Meanwhile, on the side of Flanders, the atmosphere was dubious and menacing.  The refugee friars, who were reported to be well supplied with money from England, were labouring to exasperate the people, Father Peto especially distinguishing himself upon this service.[673] The English ambassador, Sir John Hacket, still remained at Brussels, and the two governments were formally at peace; but when Hacket required the queen-regent to forbid the publication of the brief of July in the Netherlands, he was met with a positive refusal.  “M.  Ambassador,” she said, “the Emperor, the King of Hungary, the Queen of France, the King of Portugal, and I, understand what are the rights of our aunt—­our duty is to her—­and such letters of the pope as come hither in her favour we shall obey.  Your master has no right to complain either of the emperor or of myself, if we support our aunt in a just cause."[674] At the same time, formal complaints were made by Charles of the personal treatment of Queen Catherine, and the clouds appeared to be gathering for a storm.  Yet here, too, there was an evident shrinking from extremities.  A Welsh gentleman had been at Brussels to offer his services against Henry, and had met with apparent coldness.  Sir John Hacket wrote, on the 15th of December, that he was assured by well-informed persons, that so long as Charles lived, he would never be the first to begin a war with England, “which would rebound to the destruction of the Low Countries."[675] A week later, when the queen-regent was suffering from an alarming illness, he said it was reported that, should she die, Catherine or Mary, if either of them was allowed to leave England, would be held “meet to have governance of the Low Countries."[676] This was a generous step, if the emperor seriously contemplated it.  The failure of the Nun of Kent had perhaps taught him that there was no present prospect of a successful insurrection.  In his conduct towards England, he was seemingly governing himself by the prospect which might open for a successful attack upon it.  If occasion offered to strike the government in connection with an efficient Catholic party in the nation itself, he would not fail to avail himself of it.[677] Otherwise, he would perhaps content himself with an attitude of inactive menace; unless menaced himself by a Protestant confederation.

Amidst these uneasy symptoms at home and abroad, parliament re-assembled on the 15th of January.  It was a changed England since these men first came together on the fall of Wolsey.  Session after session had been spent in clipping the roots of the old tree which had overshadowed them for centuries.  On their present meeting they were to finish their work, and lay it prostrate for ever.  Negotiations were still pending with the See of Rome, and this momentous session had closed before the final catastrophe.  The measures which were passed in the course of it are not, therefore, to be looked upon as adopted hastily, in a spirit of retaliation, but as the consistent accomplishment of a course which had been deliberately adopted, to reverse the positions of the civil and spiritual authority within the realm, and to withdraw the realm itself from all dependence on a foreign power.