At length, on Wednesday, 28th November, all was ready, and in the great hall of the Palace the assembled Lords and Commons were gathered in the presence of the Queen and King to receive the Pope’s representative. Outside the people were still saying—to the horror of the Spanish listeners—that the Pope was only a man, after all, and could do no more than other men[79]; but here, in Mary’s Parliament, no inharmonious note was sounded, as the Lord Chancellor, Bishop Gardiner, rose and introduced the Cardinal as the messenger from the Apostolic Pontiff. Pole, speaking from the second stage of the daïs just beyond the canopy, begged in Latin permission of the Queen to address the assembly in English; which granted, he spoke first feelingly of his long unjust exile and the persecution of his House, his attachment to the land of his birth through all his trouble, and then he launched into an eloquent appeal for the reunion of England to the Church. He praised the Emperor for his sturdy defence of orthodoxy; but said that for some inscrutable reason God had not allowed him to achieve his end. “But,” continued Pole, “I can well compare him [_i.e._, the Emperor] to David, whiche thoughe he were a manne elected of God, yet for that he was contaminate with bloode and war could not builde the temple of Jerusalem, but left the finishing thereof to his son Solomon, which was _Rex pacificus_. So may it be thoughte that the appeasing of controversies of religion in Christendom is not appointed to this Emperor but rather to his son who shal perfourme the building that his father hath begun.”[80] When the long and moving extempore speech was finished, the Queen desired Gardiner to express her thanks and congratulations to the Cardinal, and to desire Parliament to consider deeply his weighty words. On that very day, as Noailles insisted for the purpose of forwarding Pole’s mission, official letters were despatched in the Queen’s name ordering that thanksgiving and rogations should be offered in all the churches for her pregnancy, now openly acknowledged. Whatever the malicious Frenchman may have said, it is quite incredible that Mary herself did not believe the assertion of her condition, nor is it likely that Philip thought otherwise, seeing the assurances which, even in private letters, he gave to his father on the subject.[81] The Queen’s subjects, too, rejoiced exceedingly at the news, for a disputed succession seemed to portend if Mary died childless. But, in any case, the announcement was most opportune both for the success of Pole’s mission, and for another mission to be mentioned presently, which was nearer the Emperor’s heart, and he had entrusted secretly to Paget when he had gone to Flanders to escort Pole to England.