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 evening two cardinals came to visit Pole in his cell, and begged him, as he had already two-thirds of the votes of the conclave, to come into the chapel, where they would make him pope by 'adoration.' Pole, who was as much impressed with the responsibilities as with the dignity of St. Peter's chair, induced them to put the ceremony off till the morning, and thus lost his chance. His supporters were mainly those cardinals who favoured the emperor, and they remained steady to him throughout the protracted contest. But towards its close the French party gained head ; a compromise was thought advisable, and Pole himself cordially agreed to the election of Cardinal de Monte, who then easily carried the day (8 Feb. 1550), and took the name of Julius III. Pole, it is said, in the expectation of being elected, composed an oration to thank the assembled cardinals (, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium. 219). He undoubtedly prepared a treatise, 'De Summo Pontifice,' on the powers and duties of the papal office. The new pope, who had not favoured Pole's own claim, was greatly touched by his disinterestedness. Though in June 1550 he conferred on another cardinal the legation of the patrimony given to Pole by his predecessor, he charged the revenues with a pension of one hundred crowns for Pole, and appointed him one of three cardinals to draw up the bull for the resumption of the council at Trent. The emperor, too, gave Pole a pension of two thousand ducats out of the see of Burgos, and another out of that of Granada; but these were irregularly paid. The council of Trent was abruptly suspended in April 1552 in consequence of the war in Europe, and Pole, anxious to be out of the turmoil both of war and politics, retired, with the pope's leave, in the spring of 1553 to the monastery of Maguzzano on the Lago di Garda belonging to the Benedictine order, of which he had for some years been cardinal protector. Here he acceded to the wish of his friends to prepare for publication his treatise 'Pro Defensione,' which had been set up in type with the pope's sanction but without Pole's knowledge and in his absence from Eome in 1539. The text apparently followed a first draft divided into four books : the manuscript sent to Henry VIII (which is now in the Record Office) was one connected treatise. There were also some variations, the most important of which were the passages alluding to the king's connection with Mary Boleyn, which in the manuscript sent to the king he suppressed. All that the book needed was a preface. This Pole now drew up in the form of a letter to Edward VI, in which he explained, as delicately as he could, the circumstances which had led him to compose the work, and vindicated his own loyalty and regard for the late king's best interests. But before this letter was sent to press Edward VI was dead, and the preface remained in manuscript till the middle of the last century, when it was included by Quirini in the great edition of Pole's correspondence. The treatise itself appeared, without any preface or date of publication, in 1554 (Cal. State Papers, Venetian, vol. v. No. 901). Next year a, second edition was published by protestant hands in Germany, with a number of antipapal tracts appended, and a letter prefixed from the pen of Vergerius (once a papal legate, but then a protestant), repeating, with strong party spirit, an old insinuation that the work had been kept back from publication dishonestly. Pole was more troubled by other malicious insinuations made in past years against his character at Rome. His rivals in the papal election had imputed to him heresy in doctrine, overgreat lenity in his government at Viterbo, and personal impurity. He was moved to write a defence of himself, which Cardinal Caraff'a wisely advised him. not to publish. As others, however, took a different view, he only refrained in deference to the pope himself, to whom he referred the matter. The scandal that he had a natural child rested on the fact that he had rescued a poor English girl, whose mother had died at Rome, from the danger of an immoral life by placing her in a Roman convent. As Cardinal Caraffa, Pole's warm friend hitherto, disbelieved these imputations, it is not quite clear how they led to a temporary coolness on his part. Such, however, is the fact, and, though CarafFa soon confessed his error and expressed the highest esteem for Pole, some grudge remained, and was revived a few years later, when Caraffa became Paul IV.

The news of Edward VI's death, soon followed by that of Mary's bloodless triumph over the factious attempt to prevent her succession, reached Pole at La Garda early in August. He at once wrote to the pope of the hopeful prospect of recovering England from disorder and schism. Julius III had already taken action, and sent to Pole briefs and a commission constituting him legate to Queen Mary as well as to the emperor and to Henry II of France, through whose territory he might pass on his way to England. On this Pole wrote to the queen congratulating her on her accession, and asking directions, as to the time and mode in which he might best discharge his legation and restore papal authority. The queen shared his anxiety, but in other quarters the opinion prevailed that England was far too unsettled to receive a 