Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/149

1538.] after-roll of the insurrection, and Pole's expectations of a third commotion, it is likely, were as well known to the privy council as they were known to the Pope. Symptoms had appeared in the western counties strikingly resembling those, which had preceded the Yorkshire rising, when Cromwell's innocent order was issued for the keeping of parish registers. Rumours were continually flying that the Emperor would come and overthrow all things; and the busy haste with which the coast was being fortified seemed to sanction the expectation. The Pope had made James of Scotland Defensor fidei. Fleets were whispered to be on the seas. Men would wake suddenly and find the Spaniards arrived; and 'harness would again be occupied.' Superstition on one side, and iconoclasm on the other, had dethroned reason, and raised imagination in its place; and