de Noailles, vol.iii p.

98.
Though the government labored under so general an odium, the queen's authority had received such an increase from the suppression of Wiat's rebellion, that the ministry hoped to find a compliant disposition in the new parliament which was summoned to assemble.

The emperor also, in order to facilitate the same end, had borrowed no less a sum than four hundred thousand crowns, which he had sent over to England to be distributed in bribes and pensions among the members: a pernicious practice, of which there had not hitherto been any instance in England.
And not to give the public any alarm with regard to the church lands, the queen, notwithstanding her bigotry, resumed her title of supreme head of the church, which she had dropped three months before.

Gardiner, the chancellor, opened the session by a speech; in which he asserted the queen's hereditary title to the crown; maintained her right of choosing a husband for herself; observed how proper a use she had made of that right, by giving the preference to an old ally, descended from the house of Burgundy; and remarked the failure of Henry VIII.'s posterity, of whom there now remained none but the queen and the lady Elizabeth.

He added, that, in order to obviate the inconveniencies which might arise from different pretenders, it was necessary to invest the queen, by law, with a power of disposing of the crown, and of appointing her successor: a power, he said, which was not to be thought unprecedented in England, since it had formerly been conferred on Henry VIII.[*] * Depeches de Noailles.
The parliament was much disposed to gratify the queen in all her desires; but when the liberty, independency, and very being of the nation were in such visible danger, they could not by any means be brought to compliance.