[377] The Lord Leonard repayreth at this season to your Majesty, bringing with him the said Thomas, beseeching your Highness most humbly, that according to the comfort of our words spoken to the same Thomas to allure him to yield him, ye would be merciful to the said Thomas, especially concerning his life.--The Council of Ireland to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 275.
[379] The conditions promised to Napoleon by the captain of the _Bellerophon_ created a similar difficulty. If Nana Sahib had by any chance been connected by marriage with an English officer, and had that officer induced him to surrender by a promise of pardon, would the English Government have respected that promise?
[380] It were the worst example that ever was; and especially for these ungracious people of Ireland.--Norfolk to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 276.
[382] Ibid. The duke, throughout his letter, takes a remarkably businesslike view of the situation. He does not allow the question of "right" to be raised, or suppose at all that the government could lie under any kind of obligation to a person in the position of Fitzgerald.
[Sidenote: State of England in the summer of 1534.]
While the disturbance in Ireland was at its height, affairs in England had been scarcely less critical. The surface indeed remained unbroken. The summer of 1534 passed away, and the threatened invasion had not taken place. The disaffection which had appeared in the preceding year had been smothered for a time; Francis I. held the emperor in check by menacing Flanders, and through French influence the rupture with Scotland had been seemingly healed. In appearance the excommunication had passed off as a _brutum fulmen_, a flash of harmless sheet lightning, serving only to dazzle feeble eyes. The oath of succession, too, had been taken generally through the country; Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher having alone ventured to refuse. The pope had been abjured by the universities and by the convocation in both the provinces, and to these collective acts the bishops and the higher clergy had added each their separate consent.
[Sidenote: The clergy comply with the revolution, but inwardly have little heart for it.]