Читать книгу Cardinal Pole; Or, The Days of Philip and Mary. An Historical Romance онлайн

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The hint was not lost upon Charles. At the hazard of incurring the displeasure of the Sovereign Pontiff, Julius III., he determined to prevent the Cardinal from passing into England.

No man of his time possessed higher and nobler qualities than the illustrious Reginald Pole. Sanctity of manners, erudition, wisdom, eloquence, combined to render him one of the most shining lights of the age. Devout without bigotry, tolerant, strictly conscientious, and pure-minded, he was utterly free from debasing passions. Guile and hypocrisy formed no part of his character. Self-denying, abstinent, and laborious, he was ever generous and charitable. Descended from the royal house of York, his mother being Margaret, Countess of Salisbury daughter of the Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward IV., Pole attached no undue importance to this adventitious circumstance, but maintained an almost apostolic meekness of deportment. At the advanced period of life he had attained at the period of our history, his looks were in the highest degree venerable and impressive, offering a complete index to his character. A master of the Latin language, which he spoke and wrote with facility and classical elegance, he had delighted in earlier years in the Greek poets and philosophers, but of late had confined his studies wholly to theology. At one time he had enjoyed the favour of Henry VIII., who was fully alive to his great merits, but he incurred the displeasure of the tyrant by the bold opinions he delivered as to the injustice of Katherine of Aragon’s divorce and the King’s marriage with Anne Boleyn. This opposition to his will was never forgiven by the implacable monarch, and unable to get Pole, who had taken refuge in Italy, into his power, he deprived him of his benefice and possessions, declared him guilty of high treason, laid a price on his head, and sought to procure his assassination. At last, unable to accomplish his fell purpose, Henry wreaked his vengeance on the Cardinal’s mother, the venerable Countess of Salisbury—the last of the whole blood of the royal line of Plantagenet—on his brother Henry Pole, Lord Montague, Sir Edward Nevil, Sir Nicholas Carew, and other of his friends, all of whom were attainted of high treason, and brought to the block. The slaughter of the aged and unoffending Countess, who was only put to death because she was Pole’s mother, is perhaps the deepest stain on Henry’s character. These wholesale murders deeply afflicted Pole, and cast a gloom over the rest of his days; but he did not cry out for vengeance upon the perpetrator of the foul crimes, knowing that Heaven would requite him in due season. That the snares spread by the tyrant had failed to catch him—that the daggers aimed at his breast had been turned aside—convinced him he had work to do for which he was miraculously preserved. So he resigned himself to the heavy calamity that had befallen him, but though there was no show of grief on his countenance, the deep-seated wound in his heart never healed. Raised to the Purple by Paul III., on the death of that Pontiff, in 1549 (five years before the date of our history), the eminent and virtuous Cardinal appeared the most fitting person in the conclave to assume the tiara, and, in spite of the intrigues against him, he was elected to the Pontifical throne; but when the news was brought him at a late hour, he modestly bade the messengers wait till the morrow, and his answer being construed into a refusal, another election took place, when the choice fell upon Cardinal del Monte, who took the title of Julius III.