[63] Id. 195, 215. This was the parliament, in order to secure favourable elections for which the council had written letters to the sheriffs. These do not appear to have availed so much as they might hope.
[64] Carte, 311, 322; Noailles, v. 252. He says that she committed some knights to the Tower for their language in the house. Id. 247. Burnet, p. 324, mentions the same.
[65] Burnet, 322; Carte, 296. Noailles says, that a third part of the Commons in Mary's first parliament was hostile to the repeal of Edward's laws about religion, and that the debates lasted a week. ii. 247. The journals do not mention any division; though it is said in Strype, iii. 204, that one member, Sir Ralph Bagnal, refused to concur in the act abolishing the supremacy. The queen, however, in her letter to Cardinal Pole, says of this repeal: "Quod non sine contentione, disputatione acri, et summo labore fidelium factum est." Lingard, Carte, Philips's Life of Pole. Noailles speaks repeatedly of the strength of the protestant party, and of the enmity which the English nation, as he expresses it, bore to the pope. But the aversion to the marriage with Philip, and dread of falling under the yoke of Spain, was common to both religions, with the exception of a few mere bigots to the church of Rome.
[66] Noailles, vol. 5, passim.
[67] Strype, ii. 394.
[68] Strype, iii. 155; Burnet, ii. 228.
[69] Burnet, ii. 262, 277.
[70] Noailles, v. 190. Of the truth of this plot there can be no rational ground to doubt; even Dr. Lingard has nothing to advance against it but the assertion of Mary's counsellors, the Pagets and Arundels, the most worthless of mankind. We are, in fact, greatly indebted to Noailles for his spirited activity, which contributed, in a high degree, to secure both the protestant religion and the national independence of our ancestors.
[71] Henry VII. first established a band of fifty archers to wait on him. Henry VIII. had fifty horse-guards, each with an archer, demilance and couteiller, like the gendarmerie of France; but on account, probably, of the expense it occasioned, their equipment being too magnificent, this soon was given up.
[72] View of Middle Ages, ch. 8. I must here acknowledge, that I did not make the requisite distinction between the concilium secretum, or privy council of state, and the concilium ordinarium, as Lord Hale calls it, which alone exercised jurisdiction.