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382 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. were condemned to death. But when Mary was urged to bring Lady Jane Grey to trial, she showed great reluctance, alleging that her unfortunate cousin ought not to be punished for the crime in which the ambition of Northumberland com- pelled her to act a part. Well had it been for the reputation of Mary if she had maintained her original good intentions of clemency towards her fair and interesting kinswoman, who should be viewed as the innocent victim to the policy of Edward and the ambition of Northumberland. Before the month of August had expired, Mary received in private, and with the utmost secrecy, an envoy from the pope, to whom she revealed two very important pieces of intelli- gence. The first was her desire to yield to the pope the su- premacy in religion wrested from him by her father ; and the second, that she had pledged her hand to Philip of Spain. Two measures more calculated to render her unpopular never could have been thought of, and of this was Reginald Pote, now a cardinal, so well aware, that he earnestly counseled Mary not to marry, while Bishop Gardiner as earnestly en- treated her not to resign her supremacy. Mary now found herself placed in a difficult and dangerous position. The mem- bers of the established church, as the Protestant was termed, looked on her as its enemy ; the anti-papal Catholics strongly suspected her of an inclination to surrender the supremacy to the pope ; and those of the ancient Catholic faith, who had denied all supremacy save that of the pope, were doubtful whether or not she would restore it to him. The rumor of the Spanish marriage gave discontent to all parties; but Mary, now no longer young, evinced a desire to wed which she had never betrayed in her youth, and leant entirely to the individual most objectionable to her subjects, namely, Philip of Spain. So determined was she to carry out her wishes on this point, that when an address was sent her from the House of Commons, praying that she would not marry a foreigner, her answer was, "That she held her crown of God, and hoped to find counsel from Him alone on so im- portant an occasion." Nor were her subjects more averse to this marriage than was he whom it even more personally concerned, for Charles the Fifth had great difficulty in persuading his son to consent to wed Mary. Nor could this objection on his side be won- dered at. Eleven years his senior, Mary was remarkably