Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/552

532 next, and proposed by Pole himself; but the French were able to keep out Morone, though unable to carry their own candidate Salviati; and, in the end, Farnese brought forward the president of the council at Bologna, Cardinal del Monte; del Monte having privately promised that, if elected, he would forsake France, no longer oppose the Emperor, restore Parma to Octavio, and reunite the council at Trent.

Easy, timid, and self-indulgent, Cardinal del Monte was a neutral character on which opposing factions could agree. On him the choice fell at last; and under the name of Julius III. he occupied (his dwarfed dimensions could not fill) the vacant throne of Paul III. His first act showed the conduct which was to be looked for from him. A Pope, on his election, was allowed by custom to bestow the red hat which he vacated at his own private pleasure. Julius III. raised to the high dignity of a cardinal a favourite and beautiful page who had the care of his Holiness's monkey. The new Jupiter, the irreverent world exclaimed, had taken up into heaven a second Ganymede.

So much for the Papacy. The Emperor now supposed that his difficulties would be at an end. The council would collect again at Trent, and the Germans would be compelled to submit to it. The Diet was summoned to meet at Augsburg at midsummer; Prince Philip was sent for from Spain; and theological and political questions merging into one, the representatives would be invited, not only to give their allegiance to the council, but to make the Empire hereditary, and to