Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/34

14 such a measure; and though, he took the interference 'very displeasantly,' the Pope could not afford to lose, by premature impatience, the fruit of all his labour and diplomacy, and had yielded so far as to promise that nothing of moment should be done. To this state of mind he had been brought one day in the second week of June. The morning after, Bennet found him 'sore altered.' The news of 'my Lord of Canterbury's proceedings' had arrived the preceding night; and 'his Holiness said that [such] doings were too sore for him to stand still at and do nothing.' It was 'against his duty towards God and the world to tolerate them.' The Imperialist cardinals, impatient before, clamoured that the evil had been caused by the dilatory timidity with which the case had been handled from the first. The consistory sat day after day with closed doors; and even such members of it as had before inclined to the English side, joined in the common indignation. 'Some extreme process' was instantly looked for, and the English agents, in their daily interviews with the Pope, were