He allowed him still to possess his deanery, and gave him permission to finish his studies at Padua: he even paid him some court, in order to bring him into his measures; and wrote to him, while in that university, desiring him to give his opinion freely with regard to the late measures taken in England for abolishing the papal authority.

Pole had now contracted an intimate friendship with all persons eminent for dignity or merit in Italy--Sadolet, Bembo, and other revivers of true taste and learning; and he was moved by these connections, as well as by religious zeal, to forget, in some respect, the duty which he owed to Henry, his benefactor and his sovereign.

He replied by writing a treatise of the Unity of the Church, in which he inveighed against the king's supremacy, his divorce, his second marriage; and he even exhorted the emperor to revenge on him the injury done to the imperial family and to the Catholic cause.
Henry, though provoked beyond measure at this outrage, dissembled his resentment; and he sent a message to Pole, desiring him to return to England, in order to explain certain passages in his book which he found somewhat obscure and difficult.

Pole was on his guard against this insidious invitation; and was determined to remain in Italy, where he was universally beloved.
The pope and emperor thought themselves obliged to provide for a man of Pole's eminence and dignity, who, in support of their cause, had sacrificed all his pretensions to fortune in his own country.

He was created a cardinal; and though he took not higher orders than those of a deacon, he was sent legate into Flanders about the year 1536.[**] * Goodwin's Annals ** Herbert.
Henry was sensible that Pole's chief intention in choosing that employment, was to foment the mutinous disposition of the English Catholics; and he therefore remonstrated in so vigorous a manner with the queen of Hungary, regent of the Low Countries, that she dismissed the legate, without allowing him to exercise his functions.