Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/287

1553.], sooner or later, would implicate them. The country was exhausted, the currency ruined, the people in a state of unexampled suffering, and the only remedy was to be looked for in quiet and public economy. There were attractions in the offer of a powerful alliance, but the very greatness of it added to their reluctance; they desired to isolate England from European quarrels, and marry their Queen at home. With these opinions Paget alone disagreed, while Gardiner was loudly national.

On the other hand, though Gardiner held the restoration of the Papal authority to be tolerable, yet he dreaded the return of Pole, as being likely to supersede him in the direction of the English Church. The party who agreed with the Chancellor about the marriage, and about Pole, disagreed with him about the Pope; while Paget, who was in favour of the marriage, was with the lords on the supremacy, and, as the Romanizing views of the Queen became notorious, was inclining, with Arundel and Pembroke, towards the Protestants.

No wonder, therefore, that the whole council were in confusion and at cross purposes. No sooner were Charles's proposals definitely known than the entire machinery of the Government was dislocated. Mary represented herself to Renard as without a friend whom she could trust; and the letters, both of Renard and Noailles, contain little else but reports how the Lords were either quarrelling, or had, one after the other,