On Thursday, 29th November, 1554, during the discussion of the ecclesiastical question in the House of Lords, the lay peers roundly blamed the Bishops for all the schism and trouble that had occurred. If they had not been poltroons, and had refused to humour King Henry in his repudiation of his wife[82] and his defiance of the Holy See all would have been well, said the laymen; but recriminations apart, both Lords and Commons promptly adopted, almost unanimously, a resolution repealing the acts that separated England from the Papacy, and authorising a commission of twenty-four members of both Houses to beg the Queen’s approval of the resolution, and to present to the papal ambassador the submission of the nation to the head of the universal Church, begging for absolution and readmittance to the fold. The next day, St. Andrew’s Day, 30th November, the formal ceremony was held in the Palace of Whitehall. That morning Philip had gone to Mass at Westminster Abbey in state with 100 German, 100 Spanish, and English guards, all in new uniforms, 50 Flemish archers, and 150 smartly-clad pages, as if to mark the occasion as one of special significance, and at five o’clock in the afternoon the Cardinal in his pontifical vestments rowed across from Lambeth, the King receiving him at the foot of the Palace stairs. In the presence chamber the Commissioners of Parliament presented their petition to the Sovereigns through Lord Chancellor Gardiner. Then the King and Queen rose, and crossing to the Cardinal’s chair, in attitude of supplication asked him as the Pope’s ambassador to receive the submission of England; after which the Sovereigns, having returned to their thrones, Pole’s powers from the Pope were read, and the Cardinal in an English discourse heartily welcomed the strayed sheep into the fold again.[83] Kneeling, the whole assembly received absolution and the apostolic blessing, and England was recognised as a Catholic country again. To spectators of the scene, and especially to Spaniards, this seemed to be an occurrence which for importance surpassed all others of the time. Spain burst out into uncontrollable rejoicing, and Philip, the man who his countrymen thought had performed this miracle by God’s mercy, was more revered than ever. Now indeed, with the almost certainty of a son to be born and to succeed as King of a Catholic England in close union with Spain, the Frenchmen must rest content with a secondary place and the House of Burgundy-Habsburg must lead. This view, to some extent, was one that it suited Philip himself to promote in England, and he left no stone unturned to impress upon his wife’s subjects the profound significance of the formal reconciliation of the country to the Papacy; a power which, when it had suited his father and himself, they had flouted again and again, and which, within a year under the new Pope, Paul IV., was to denounce them both with invective more bitter than was applied to the worst of heretics.