Other actors in the great drama which was approaching were already commencing their parts.
Reginald Pole having attempted in vain to recover a footing in England on the accession of Edward, having seen his passionate expectations from the Council of Trent melt into vapour, and Germany confirmed in heresy by the Peace of Passau, was engaged, in the summer of 1553, at a convent on the Lago di Garda, in re-editing his book against Henry VIII., with an intended dedication to Edward, of whose illness he was ignorant. The first edition, on the failure of his attempt to raise a Catholic crusade against his country, had been withdrawn from circulation; the world had not received it favourably, and there was a mystery about the publication which it is difficult to unravel. In the interval between the first despatch of the book into England as a private letter in the summer of 1536, and the appearance of it in print at Rome in the winter of 1538–9, it was re-written, as I have already stated, enlarged and divided into parts. In a letter of apology which Pole wrote to Charles V., in the summer or early autumn of 1538,[1] he spoke of that division as having been executed by himself;[2] he said that he had kept his book secret till the Church had spoken; but Paul having excommunicated Henry, he could no longer remain silent; he dwelt at length on the history of the work which he was then editing,[3] and he sent a copy at the same time
