"he did not wish to enter by the window, but by the door, if it should please God that he should do so."* The conclavist, however, who has left us a narrative of the proceedings of this Conclave, says that the proposed adoration of Pole was deferred until the following morning, because the Cardinals St. Marcello and Verallo, belonging to the Imperial party, were ill, and it was deemed necessary to wait for their concurrence in the election. So the cardinals of the Paolini and Imperial parties went to bed with the understanding that His Eminence of England was to be elected on the following morning. But the upshot showed the value of the Italian proverb, which tells you that you may give your enemy anything rather than time! Some members of the French party learned the fact that all had been arranged for the election of the Cardinal of England the following morning, and spent the night in going privately from cell to cell, and endeavouring to persuade a few-some two or three would suffice-of the coalesced parties to desert their friends. And this they succeeded in doing. So that the next morning it was found that, whereas thirty-three votes were needed for an election-the entire number of cardinals in Conclave being forty-nine-Cardinal Pole had only twenty-six! The opportunity had been lost, not to return again. After this failure the votes became more and more scattered at every succeeding scrutiny; and there was scarcely one of the older cardinals who did not conceive hopes, and put forward pretensions of his own. Scrutiny after scrutiny followed unavailingly, and there seemed little prospect of coming

Relat. Ven., ibidem.

to an election. Amid all this, however, there was one man who remained unalterably firm in his determination to elect Pole if it were possible. This was the Cardinal di San Marcello, who became Pope, as Marcellus II., in the next Conclave. And the circumstance is worth mentioning as a testimony in favour of Reginald Pole; for the Cardinal di San Marcello was in all probability by far the best man in that assembly, and was undoubtedly one of the best who ever sat on the Papal throne.

This state of things, says the conclavist, enabled also the Cardinal Salviati to make an attempt for himself, for there were many who were ready to vote for him. His friends accordingly went to Farnese to see if he could be got to support such an election. Farnese showed himself much averse to it. But on the Cardinal Sforza going to him on the same errand, he got him to promise that if they would write to the Emperor and obtain his approbation, he (Farnese) would make no further opposition. So the Cardinal of Mantua, one of the Gonzagas, who was a warm supporter of Salviati, wrote to King Ferdinand, the Emperor's brother, begging him to use his interest with his brother to induce him to consent to the election of Salviati. Ferdinand did write to the Emperor on the subject, but received so bitter* an answer, that he wrote back to the Cardinal of Mantua that he could not favour the election in question in any way. So there was an end of Salviati's hopes and candidateship! All which is curious as showing the sort of way in which the elections were carried on in that day, and how very far the Conclave "Fù cosi acerba la risposta."—Conclav, vol. i. p. 227.

P

was from being impervious to communications with and from the outer world! A cardinal's dinner was to be examined, lest some written communication should be introduced into the Conclave hidden in the interior of a capon; and letters were openly addressed to and received from the potentates of Europe. It will be observed, however, that nothing is heard as yet of any regularised and formal veto.

Gradually, in sheer despair apparently of coming to any more satisfactory election, an increasing number of votes began to drift towards the Cardinal Del Monte. Cardinal de Guise, however, did his utmost to oppose him, pointing out his defects, which were generally supposed to be a quickness to wrath and passion, and writing to France to warn the King that if his friends concurred in such an election, "he would directly he should be Pope give everything to the Emperor, to the great prejudice of his most Christian Majesty." The Cardinal de Guise, too, made an attempt on behalf of his uncle, the Cardinal of Loraine, and obtained a promise of support from Farnese. But the leaders of the Imperial party, getting scent of this conjunction, rushed off to Farnese, and pointed out to him so strongly the objections of the Emperor to such an election, that Farnese withdrew his promise. Here again there is no sort of mention of any veto on the part of either the Emperor or the French King; yet the one was evidently anxious to exclude Del Monte, and the other to exclude de Guise.

It was not till the 8th of February that the cardinals could agree to an election. And then a sufficient

majority was found to make the Cardinal Del Monte Pope by the name of Julius III. His election was caused wholly by the apparent impossibility of making any other. It was by no means because any party of those who concurred in the choice considered him to be the most fitting man among them for that supreme position, but because he was deemed the least objectionable of those whom it was possible to elect. The electors might fairly answer to their own consciences that, if they had not placed on the throne any one of the men, who might have been supposed to be the most fit man to be chosen, if in truth the Holy Ghost were the veritable controller of the election, they had endeavoured but had found it impossible to do better than they had done. And the election does not seem to have been vitiated by simony. It is related, indeed, that on one occasion, when a knot of cardinals, of whom Del Monte was one, were standing around the altar, after an unsuccessful scrutiny, discoursing of the apparent hopelessness of the effort to come to any election at all, Del Monte said, "Well! make me Pope, and the next day I will give you as a colleague my Prevotino "—a sort of clerkly official and intimate attached to a cardinal— words which seem to have been uttered jestingly, and to indicate, if they can be considered to indicate anything, that the speaker had little thought of being taken at his word.

Julius III. was placed at the helm of St. Peter's barque when it was struggling in a very troubled and tempestuous sea; and he was utterly inadequate to assume the management of it. The duties he was en

trusted to do in that state of life to which he had been called would have been very terribly arduous ones to any man. Julius cut the knot by doing nothing! He assuredly has no place, by his own right, in a series called that of the "zealous Popes!" There has hardly, perhaps, been one of the long line to whom such title would less apply! But, as has been explained, our division has been adopted as much with an eye to the Conclaves as to the Popes. And the Conclave which elected Julius was a great improvement on its predecessors. Earnest attempts had been made to elect the truly best man there. They had miserably failed. But we shall see that the next Conclave shows a further improvement, and marks clearly enough the change that was coming over the spirit of the Church.