were pressing the Pope for sentence (we cannot doubt at Catherine's instance), the Nun had placed herself in readiness to seize the opportunity when it offered, and to blow the trumpet of insurrection in the panic which might be surely looked for when that sentence should be published.

For this purpose she had organized, with considerable skill, a corps of fanatical friars, who, when the signal was given, were simultaneously to throw themselves into the midst of the people, and call upon them to rise in the name of God. To the intent,' says the report, to set forth this matter, certain spiritual and religious persons were appointed, as they had been chosen of God, to preach the false revelations of the said Nun, when the time should require, if warning were given them; and some of these preachers have confessed openly, and subscribed their names to their confessions, that if the Nun had so sent them word, they would have preached to the King's subjects that the pleasure of God was that they should take him no longer for their King; and some of these preachers were such as gave themselves to great fasting, watching, long prayers, wearing of shirts of hair and great chains of iron about their middle, whereby the people had them in high estimation of their great holiness,and this strait life they took on them by the counsel and exhortation of the said Nun.'1

Lady Catherine should prosper and | the realm.'-25 Henry VIII.cap. 13. do well, and that her issue, the Lady Mary, should prosper and reign in

1 Report of the Proceedings of the Nun of Kent: Rolls House MS.

Here, then, was the explanation of the attitude of Catherine and Mary. Smarting under injustice, and most naturally blending their private quarrel with the cause of the Church, they had listened to these disordered visions as to a message from heaven, and they had lent themselves to the first of those religious conspiracies which held England in chronic agitation for three-quarters of a century. The innocent Saint at Bugden was the forerunner of the prisoner at Fotheringay; and the Observant friars, with their chain girdles and shirts of hair, were the antitypes of Parsons and Campion. How critical the situation of England really was, appears from the following letter of the French ambassador. The project for the marriage of the Princess Mary with the Dauphin had been revived by the Catholic party; and a private arrangement, of which this marriage was to form the connecting link, was contemplated between the Ultramontanes in France, the Pope, and the Emperor.

D'Inteville to Cardinal Tournon.1

November.

'MY LORD,-You will be so good as to tell the Most Christian King that the Emperor's ambassador has communicated with the old Queen. The Emperor sends a message to her and to her daughter, that he will not return to Spain till he has seen them restored to their rights.

'The people are so much attached to the said ladies

'MS. Bibliot. Impér., Paris. The letter is undated. It was apparently written in the autumn of 1533.

that they will rise in rebellion, and join any prince who will undertake their quarrel. You probably know from other quarters the intensity of this feeling. It is shared by all classes, high and low, and penetrates even into the royal household.

The nation is in marvellous discontent. Every one but the relations of the present Queen, is indignant on the ladies' account. Some fear the overthrow of religion; others fear war and injury to trade. Up to this time, the cloth, hides, wool, lead, and other merchandise of England have found markets in Flanders, Spain, and Italy; now it is thought navigation will be so dangerous that English merchants must equip their ships for war if they trade to foreign countries; and besides the risk of losing all to the enemy, the expense of the armament will swallow the profits of the voyage. In like manner, the Emperor's subjects and the Pope's subjects will not be able to trade with England. The coasts will be blockaded by the ships of the Emperor and his allies; and at this moment men's fears are aggravated by the unseasonable weather throughout the summer, and the failure of the crops. There is not corn enough for half the ordinary consumption.

The common people, foreseeing these inconveniences, are so violent against the Queen, that they say a thousand shameful things of her, and of all who have supported her in her intrigues. On them is cast the odium of all the calamities anticipated from the war.

'When the war comes, no one doubts that the people will rebel as much from fear of the dangers which I

have mentioned, as from the love which is felt for the two ladies, and especially for the Princess. She is so entirely beloved that, notwithstanding the law made at the last Parliament, and the menace of death contained in it, they persist in regarding her as Princess. No Parliament, they say, can make her anything but the King's daughter, born in marriage; and so the King and every one else regarded her before that Parliament.

'Lately, when she was removed from Greenwich, a vast crowd of women, wives of citizens and others, walked before her at their husbands' desire, weeping and crying that notwithstanding all she was Princess. Some of them were sent to the Tower, but they would not retract.

Things are now so critical, and the fear of war is so general, that many of the greatest merchants in London have placed themselves in communication with the Emperor's ambassador, telling him, that if the Emperor will declare war, the English nation will join him for the love they bear the Lady Mary.

'You, my Lord, will remember that when you were here, it was said you were come to tell the King that he was excommunicated, and to demand the hand of the Princess for the Dauphin. The people were so delighted that they have never ceased to pray for you. We too, when we arrived in London, were told that the people were praying for us. They thought our embassy was to the Princess. They imagined her marriage with the Dauphin had been determined on by the two kings, and the satisfaction was intense and universal.

'They believe that, except by this marriage, they cannot possibly escape war; whereas, can it be brought about, they will have peace with the Emperor and all other Christian princes. They are now so disturbed and so desperate that, although at one time they would have preferred a husband for her from among themselves, that they might not have a foreign king, there now is nothing which they desire more. Unless the Dauphin will take her, they say she will continue disinherited; or, if she come to her rights, it can only be by battle, to the great incommodity of the country. The Princess herself says publicly that the Dauphin is her husband, and that she has no hope but in him. I have been told this by persons who have heard it from her own lips.

'The Emperor's ambassador inquired, after you came, whether we had seen her. He said he knew she was most anxious to speak with us; she thought we had permission to visit her, and she looked for good news. He told us among other things, that she had been more strictly guarded of late, by the orders of the Queen that now is, who, knowing her feeling for the Dauphin, feared there might be some practice with her, or some attempt to carry her off.

'The Princess's ladies say that she calls herself the Dauphin's wife. A time will come, she says, when God will see that she has suffered pain and tribulation sufficient; the Dauphin will then demand her of the King her father, and the King her father will not be able to refuse.

"The lady who was my informant heard, also, from