ing at his character, opinions, and conduct previously to and at the Council of Trent, it is hardly too much to suppose that, had the guidance of the Church remained in his hands as many years, as, from his age, might have been hoped, the divisions which have torn the Church might even then have been healed, and the great schism avoided!

But worn out by previous travels and labours, and called on immediately after his elevation to perform his laborious part of the functions of the Holy Week, which, though suffering much, he would in no degree spare himself, he was attacked by a new access of fever, which assailed him while he was in the act of washing the feet of the thirteen pilgrims according to custom, and put an end to his life, on the twenty-third day of his pontificate, on the 1st of May, 1555, in the fifty-fourth year of his life.

CHAPTER III.

The Conclave which elected Paul IV.-Imperialist Party.-Cardinal Pole. - Results in practice of the requirement of a two-thirds majority.-Cardinal Carpi excluded by Cardinal D'Este.-Cardinal Morone.-Objections to him.-Cardinal Pozzi.-Management of Farnese.-Election of Paul IV.-Anecdote of the feeling of Rome on the occasion.-Character of Caraffa, Paul IV.-Imperial "Veto " disregarded in this election.-Saying of Caraffa respecting his own elevation. Estimate and description of Paul by the Venetian Ambassador. Giovanni Angelo Medici: his Family, Brother, Early History. Character and personal appearance of Medici, Pius IV.-The Inquisition.-Signs of the times.-Practice of giving complimentary votes.-Anecdote of the craft of a Conclavist.Cardinal Carpi again.-Why he was objectionable to D'Este.Medici suddenly elected as a pis aller.

THE Conclave which elected Paul IV., who ascended the Papal throne as successor of Marcellus on the 23rd of May, 1555, was in fact little other than a continuation of the Conclave which elected his predecessor. The three and twenty days which separated the two were insufficient to have changed any of the conditions or removed any of the difficulties which existed when they were solved by the election of Marcellus. They were increased by the removal of that solution of them. The Imperialist party had made the last Pope, and their authority and influence having naturally been increased by that success, it was supposed that the creation of his successor would lie mainly in their hands. Their party was rendered yet further the more powerful, and had the greater chances of success, in that the most proper

and fitted persons in the College-the most papabili in Conclave slang-belonged to their faction. Reginald Pole, who had been so nearly elected in the penultimate Conclave, was still a member of the Sacred College. The Cardinals Carpi and Morone were also among the most papabili of the College, and were either of them. acceptable to the Imperialists. But Pole had been present on the former occasion, and he was now absenta very important and significant difference. It was felt, moreover, that the lapse of time that must occur before he could be expected to reach Rome, should he be elected, might be prejudicial to the interests of the Church. As for Carpi, his election was specially objected to by the Cardinal d'Este (Ferrara), the recognised head of the French party. And the fact that this circumstance constrained the Imperialists to pass him over in their plans for filling the Papacy with one of their party is a good illustration of the manner in which party politics worked in the papal elections.

If, indeed, the Imperialist party had been strong enough to elect a candidate of their own without any reference to their adversaries-if, that is to say, they could securely count on constituting a two-thirds majority of the electors-then, of course, none of the considerations in question would have come into play. But this was rarely the case. One party, for instance, might number, say, twenty-eight votes out of forty-five. Their adversaries would have the command of seventeen. Thirty votes are needed to make an election. It is clear that if every man is perfectly true, and all of them perfectly obstinate, no election could ever take place. And

Q

it is an approach to such conditions that has caused some Conclaves to be dragged out to such inconvenient lengths. But their Eminences are not perfectly obstinate, and still less are they all and each of them perfectly true to their party engagements, not to mention that there may be some who have never assumed any party engagements. Then it is of course exceedingly easy to understand that a variety of other secondary considerations must exist to modify the individual wishes of each member of a party. His Eminence A, we will say, desires that some one of, say, the Imperial party should be made Pope. But seeing that that cannot be accomplished, he makes up his mind to vote for a member of the opposite faction, but not for any member of it. He can be induced to vote for B because he is the nephew of the Pope who created himself a cardinal, or for C because there is a connection between their families, &c., &c. But nothing will induce him to vote for D. When, therefore, a party, not quite strong enough to elect their own man, are determining who shall be the candidate to be put forward by the party, it behoves them to consider with the most minute and detailed care all the causes that may exist for rendering this or that man among the opponents likely to yield so far as to give his vote for such a candidate, whereas he would by no means desert his party for another. Sometimes also it will occur that, although a man may wish that some member of his faction should be elected, he will prefer that a member of the opposite party should be made Pope rather than some one particular member of his own party. And all such motives have

to be carefully considered by the party leaders who would avoid desertions among their followers at the critical moment.

Now, in the present instance, Cardinal Carpi was known to be especially objectionable to the Cardinal D'Este, the head of the French faction. And this was quite sufficient to prevent the leaders of the Imperial faction from selecting him as the candidate of the party. In the language of the Conclave, he had an esclusiva from the Cardinal di Ferrara, and it was therefore useless to attempt to elect him.

There was a difficulty, too, about Morone. There had been whispers as to the soundness of his orthodoxy. The awful word heresy had been heard in connection with his name, and these were times when such an accusation could not be disregarded-when, indeed, any mere suspicion of a tendency to laxness on any of the points that were then making the dividing line between orthodoxy and the tenets of the sectarians would have been quite sufficient to prevent the greater number of the assembled cardinals from giving a vote to one labouring under such an accusation. Curious enough to mark how far both the accusation and the importance of it shows the Church to have floated down the stream of time during the last hundred years. Fancy anybody accusing Leo X. or Julius II. of heterodox opinions, or of his finding anybody to listen to him if he had done so !

Under these circumstances the leaders of the Imperialist party cast their eyes on Cardinal Pozzi, a moderate man, who was esteemed by all parties, and who,