seriously of his position, to blame his conduct. There were many things in the Catholic creed of which Cecil disapproved; and when his opportunity came, he gave his effectual assistance for the abolition of them; but as long as that creed was the law of the land, as a citizen he paid the law the respect of external obedience.