while the apprehensions which this decision might have aroused were to a great extent dissipated when it was known that he had obtained from the Pontiff powers whereby he would be able to grant to all holders of monastic and collegiate lands the right of continuing in possession.
On November 20 Pole landed at Dover, and proceeded thence by Canterbury and Rochester to Gravesend. Here he was presented with two documents which finally cleared away all impediments from his path: the first, an Act of Parliament, passed ten days before, reversing his attainder; the second, letters patent brought by the Bishop of Durham, empowering him to exercise without restraint his functions as Legate. His progress from Gravesend to Whitehall, accordingly, resembled a triumphal procession, and on his arrival in the capital he was greeted with special honour by Philip and Mary. Writs, in which the title of " Supreme Head " was discarded, were forthwith issued for a third Parliament, to meet on November 12; and on the 27th the Legate delivered before the assembled members a Declaration, couched in highly figurative language, explanatory of the circumstances under which he had been sent, of the object of his coming, and of the powers with which he had been invested. At the conclusion of his address he was formally thanked by Gardiner, and after he had quitted the assembly the Chancellor declared that he had spoken as one inspired. On the following day the question was put to both Houses, whether England should return to the obedience of the Apostolic See? The affirmative was carried without a dissentient among the Peers, and with but two in the Commons. On St Andrew's Day, Pole, on bended knee before Mary, presented her with the Supplication of the two Houses, "that they might receive absolution, and be readmitted into the body of the Holy Catholic Church, under the Pope, the Supreme Head thereof." After further formalities, and intercession made by King and Queen on behalf of the Houses, Pole pronounced the absolution and received the petitioners, by his authority as Legate, "again into the unity of our Mother the Holy Church."
The legislation of the two preceding reigns in all that related to the authority of the Roman see was now rescinded; and on Advent Sunday Gardiner, at Paul's Cross, in the presence of the King and the Legate, called upon the nation to rouse itself from the slumbers and delusions of the past years and to return to the true fold, while he himself at the same time abjured the doctrine set forth in his De Vera Obedientia and declared his unreserved submission to the papal power.
Another Supplication, and one of very different tenour, now issued from within those prison walls where the chief leaders of the Reformers were confined. It detailed the hardships to which they were subjected; claimed that the accusations brought against them should be distinctly stated, in order that they might be heard in their own defence; and, since it was as heretics that they had been singled out for imprisonment, they
