This was not the only instance in which his recollection of his own conduct was something treacherous. In the apology to Charles V., speaking of a war against Henry, he had said: "Tempus venisse video, ad te primum missus, deinde ad Regem Christianissimum, ut hujus scelera per se quidem minime obscura detegam, et te Caesar a bello Turcico abducere coner et quantum possum suadeam ut arma tua eo convertas si huic tanto malo aliter mederi non possis." For thus, "levying war against his country," Pole had been attainted. The name of traitor grated upon him. To Edward, therefore, he wrote: "I invited the two sovereigns rather to win back the king, by the ways of love and affection, as a fallen friend and brother, than to assail him with arms as an enemy. This I never desired nor did I urge any such conduct upon them. _Hoc ego nunquam profecto volui neque cum illis egi._"--Epistola ad Edwardum Sextum; Ibid.] Edward did not live to receive this evidence of Pole's good feeling. He died before the edition was completed; and as soon as Northumberland's failure and Mary's accession were known at Rome, England was looked upon in the Consistory {p.053} as already recovered to the faith, and Pole was chosen by the unanimous consent of the cardinals as the instrument of the reconciliation. The account of the proclamation of the queen was brought to the Vatican on the 6th of August by a courier from Paris; the pope in tears of joy drew his commission and despatched it on the instant to the Lago di Garda; and on the 9th Pole himself wrote to Mary to say that he had been named legate, and waited her orders to fly to England. He still clung to his conviction that the revolution in all its parts had been the work of a small faction, and that he had but himself to set his foot upon the shore to be received with an ovation; his impulse was therefore to set out without delay; but the recollection, among other things, that he was attainted by act of parliament, forced him to delay unwillingly till he received formal permission to present himself.