Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/533

1555.] the 20th of April, a man named William Flower, who had been once a monk of Ely, was burnt in Palace-yard, at Westminster. Flower had provoked his own fate. He appeared on Easter day in St Margaret's Church, while mass was being said; and instigated, as he persuaded himself, by the Holy Spirit, he flew upon the officiating priest, and stabbed him with a dagger in the hand; when to the horror of pious Catholics, the blood spurted into the chalice, and was mixed with the consecrated elements.

Sixteen persons had now been put to death, and there was again a pause for the sharp surgery to produce its effects.

While Mary was destroying the enemies of the Church, Julius the Third had died at the end of March, and Reginald Pole was again a candidate for the vacant Chair. The Courts of Paris and Brussels alike promised him their support, but alike gave their support to another. They flattered his virtues, but they permitted Marcellus Cervino, the Cardinal of St Cross, to be elected unanimously; and the English legate was told that he must be contented with the event which God had been pleased to send. An opportunity, however, seemed to offer itself to him of accomplishing a service to Europe.

For thirty-five years the two great Catholic powers had been wrestling with but brief interruption. The advantage to either had been as trifling as the causes