Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/480

460 her blessed: she has given her kingdom to God as a thank-offering for those great mercies which He has bestowed upon her.'

And the legate;—but the legate has described his emotions in his own inimitable manner. Pole went back to Lambeth, not to rest, but to pour out his soul to the Holy Father.

In his last letter he said 'he had told his Holiness that he had hoped that England would be recovered to the fold at last; yet he had then some fears remaining, so far estranged were the minds of the people from the Holy See, lest at the last moment some compromise might ruin all.'

But the godly forwardness of the King and Queen had overcome every difficulty; and on that evening, the day of St Andrew—of Andrew who first brought his brother Peter to Christ—the realm of England had been brought back to its obedience to Peter's See, and through Peter to Christ. The great act had been accomplished, accomplished by the virtue and the labour of the inestimable sovereigns with whom God had blessed the world.

'And oh,' he said, 'how many things, how great things, may the Church our mother, the bride of Christ, promise herself from these her children? Oh piety! oh! antient faith! Whoever looks on them will repeat the words of the prophet of the Church's early offspring; This is the seed which the Lord hath blessed.' How