would lift up their hands to God, for they love their country and the Queen, and especially Spain, for the sake of the good Queen Katharine; and the goodly here are so many that there are a hundred Catholics for every four heretics.” With these mixed hopes and fears amidst the multitude, there went a general trust in, and affection for, the Queen personally. She had been ill-treated so long, as the people knew; she had grown faded and middle-aged under unjust oppression, and she was a true Royal Princess descended on both sides from kings of highest lineage. So when at the Abbey next day, 1st October, during the interminable ceremony of the coronation, Gardiner led the Queen, in her crimson velvet and ermine, to the four corners of the daïs and called in a loud voice, “Is this the true heir to this realm?” there was no hesitation, and all the lieges shouted as if with one voice, “Yea! yea! God save the Queen!”[22] Parliament met on the 5th October. The Catholics in the country were unquestionably in a majority, though not so great, probably, as in the ratio of twenty-five to one, as the Spaniards asserted; and Mary had no difficulty in obtaining the repeal of all the anti-Papal laws which severed England from Rome. Gardiner was willing enough to aid the Queen in this; but, prompted by Noailles, he managed dexterously to get the House of Commons to vote an Address to the Queen, praying her not to marry a foreigner. This, it is true, voiced a very general feeling in the country, but the Queen had now (November) quite made up her mind; for she had seen a portrait of Philip by Titian, and had fairly fallen in love with the young, fresh-coloured man with the curly, yellow beard who was asking for her hand. So in a rage, and after much delay, Mary received the deputation of the Commons led by the Speaker. “This is one of the Chancellor’s tricks,” she muttered, “and I will be equal with him for it.” Then haughtily addressing the deputation, she rebuked their presumption in attempting to dictate to her on such a matter, and said that if private persons were allowed to choose mates for themselves, surely sovereigns were not to be less privileged. This was the true Tudor attitude towards the representatives of the people; and the Queen, having legalised her religious changes, promptly dissolved Parliament.