Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

faith. Even the Parliament begged the queen "not to
marry a stranger," and the queen, not liking to be
crossed in her matrimonial projects, deemed the
request impertinent, and dismissed the members to
their homes. Gardiner, however, hit on means for
facilitating the match between Mary and Philip.
Having learned that a galleon, freighted with gold
from South America, had just arrived in Spain, he
wrote to the emperor, saying that he knew not how
he could so well bestow a few millions of this
wealth as in securing the votes of influential men in
England in favor of the match, and thus rescue a
nation from heresy, and at the same time add
another to the many kingdoms already under the
scepter of Spain. The counsel of the Bishop of
Winchester was followed, and the match went
prosperously forward.
To give an air of seriousness and deliberation
to the changes which were being hurried on with so
much determination and levity, it was thought good
to have a disputation on the mass at Oxford. The
three venerable confessors now in the Tower--
Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer--were brought out,
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