Henry M. Baird · 314 of 379

CHAPTER XI · Determination of Catharine and L'Hospital.

What with the disinclination of the bishops to enter into the consideration of the real difficulties that beset the kingdom, and the open hostility of the Pope and of Philip the Second to any assembly that bore the least resemblance to a national council, Catharine and her principal adviser, the chancellor, had an arduous and well-nigh hopeless task. They strove to quiet the King of Spain and the Pope by the assurance that the prelates had only been assembled in order to prepare them to go in a body to attend the universal council soon to be convened. "Those who are dangerously ill," wrote Catharine in her defence, "may be excused for applying all herbs to their ache, in order to alleviate it when it becomes insupportable. Meanwhile they send for the good physician—whom I take to be a good council—to cure so furious and dangerous a disease." Only those who feel the suffering, she intimated, can talk understandingly with respect to its treatment.