Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/414

394 and Paget, pretending to be alarmed at the excitement vliich he had raised, urged Renard to use his influence with the Queen to dissolve Parliament.

Renard, who was only anxious that the marriage should go off quietly, agreed in the desirableness of a dissolution. He told the Queen that the reform of religion must be left to a better opportunity; and the Prince could not, and should not, set his foot in a country where parties were for ever on the edge of cutting each other's throats. It was no time for her to be indulging Gardiner in humours which were driving men mad, and shutting her ears to the advice of those who could ruin her if they pleased; she must think first of her husband. The Queen protested that Gardiner was acting by no advice of hers; Gardiner, she said, was obstinate, and would listen to no one; she herself was helpless and miserable. But Renard was not to be moved by misery. At all events, he said, the Prince should not come till late in the summer, perhaps not till autumn, not, in fact, till it could be seen what form these wild humours would assume; summer was the dangerous time in England, when the people's blood was apt to boil.

Gardiner, however, was probably not acting without Mary's secret approbation. Both the Queen and the minister especially desired, at that moment, the passing