Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/391

1554.] rival. Renard urged her to be prudent in religion and cruel to the political prisoners. Gardiner, though eager as Renard to kill Elizabeth, would buy the privilege of working his will upon the Protestants by sparing Courtenay and Courtenay's friends. Mary listened to the worst counsels of each, and her distempered humour settled into a confused ferocity. So unwholesome appeared the aspect of things in the middle of March that, notwithstanding the formal contract, Renard almost advised the Emperor to relinquish the thought of committing his son among so wild a people.

As opposition to extreme measures was anticipated in the House of Lords, as well as among the Commons, it was important to strengthen the Bench of Bishops. The Pope had granted permission without difficulty to fill the vacant Sees; and on the 1st of April six new prelates were consecrated at St Mary Overies, while Sir John Brydges and Sir John Williams of Thame were raised to the peerage.

The Protestants, it must be admitted, had exerted themselves to make Gardiner's work easy to him. On the 14th of March the wall of a house in Aldgate became suddenly vocal, and seventeen thousand persons were collected to hear a message from Heaven pronounced by an angel. When the people said 'God save Queen Mary,' the wall was silent; when they said 'God save Queen Elizabeth,' the wall said 'Amen!' When