The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

PHILIP II. AND THE COUNCIL. 201
with his wishes.^ As a report was current that the Pope
would remove the suspension without waiting for the answers
of the princes, Pius IV., in reply to a question from Count
Arco, assured him that he had not altered his intention of
waiting until the Emperor and the other princes had answered.
He again declared himself ready to transfer the Council to
another place, if His Majesty so desired.^ On September
29th the Pope revealed his intention of summoning the Council
in any case by his decision to postpone the enforcement of the
duty of residence on the part of the bishops, in view of their
participation in the General Council.^
Philip II. of Spain, in contrast to the policy of the Imperial
and French courts, demanded, not only in a general way that
the Council should be promulgated, and held as a continuation
of that formerly assembled at Trent, but also, in a special
way, that the decrees already published at Trent should be
declared to be binding. In consideration of the views held
by the other princes, however, the Pope did not think it
advisable to make the situation still more difficult in this way
by any express declaration. In order, however, that no
doubts as to his own good will in the matter should arise in
Spain, he informed the king, in a confidential letter of October
5th, that he had often considered this question, and had at last
come to the conclusion that it would be best, when summoning
the Council, neither to confirm the former decrees, nor to declare
them invalid, but rather to pass lightly over this question
with merely a few general references to it. To tranquillize
Philip he told him that he personally considered the Council
of Trent as good and holy, and that he especially approved
of the decree on justification, and that he would also declare
this at a consistory.^ On the same October 5th, the Pope
^ See the postscript to Arco's report of September 24 in Sickel,
Konzil, 96.
^ See Arco's report of October 5, in Sickel, 97 seq.
' See Massarelli in Merkle, II., 348.
* The *letter of Pius IV. of October 5, in the Simancas Archives,
used for the first time by Voss, loi. Cf. the letter of Borromeo
to the nuncio in Spain, in Ehses, VIII., 78 seq.