go beyond the matter and beside it, and insinuate when he was unable to assert.[1]
In this mood, and while the book was still unsent, he learnt with utter mortification of the relinquishment of the Emperor's intended enterprise and the possible peaceful close of the quarrel. He had proposed to himself a far different solution. It may be that he was convinced that no such peaceful close could lead to good. It may have been, that the white rose was twining pure before his imagination, with no red blossoms intermixed, round the pillars of a regenerated Church. Or, perhaps, many motives, distinct and indistinct, were working upon him. Only the fact is certain, that he might have mediated, but that he was determined rather to make mediation impossible; the broken limb should not be set in its existing posture.
March.In March he heard that the Pope was softening. He wrote, urgently entreating that- ↑ 'Quibus si rem persuadere velis multa præter rem sunt dicenda, multa insinuanda.'—Epist. Reg. Pol., vol. i. p. 434. And again: 'Illum librum scribo non tam Regis causâ quam gregis Christi qui est universus Regni populus, quem sic deludi vix ferendum est.'—Ibid. p. 437. I draw attention to these words, because in a subsequent defence of himself to the English Privy Council, Pole assured them that his book was a private letter privately sent to the King; that he had written as a confessor to a penitent, under the same obligations of secrecy: 'Hoc genere dicendi Regem omnibus dedecorosum et probrosum reddo? Quibus tandem, illustrissimi Domini? Hisne qui libellum nunquam viderunt, an his ad quos legendum dedi? Quod si hic solus sit Rex ipse, utinam ipse sibi probrosus videretur Ad eum certe solum misi; quocum ita egi ut nemo unquam a confessionibus illi secretior esse potuisset, hoc tantum spectans quod confessores ut illi tantum sua peccata ostenderem.'—Apologia ad Ang. Parl.: Epist. vol. i. p. . So considerable an inconsistency might tempt a hasty person to use hard words of Pole.
