and already a thorough sensualist; a man of a dark, gloomy, and mercilessly cruel temper, selfish to the extreme to which selfishness can go, destitute of natural affection, and absolutely unfeeling, as well as unscrupulous in regard to those who stood in his way. He was as bitter and narrow a bigot as Mary herself; and this was, indeed, their only point of sympathy. But there was a difference between the two. Mary was thoroughly single-minded: if she sacrificed others, she was ready to sacrifice herself as well. Philip always kept an eye on his own interests, and when they were at stake could be as hard on the Pope as on a heretic. The one was a bigoted fanatic, the other a fanatical hypocrite. In all the long array of historical portraits, of whatever age, we can scarcely find any one single character more entirely detestable, or more absolutely destitute of redeeming features, than that of Philip II. From such a marriage what good could follow to Mary or to England?
In the autumn a visitation of the dioceses by their bishops took place, largely in the spirit of the Queen's letter to Bonner already referred to. Bonner's own visitation articles still remain in his register, and are quoted by Burnet and Wilkins, though with some variations, and probably from different copies. These articles, as we learn from Renard,[1] created a ferment in London, and Bonner found it necessary to defer his proceedings. It is worthy of note that Renard anticipated the probability of similar trouble in other dioceses; a prognostication which seems to suggest two things, viz. that other bishops were about to follow a similar course to Bonner's, and that practical returns of this kind to the old ecclesiastical order of thing's were not altogether popular even elsewhere than in London. The ambas-
- ↑ Granvelle Papers, iv. 329.
