CHAPTER III.

The story returns to Orvieto. The dispensation was promised on condition that it should not be immediately acted on.[29] Catherine having refused to acquiesce in a private arrangement, Wolsey again pressed the Pope for a commission to decide the cause in England, and to bind himself at the same time not to revoke it, but to confirm any judgment which he might himself give. “There were secret causes,” he said, “which could not be committed to writing which made such a concession imperative: certain diseases in the Queen defying all remedy, for which, as for other causes, the King would never again live with her as his wife.”

The Pope, smarting from ill-treatment and grateful for the help of France and England, professed himself earnestly anxious to do what Henry desired. But he was still virtually a prisoner. He had been obliged by the General of the Observants, when in St. Angelo, to promise to do nothing “whereby the King’s divorce might be judged in his own dominions.” He pleaded for time. He promised a commission of some kind, but he said he was undone if action was taken upon it while the Germans and Spaniards remained in Italy. He saw evident ruin before him, he said, but he professed to be willing to run the hazard rather than that Wolsey should suspect him of ingratitude. He implored the Cardinal, cum suspiriis et lacrymis, not to precipitate him for ever, and precipitated he would be if, on receiving the commission, the Cardinal at once began the process.[30] A fortnight later Casalis described a long conversation with the Pope and Cardinals on the course to be pursued. Henry had desired that a second Legate should be sent from Rome to act with Wolsey. To consent to this would directly compromise the Papal Court. Clement had no objection to the going forward with the cause, but he did not wish to be himself responsible. He signed an imperfect commission not inconsistent with his promise to the General of the Observants. On this Wolsey might act or, if he preferred it, might proceed on his own Legatine authority. For himself, instead of engaging to confirm Wolsey’s sentence, he said that no doctor could better resolve the point at issue than the King himself. If he was resolved, said the Pope, let him commit his cause to the Legate, marry again, follow up the trial, and then let a public application be made for a Legate to be sent from the Consistory. If the Queen was cited first, she would put in no answer, save to protest against the place and judges. The Imperialists would demand a prohibition, and then the King could not marry, or, if he did, the offspring would be illegitimate. They would also demand a commission for the cause to be heard at Rome, which the Pope would be unable to refuse. But the King being actually married again, they could not ask for a prohibition. They could only ask that the cause should be re-examined at Rome, when the Pope would give sentence and a judgment could be passed which would satisfy the whole world.[31] This was the Pope’s own advice, but he did not wish it to be known that it had come from himself. Casalis might select the Legate to England after the first steps had been taken. Campeggio he thought the fittest, being already an English bishop.[32] At any rate, the Pope bade Casalis say he would do his best to satisfy the King, though he knew that the Emperor would never forgive him.

It is not certain what would have followed had Henry acted on the Pope’s suggestion. The judgment which Clement promised might have been in his favour. Clement evidently wished him to think that it would. But he might, after all, have found himself required to take Catherine back. Either alternative was possible. At any rate he did not mean, if he could help it, to have recourse to violent methods. Charles himself, though he intended to prevent, if he could, a legal decision against his aunt, had hinted at the possibility and even desirableness of a private arrangement, if Catherine would agree. Catherine, unfortunately, would agree to nothing, but stood resolutely upon her rights, and Charles was forced to stand by her. Henry was equally obstinate, and the Pope was between the rock and the whirlpool.

The Pope had promised, however, and had promised with apparent sincerity. The Papal states remaining occupied by the Imperial troops, Henry carried out his own part of the engagement by joining France in a declaration of war against the Emperor. Toison d’or and Clarencieulx appeared before Charles at Burgos on the 22nd of January, Charles sitting on his throne to receive their defiance. Toison d’or said that the Emperor had opened Christendom to the Turks, had imprisoned the Pope, had allowed his armies to sack Rome and plunder churches and monasteries, had insulted the holy relics, slain or robbed princes of the Church, cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, outraged nunneries and convents, had encouraged Lutheran heretics in committing these atrocities, &c. For these reasons France declared open war with the Emperor. The English herald—he was accused afterwards of having exceeded his instructions—was almost as peremptory. Henry, in earlier times, had lent Charles large sums of money, which had not been repaid. Clarencieulx said that, unless the Pope was released and the debt settled, the King of England must make common cause with his brother of France. Six weeks’ interval was allowed for the Emperor to consider his answer before hostilities on the side of England should commence.

The Emperor replied with calmness and dignity. War with France was inevitable. As to England, he felt like Cicero, when doubting whether he should quarrel with Cæsar, that it was inconvenient to be in debt to an enemy. If England attacked him he said he would defend himself, but he declined to accept the defiance. Mendoza was not recalled from London. At the end of the six weeks the situation was prolonged by successive truces till the peace of Cambray. But Henry had kept his word to the Pope. England appeared by the side of France in the lists as the armed champion of the Papacy, and the Pope was expected to fulfil his promises without disguise or subterfuge.

Clement’s method of proceeding with the divorce was rejected. The dispensation and commission which had been amended with a view to it were rejected also as worthless. Dr. Fox and Stephen Gardiner were despatched to Orvieto with fuller powers and with a message peremptory and even menacing. They were again to impress on the Pope the danger of a disputed succession. They were to hint that, if relief was refused in deference to the Emperor, England might decline from obedience to the Holy See. The Pope must, therefore, pass the commission and the dispensation in the form in which it had been sent from England. If he objected that it was unusual, they were to announce that the cause was of great moment. The King would not be defrauded of his expectation through fear of the Emperor. If he could not obtain justice from the Pope, he would be compelled to seek it elsewhere.[33]

The language of these instructions shows that the King and Wolsey understood the Proteus that they were dealing with, and the necessity of binding his hands if he was not to slip from them. It was not now the fountain of justice, the august head of Christendom, that they were addressing, but a shifty old man, clad by circumstances with the robe of authority, but whose will was the will of the power which happened to be strongest in Italy. It was not tolerable that the Emperor should dictate on a question which touched the vital interests of an independent kingdom.

Spanish diplomatists had afterwards to excuse and explain away Clement’s concessions on the ground that they were signed when he was angry at his imprisonment, had been extorted by threats, and were therefore of no validity. He struggled hard to avoid committing himself. The unwelcome documents were recast into various forms. The dispensation was not signed after all, but in the place of it other briefs were signed of even graver importance. The Pope yielded to the demand to send a second Legate to try the cause with Wolsey in England, where it was assumed as a matter of course that judgment would be given for the King. The Legate chosen was Campeggio, who was himself, as was said, an English bishop. The Pope also did express in writing his own opinion on the cause as favourable to the King’s plea. What passed at Orvieto was thus afterwards compendiously related by Henry in a published statement of his case.

“On his first scruple the King sent to the Bishop of Rome, as Christ’s Vicar, who had the keys of knowledge, to dissolve his doubts. The said Bishop refused to take any knowledge of it and desired the King to apply for a commission to be sent into the realm, authorised to determine the cause, thus pretending that it might no wise be entreated at Rome, but only within the King’s own realm. He delegated his whole powers to Campeggio and Wolsey, giving them also a special commission in form of a decretal, wherein he declared the King’s marriage null and empowered him to marry again. In the open commission also he gave them full authority to give sentence for the King. Secretly he gave them instructions to burn the commission decretal and not proceed upon it; (but) at the time of sending the commission he also sent the King a brief, written in his own hand, admitting the justice of his cause and promising sanctissime sub verbo Pontificis that he would never advocate it to Rome.”[34]

Engagements which he intended to keep or break according to the turns of the war between Francis and Charles did not press very heavily perhaps on Clement’s conscience, but they were not extorted from him without many agonies. “He has granted the commission,” Casalis wrote. “He is not unwilling to please the King and Wolsey, but fears the Spaniards more than ever he did. The Friar-General has forbidden him in the Emperor’s name to grant the King’s request. He fears for his life from the Imperialists if the Emperor knows of it. Before he would grant the brief he said, weeping, that it would be his utter ruin. The Venetians and Florentines desired his destruction. His sole hope of life was from the Emperor. He asked me to swear whether the King would desert him or not. Satisfied on this point, he granted the brief, saying that he placed himself in the King’s arms, as he would be drawn into perpetual war with the Emperor. Wolsey might dispose of him and the Papacy as if he were Pope himself.”[35]

The Emperor had insisted, at Catherine’s desire, that the cause should not be heard in England. The Pope had agreed that it should be heard in England. Consent had been wrung from him, but his consent had been given, and Campeggio was to go and make the best of it. His open commission was as ample as words could make it. He and Wolsey were to hear the cause and decide it. The secret “decretal” which he had wept over while he signed it declared, before the cause was heard, the sentence which was to be given, and he had pledged his solemn word not to revoke the hearing to Rome. All that Clement could do was to instruct the Legate before he started to waste time on his way, and, on his arrival in England, to use his skill to “accommodate matters,” and to persuade the Queen—if he found her persuadeable—to save him from his embarrassments by taking the veil. This was a course which Charles himself in his private mind would have recommended, but was too honourable to advise it. The fatal decretal was to be seen only by a very few persons, and then, as Henry said, Campeggio was to burn it. He was instructed also to pass no sentence without first referring back to Rome, and, if driven to extremity, was to find an excuse for postponing a decision; very natural conduct on the part of a weak, frightened mortal—conduct not unlike that of his predecessor, Alexander III., in the quarrel between Becket and Henry II.—but in both cases purely human, not such as might have been looked for in a divinely guided Vicar of Christ.

CHAPTER IV.

The Abbess of Wilton had died. The situation was a pleasant one. Among the sisters who aspired to the vacant office was a certain Eleanor Carey, a near connection of Anne, and a favourite with her. The appointment rested virtually with the Crown. The Lady Anne spoke to the King. The King deputed Wolsey to inquire into the fitness of the various candidates, with a favourable recommendation of Eleanor Carey’s claims. The inquiry was made, and the result gives us a glimpse into the habits of the devout recluses in these sacred institutions.[36]

“As for the matter of Wilton,” wrote Henry to Anne, “my Lord Cardinal here had the nuns before him, and examined them in the presence of Master Bell, who assures me that she whom we would have had Abbess has confessed herself to have had two children by two different priests, and has since been kept not long ago by a servant of Lord Broke that was. Wherefore I would not for all the gold in the world clog your conscience nor mine, to make her ruler of a house which is of so ungodly demeanour, nor I trust you would not that, neither for brother nor sister,[37] I should so distain mine honour or conscience. And as touching the Prioress [Isabella Jordan] or Dame Eleanor’s elder sister, though there is not any evident cause proved against them, and the Prioress is so old that of many years she could not be as she was named, yet notwithstanding, to do you pleasure I have done that neither of them shall have it, but that some other good and well-disposed woman shall have it, whereby the house shall be better reformed, whereof I assure you it hath much need, and God much the better served.”

This letter is followed by another to the Cardinal. Wolsey, in whose hands the King had left the matter, in a second letter which is lost, instead of looking out for the “good and well-disposed woman,” though Isabella Jordan’s reputation was doubtful, yet chose to appoint her, and the King’s observations upon this action of his are worth attending to, as addressed by such a person as Henry is supposed to have been to a Cardinal Archbishop and Legate of the Holy See. Many of the letters signed by the King were the composition of his ministers and secretaries. This to Wolsey was his own.

“The great affection and love I bear you, causeth me, using the doctrine of my Master, quem diligo castigo, thus plainly as now ensueth to break to you my mind, ensuring you that neither sinister report, affection to my own pleasure, interest, nor mediation of any other body beareth part in this case, wherefore whatsoever I do say, I pray you think it spoken of no displeasure, but of him that would you as much good both of body and soul as you would yourself.

“Methinks it is not the right train of a trusty loving friend and servant when the matter is put by the master’s consent into his arbitre and judgement—especially in a matter wherein his master hath both royalty and interest, to elect and choose a person who was by him defended. And yet another thing which displeaseth me more. That is to cloke your offence made by ignorance of my pleasure, saying that you expressly knew not my determinate mind in that behalf. Alas, my lord, what can be more evident or plainer than these words, specially to a wise man—‘His Grace careth not who, but referreth it all to you, so that none of those who either be or have been spotted with incontinence, like as by report the Prioress hath been in her youth, have it;’ and also in another place in the letter, ‘And therefore his Highness thinketh her not meet for that purpose;’ thirdly, in another place in the same letter by these words, ‘And though his Grace speaketh not of it so openly, yet meseemeth his pleasure is that in no wise the Prioress have it, nor yet Dame Eleanor’s eldest sister, for many considerations the which your Grace can and will best consider.’

“Ah, my Lord, it is a double offence both to do ill and to colour it too; but with men that have wit it cannot be accepted so. Wherefore, good my Lord, use no more that way with me, for there is no man living that more hateth it. These things having been thus committed, either I must have reserved them in pectore, whereby more displeasure might happen to breed, or else thus soundly and plainly to declare them to you, because I do think that cum amico et familiari sincere semper est agendum, and especially the master to his best beloved servant and friend, for in so doing the one shall be more circumspect in his doing, the other shall declare and show the lothness that is in him to have any occasion to be displeased with him.

“And as touching the redress of Religion [convent discipline], if it be observed and continued, undoubtedly it is a gracious act. Notwithstanding, if all reports be true, ab imbecillis imbecilla expectantur. How be it, Mr. Bell hath informed me that the Prioress’s age, personage and manner, præ se fert gravitatem. I pray God it be so indeed, seeing she is preferred to that room. I understand furthermore, which is greatly to my comfort, that you have ordered yourself to Godward as religiously and virtuously as any Prelate or father of Christ’s Church can do, where in so doing and persevering there can be nothing more acceptable to God, more honour to yourself, nor more desired of your friends, among the which I reckon myself not the least....

“I pray you, my Lord, think it not that it is upon any displeasure that I write this unto you. For surely it is for my discharge before God, being in the room that I am in, and secondly for the great zeal I bear unto you, not undeserved in your behalf. Wherefore I pray you take it so; and I assure you, your fault acknowledged, there shall remain in me no spark of displeasure, trusting hereafter you shall recompense that with a thing much more acceptable to me. And thus fare you well; advertising you that, thanked be God, I and all my folk be, and have been since we came to Ampthill, which was on Saturday last, July 11, in marvellous good health and clearness of air.

“Written with the hand of him that is, and shall be your loving Sovereign Lord and friend,—Henry R.”[38]

Campeggio meanwhile was loitering on his way as he had been directed, pretending illness, pretending difficulties of the road. In sending him at all the Pope had broken his promise to Charles. He engaged, however, that no sentence should be given which had not been submitted first to Charles’s approval. The Emperor, anxious to avoid a complete rupture with England, let the Legate go forward, but he directed Mendoza to inform Wolsey that he must defend his aunt’s honour; her cause was his and he would hold it as such.[39] Wolsey, though afraid of the consequence of opposing the divorce to himself and the Church, yet at heart had ceased to desire it. Mendoza reported that English opinion was still unfavourable, and that he did not believe that the commission would have any result. The Pope would interpose delays. Wolsey would allow and recognise them. Both Legates would agree privately to keep the matter in suspense. The English Cardinal appeared to be against the Queen, but every one knew that secretly he was now on her side.[40] Catherine only was seriously frightened. She had doubtless been informed of the secret decretal by which the Pope appeared to have prejudged her cause. She supposed that the Pope meant it, and did not understand how lightly such engagements sate upon him. The same Clement, when Benvenuto Cellini reproached him for breaking his word, replied, smiling, that the Pope had power to bind and to loose. Catherine came before long to know him better and to understand the bearings of this singular privilege; but as yet she thought that words meant what they seemed to say. When she heard that Campeggio was actually coming, she wrote passionately to the Emperor, flinging herself upon him for protection. Charles calmed her alarm. She was not, he said, to be condemned without a hearing. The Pope had assured him that the Legates should determine nothing to her detriment. The case should be decided at Rome, as she had desired. Campeggio’s orders were to advise that it should be dropped. Apart from his present infatuation, the King was a good Christian and would act as one. If he persisted, she might rely on the Pope’s protection. She must consent to nothing which would imply the dissolution of her marriage. If the worst came, the King would be made conscious of his duties.[41]

In the middle of October the Legate arrived. He had been ill in earnest from gout and was still suffering. He had to rest two days in Calais before he could face the Channel. The passage was wild. A deputation of Peers and Bishops waited to receive him at Dover. Respectful demonstrations had been prepared at the towns through which he was to pass, and a state ceremonial was to accompany his entrance into London. But he was, or pretended to be, too sick to allow himself to be seen. He was eight days on the road from the coast, and on reaching his destination he was carried privately in a state barge to the house provided for his residence. Wolsey called the next morning. The King was absent, but returned two days later to the Bridewell palace. There Campeggio waited on him, accompanied by Wolsey. The weather continued to frown. “I wish,” wrote Gerardo Molza to the Marchioness of Mantua, “that you could have seen the two Cardinals abreast, one on his mule, the other carried in his chair, the rain falling fast so that we were all drenched.” The King, simple man, believed that the documents which he held secured him. The Pope in sending the Legate had acted in the teeth of the Emperor’s prohibition, and no one guessed how the affair had been soothed down. The farce was well played, and the language used was what Henry expected. Messer Floriano, one of Campeggio’s suit, made a grand oration, setting out the storming of Rome, the perils of the Church, and the misery of Italy, with moving eloquence. The crowd was so dense in the hall of audience that some of the Italians lost their shoes, and had to step back barefoot to their lodgings through the wet streets.

The Legate was exhausted by the exertion, but he was not allowed to rest, and the serious part of the business began at once behind the scenes. He had hoped, as the Emperor said, that the case might be dropped. He found Henry immoveable. “An angel from heaven,” he wrote on the 17th of October,[42] “would not be able to persuade the King that his marriage was not invalid. The matter had come to such a pass that it could no longer be borne with. The Cardinal of York and the whole kingdom insisted that the question must be settled in some way.” One road out of the difficulty alone presented itself. The Emperor had insisted that the marriage should not be dissolved by Catherine’s consent, objecting reasonably that a judgment invalidating it would shake other royal marriages besides hers. But no such judgment would be necessary if Catherine could be induced to enter “lax religion,” to take vows of chastity which, at her age and under her conditions of health, would be a mere form. The Pope could then allow Henry to take another wife without offence to any one. The legitimacy of the Princess would not be touched, and the King undertook that the succession should be settled upon her if he had no male heir. The Queen in consenting would lose nothing, for the King had for two years lived apart from her, and would never return to cohabitation. The Emperor would be delivered from an obligation infinitely inconvenient to him, and his own honour and the honour of Spain would be equally untouched.

These arguments were laid before the Queen by both the Legates, and urged with all their eloquence. In the interests of the realm, in the interests of Europe, in the interests of the Church, in her own and her daughter’s interest as well, it would have been wiser if she had complied. Perhaps she would have complied had the King’s plea been confined, as at first, to the political exigencies of the succession. But the open and premature choice of the lady who was to take her place was an indignity not to be borne. She had the pride of her race. Her obstinacy was a match for her husband’s. She was shaken for a moment by the impassioned entreaties of Campeggio, and she did not at once absolutely refuse. The Legate postponed the opening of his court. He referred to Rome for further instructions, complaining of the responsibility which was thrown upon him. Being on the spot he was able to measure the danger of disappointing the King after the secret commission, the secret decretal, and the Pope’s private letter telling Henry that he was right. Campeggio wrote to Salviati, after his first interview with Catherine, that he did not yet despair. Something might be done if the Emperor would advise her to comply. He asked Fisher to help him, and Fisher seemed not wholly unwilling; but, after a few days’ reflection, Catherine told him that before she would consent she would be torn limb from limb; she would have an authoritative sentence from the Pope, and would accept nothing else; nothing should make her alter her opinion, and if after death she could return to life, she would die over again rather than change it.[43]

Wolsey was in equal anxiety. He had set the stone rolling, but he could not stop it. If Clement failed the King now, after all that he had promised, he might not only bring ruin on Wolsey himself, but might bring on the overthrow of the temporal power of the Church of England. Catherine was personally popular; but in the middle classes of the laity, among the peers and gentlemen of England, the exactions of the Church courts, the Pope’s agents and collectors, the despotic tyranny of the Bishops, had created a resentment the extent of which none knew better than he. The entire gigantic system of clerical dominion, of which Wolsey was himself the pillar and representative, was tottering to its fall. If the King was driven to bay, the favour of a good-natured people for a suffering woman would be a poor shelter either for the Church or for him. Campeggio turned to Wolsey for advice on Catherine’s final refusal. The Pope, he said, had hoped that Wolsey would advise the King to yield. Wolsey had advised. He told Cavendish that he had gone on his knees to the King, but he could only say to Campeggio that “the King—fortified and justified by reasons, writings, and counsels of many learned men who feared God—would never yield.” If he was to find that the Pope had been playing with him, and the succession was to be left undetermined, “the Church would be ruined and the realm would be in infinite peril.”

How great, how real, was the dread of a disputed succession, appears from an extraordinary expedient which had suggested itself to Campeggio himself, and which he declares that some perplexed politicians had seriously contemplated. “They have thought,” he wrote on the 28th of October, “of marrying the Princess Mary to the King’s natural son [the Duke of Richmond] if it could be done by dispensation from His Holiness.” The Legate said that at first he had himself thought of this as a means of establishing the succession; but he did not believe it would satisfy the King’s desire.[44] If anything could be more astonishing than a proposal for the marriage of a brother and sister, it was the reception which the suggestion met with at Rome. The Pope’s secretary replied that “with regard to the dispensation for marrying the son to the daughter of the King, if on the succession being so established the King would abandon the divorce, the Pope would be much more inclined to grant it.”[45]

Clement’s estimate of the extent of the dispensing power was large. But the situation was desperate. He had entangled himself in the meshes. He had promised what he had no intention of performing. He was finding that he had been trifling with a lion, and that the lion was beginning to rouse himself. Again and again Wolsey urged the dangers upon him. He wrote on the 1st of November to Casalis that “the King’s honour was touched, having been so great a benefactor to the Holy See. The Pope would alienate all faith and devotion to the Apostolic See. The sparks of opposition which had been extinguished with such care and vigilance would blaze out to the utmost anger of all, both in England and elsewhere.”[46] Clement and his Cardinals heard, but imperfectly believed. “He tells us,” wrote Sanga, “that if the divorce is not granted the authority of the Apostolic See in England will be annihilated; he is eager to save it because his own greatness is bound up with ours.” The Curia was incredulous, and thought that Wolsey was only alarmed for himself. Wolsey, however, was right. Although opinions might have varied on the merits of the King’s request, people were beginning to ask what value as a supreme judge a pope could have, who could not decide on a point of canon law.

The excitement was growing. Certain knowledge of what was going on was confined to the few who had access to the secret correspondence, and they knew only what was meant for their own eyes. All parties, English and Imperial alike, distrusted the Pope. He had impartially lied to both, and could be depended on by neither, except so far as they could influence his fears. Catherine was still the favourite with the London citizens. She had been seen accidentally in a gallery of the Palace, and had been enthusiastically cheered. The King found it necessary to explain himself. On the 8th of November he summoned the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, the Privy Council, and a body of Peers, and laid the situation before them from his own point of view. He spoke of his long friendship with the Emperor, and of his hope that it would not be broken, and again of his alliance with France, and of his desire to be at peace with all the world. “He had wished,” he said, “to attach France more closely to him by marrying his daughter to a French prince, and the French Ambassador, in considering the proposal, had raised the question of her legitimacy. His own mind had long misgiven him on the lawfulness of his marriage. M. de Tarbes’ words had added to his uneasiness. The succession to the crown was uncertain; he had consulted his bishops and lawyers, and they had assured him that he had been living in mortal sin.... He meant only to do what was right, and he warned his subjects to be careful of forming hasty judgments on their Prince’s actions.”

Apart from the present question the King was extremely popular, and reports arriving from Spain touched the national pride. There was a talk of calling Parliament. Mendoza and Catherine again urged Charles to speak plainly. The Pope must inhibit Parliament from interfering. The Nuncio in London would present the order, and Parliament, they thought, would submit.[47] They were mistaking the national temper. Mendoza’s letters had persuaded the Spanish Council that the whole of England was in opposition to the King. The Spanish Chancellor had said publicly that if the cause was proceeded with there would be war, and “the King would be dethroned by his own subjects.” The words were reported to Wolsey, and were confirmed by an English agent, Sylvester Darius, who had been sent to Valladolid on business connected with the truce.[48] Darius had spoken to the Chancellor on the probability of England taking active part with France. “Why do you talk of the King of England?” the Chancellor had answered; “if we wished, we could expel him from his kingdom in three months. What force had the King? his own subjects would expel him. He knew how matters were.”[49] It was one thing for a free people to hold independent opinions on the arrangements of their own royal family. It was another to be threatened with civil war at the instigation of a foreign sovereign. Wolsey quoted the dangerous language at a public meeting in London; and a voice answered, “The Emperor has lost the hearts of a hundred thousand Englishmen.”[50] A fresh firebrand was thrown into the flames immediately after. The national pride was touched on a side where it was already sensitive from interest. There were 15,000 Flemish artisans in London. English workmen had been jealous of their skill, and had long looked askance at them. The cry rose that they had an army of traitors in their midst who must be instantly expelled. The Flemings’ houses were searched for arms, and watched by a guard, and the working city population, traders, shopkeepers, mechanics, apprentices, came over to the King’s side, and remained there.

Meantime the cause itself hung fire. A new feature had been introduced to enable Campeggio to decline to proceed and the Pope to withdraw decently from his promises. The original Bull of Pope Julius permitting the marriage had been found to contain irregularities of form which were supposed fatal to it. The validity of the objection was not denied, but was met by the production of a brief alleged to have been found in Spain, and bearing the same date with the Bull, which exactly met that objection. No trace of such a brief could be found in the Vatican Register. It had informalities of its own, and its genuineness was justly suspected, but it answered the purpose of a new circumstance. A copy only was sent to England, which was shown by Catherine in triumph to Henry, but the original was detained. It would be sent to Rome, but not to London; without it Campeggio could pretend inability to move, and meanwhile he could refuse to proceed on his commission. Subterfuges which answer for the moment revenge themselves in the end. Having been once raised, it was absolutely necessary that a question immediately affecting the succession should be settled in some way, and many of the peers who had been hitherto cool began to back the King’s demands. An address was drawn up, having among others the Duke of Norfolk’s signature, telling the Pope that the divorce must be conceded, and complaints were sent through Casalis against Campeggio’s dilatoriness. The King, he was to say, would not submit to be deluded.

Casalis delivered his message, and describes the effect which it produced. “The Pope,” he wrote, “very angry, laid his hand on my arm and forbade me to proceed, saying there was but too good ground for complaint, and he was deluded by his own councillors. He had granted the decretal only to be shown to the King, and then burnt. Wolsey now wished to divulge it. He saw what would follow, and would gladly recall what had been done, even with the loss of one of his fingers.”

Casalis replied that Wolsey wished only to show it to a few persons whose secrecy might be depended on. Was it not demanded for that purpose? Why had the Pope changed his mind? The Pope, only the more excited, said he saw the Bull would be the ruin of him, and he would make no more concessions. Casalis prayed him to consider. Waving his arms violently, Clement said, “I do consider. I consider the ruin which is hanging over me. I repent what I have done. If heresies arise, is it my fault? I will not violate my conscience. Let them, if they like, send the Legate back, because he will not proceed. They can do as they please, provided they do not make me responsible.”

Did the Pope mean, then, Casalis asked, that the commission should not proceed? The Pope could not say as much as that; he had told Campeggio, he said, to dissuade the King and persuade the Queen. “What harm could there be,” Casalis inquired, “in showing the decretal, under oath, to a few of the Privy Council?”

The Pope said the decretal ought to have been burnt, and refused to discuss the matter further.[51]

CHAPTER V.

Human pity is due to the unfortunate Pope—Vicar of Christ, supreme judge in Europe, whose decrees were the inspirations of the Holy Ghost—spinning like a whipped top under the alternate lashes of the King of England and the Emperor. He had hoped that his decretal would not be known. It could not be concealed from Mendoza, who discovered, putting the worst interpretation upon it, “that the Pope and King had been endeavouring to intimidate the Queen into retiring into a convent.” Finding that he, too, could put no faith in Clement, the Emperor’s representative at Rome now forced a new promise from him. The proceedings in England were not to be opened without a fresh direct order from the Pope, and this the Pope was to be forbidden to give. If the King was obstinate and the Queen demanded it, Campeggio was to leave England, and, notwithstanding his engagements to the contrary, Clement was to advocate the cause to Rome. The new brief was sufficient plea. Without it the Legates could come to no conclusion, “the whole right of the Queen being based upon its contents.” The Emperor had it in his hands, and by refusing to allow it to be examined, except at Rome, might prevent them from moving.

There was little doubt that the brief had been forged for the occasion. The Pope having sent a commission to England, the King considered that he had a right to the production of documents essential to the case. He required Catherine to write to Charles to ask for it. Catherine did as he desired, and the messenger who carried her letter to the Spanish Court was sworn to carry no private or separate missive from her. Mendoza dared not write by the same hand himself, lest his despatches should be examined. He made the messenger, therefore, learn a few words by heart, telling the Emperor that the Queen’s letter was not to be attended to. “We thought,” he said, “that the man’s oath was thus saved.”[52] Thus time drifted on. The new year came, and no progress had been made, though Campeggio had been three months in England. The Pope, more helpless than dishonest, continued to assure the King that he would do all that by law could be required of him, and as much as he could do ex plenitudine potestatis. No peril should prevent him. “If the King thought his resigning the Papacy would conduce to his purpose, he could be content, for the love he bore his Highness, rather than fail to do the same.”

If the Pope was so well disposed, the King could not see where the difficulty lay. The Queen had refused his entreaty that she should enter religion. Why should not the Pope, then, allow the decretal to be put in execution? But Cardinal Salviati informed Casalis that a sentence given in virtue of the decretal would have no effect, but would only cause the Pope’s deposition.[53] Visibly and unpleasantly it became now apparent to Henry to what issues the struggle was tending. He had not expected it. Wolsey had told him that the Pope would yield; and the Pope had promised what was asked; but his promises were turning to vapour. Wolsey had said that the Emperor could not afford to quarrel with him. The King found that war with the Emperor in earnest was likely enough unless he himself drew back, and draw back he would not. The poor Pope was as anxious as Henry. He had spoken of resigning. He was near being spared the trouble. Harassed beyond his strength, he fell ill, and was expected to die; and before Wolsey there was now apparently the strange alternative either of utter disgrace or of himself ascending the chair of St. Peter as Clement’s successor. His election, perhaps, was really among the chances of the situation. The Cardinals had not forgiven the sack of Rome. A French or English candidate had a fair prospect of success, and Wolsey could command the French interest. He had boundless money, and money in the Sacred College was only not omnipotent. He undertook, if he was chosen, to resign his enormous English preferments and reside at Rome, and the vacancy of his three bishoprics and his abbey would pour a cataract of gold into the Cardinals’ purses. The Bulls for English bishoprics had to be paid for on a scale which startled Wolsey himself. Already archbishop of York, bishop of Winchester, and abbot of St. Albans, he had just been presented to Durham. He had paid 8,000 ducats to “expedite” his Bulls for Winchester. The Cardinals demanded 13,000 ducats for Durham. The ducat was worth five shillings, and five shillings in 1528 were worth fifty shillings of modern money. At such a rate were English preferments bled to support the College of Cardinals; and if all these great benefices were again vacated there would be a fine harvest to be gathered. For a week or two the splendid vision suspended even the agitation over the divorce; but the Pope revived, and the Legates and he had to resume their ungrateful burden.

It was still really uncertain what Clement would do. Weak, impulsive men often leave their course to fate or chance to decide for them. Casalis, when he was able to attend to business again, told him in Wolsey’s name that he must take warning from his late danger. “By the wilfully suffering a thing of such high importance to be unreformed to the doing whereof Almighty God worked so openly he would incur God’s displeasure and peril his soul.” The Imperialists were as anxious as Wolsey, and equally distrustful. In the Sacred College English gold was an influence not to be despised, and Henry had more to give than Charles. Micer Mai, the Imperial agent at Rome, found, as the spring came on, that the Italian Cardinals were growing cold. Salviati insisted to him that Catherine must go into a convent. Casalis denounced the new brief as a forgery, and the Sacred College seemed to be of the same opinion. The fiery Mai complained in the Pope’s presence of the scant courtesy which the Ministers of the Emperor were meeting with, while the insolent and overbearing were regaled like the Prodigal Son.[54] The Pope assured him that, come what might, he would never authorise the divorce; but Mai only partially believed him. At trying moments Mai was even inclining to take the same view of the Papacy as Lope de Soria. “At other times,” he said, “many things could be got out of the Pope by sheer intimidation; but now that could not be tried, for he would fall into despair, and the Imperialists would lose him altogether. They owed him something for what he had done for them before, otherwise he would be of opinion that it would be for God’s service to reduce them to their spiritual powers.”[55]

Occasionally Mai’s temper broke through, and he used language worth observing. One of the Cardinals had spoken slightingly of the Emperor.

“I did not call on his Holiness,” he wrote to Charles, “but sent him a message, adding that, if ever it came to my notice that the same Cardinal, or any member of the College, had dared to speak in such an indecent manner of the Emperor, I took my most solemn oath that I would have him beheaded or burnt alive within his own apartment. I had this time refrained out of respect for his Holiness; but should the insult be repeated I would not hesitate. They might do as they would with their Bulls and other rogueries—grant or refuse them as they liked; but they were not to speak evil of princes, or make themselves judges in the affairs of kingdoms.”[56]

This remarkable message was conveyed to the Pope, who seemed rather pleased than otherwise. Mai, however, observed that the revolt of the Lutherans was not to be wondered at, and in what they said of Rome he considered that they were entirely right, except on points of faith.[57]

Cardinals had been roughly handled in the sack of the Holy City at but a year’s distance. The possibility was extremely real. The Imperial Minister, it appeared, could still command the services of the Spanish garrisons in the Papal territories if severity was needed, and the members of the Sacred College had good reason to be uneasy; but King Henry might reasonably object to the trial of his cause in a country where the assessors of the supreme judge were liable to summary execution if they were insubordinate. That Charles could allow his representative to write in such terms to him proves that he and Mai, and Henry himself, were in tolerable agreement on Church questions. The Pope knew it; one of his chief fears was that the Emperor, France, England, and the German Princes, might come to an understanding to his own disadvantage. Perhaps it might have been so had not the divorce kept Henry and Charles apart. Campeggio wrote to Sanga on the 3rd of April that certain advances had been made by the Lutherans to Henry, in which they promised to relinquish all heresies on articles of faith, and to believe according to Divine law if he and the King of France would reduce the ecclesiastical state to the condition of the Primitive Church, taking from it all its temporalities. He had told the King this was the Devil dressed in angel’s clothing, a mere design against the property of the Church; and that it had been ruled by councils and theologians that it was right for the Church to hold temporal property. The King said those rules had been made by Churchmen themselves, and now the laity must interfere. He said also that Churchmen were said to be leading wicked lives, especially about the Court of Rome.[58]

Growled at on both sides, in terror for himself, in terror for the Church, the Pope drifted on, hoping for some accident to save him which never came, and wishing perhaps that his illness had made an end of him.

The Emperor complained of Campeggio as partial to the King because he held an English bishopric. “If the Pope leaves the succession undetermined,” insisted Wolsey, on the other side, “no Prince would tolerate such an injury.” “Nothing was done,” wrote the Pope’s secretary to Campeggio, “and nothing would be done. The Pope was in great trouble between the English and Imperial Ambassadors. He wished to please the King, but the King and Cardinal must not expect him to move till they had forced the Venetians to restore the Papal territories.” Stephen Gardiner, who knew Clement well and watched him from day to day, said: “He was a man who never resolved anything unless compelled by some violent affection. He was in great perplexity, and seemed willing to gratify the King if he could, but when it came to the point did nothing. He would be glad if the King’s cause could be determined in England by the Legates; and if the Emperor made any suit against what should be done there, they would serve him as they now served the King, and put off the time.” So matters would go on, “unless Campeggio would frankly promise to give sentence in the King’s favour; otherwise such delays would be found as the counterfeit Brief had caused.”[59] Sir Francis Bryan, who was also at the Papal court, wrote to the King that the Pope would do nothing for him, and whoever had told the King that he would, had not done him the best service. “He was very sorry to write thus, but the King must not be fed with their flattering words.”[60]

To wait longer on the Pope’s action was now seen in England to be useless. The Pope dared not offend the Emperor further, and the Emperor had interposed to prohibit future action. Clement had himself several times suggested that the best way was to decide the case first in England in the Legate’s court, and leave Catherine to appeal; he had promised Charles that no judgment should be given in England by the Legates; but he had worn so double a face that no one could say which truly belonged to him. Gardiner and Bryan were recalled. The King, finding the Pope’s ingratitude, “resolved to dissemble with him, and proceed on the commission granted to Wolsey and Campeggio.”[61] The Cardinal of York encouraged his brother Legate by assuring him that if the marriage was now dissolved means would be found to satisfy the Emperor. Catherine would be left with her state undiminished, would have anything that she desired “except the person of the King.” The Emperor’s natural daughter might be married to the Duke of Richmond, and all would be well.[62]

So Wolsey wrote, but his mind was less easy than he pretended. Unless Henry was supported actively by the French, he knew that the Pope would fail him in the end; and Francis had been disappointed in the hope that Henry would stand actively by him in the war. Without effectual help from that quarter, Wolsey saw that he was himself undone. The French Ambassador represented to his Court that Wolsey was sincerely attached to the French alliance, that the King had only been induced to enterprise the affair by the assurance which the Cardinal had always given that he had nothing to fear from the Emperor; Wolsey had advanced the divorce as a “means to break off for ever the alliance with the Emperor”; and Francis, by now declaring himself, would confer a very great favour on the King, and would oblige Wolsey as much as if he had made him pope.[63] His master was not only now concerned for the discharge of his conscience and his desire to have issue, but the very safety and independence of England was at stake. He could not have it said that he left the succession to the throne uncleared for the threats of his enemy.[64]

The Duke of Suffolk was despatched to Paris to bring Francis to the point. Francis professed the warmest good-will to his brother of England. He undertook to advise the Pope. He assured Suffolk that if the Emperor attempted force Henry would find him at his side; but further he would not pledge himself. The time was past for a Wolsey patriarchate, and Francis, curiously enough, expressed doubts whether Wolsey was not after all betraying Henry. “There are some,” he said, “which the King my brother doth trust in that matter that would it should never take effect. Campeggio told me he did not think the divorce would be brought about, but should be dissembled well enough. When the Cardinal of England was with me, as far as I could perceive, he desired the divorce might take place, for he loved not the Queen; but I advise my brother not to trust any man too much, and to look to his own matters. The Cardinal has great intelligence with the Pope, and Campeggio and they are not inclined to it.”[65]

Things could not go on thus for ever. There would have been an excuse for Clement, if with a consciousness of his high office he had refused to anticipate a judgment till the case had been heard and considered. But from the first the right or wrong of the cause itself had been disregarded as of no moment. Nothing had been thought of but the alternate dangers to be anticipated from the King or the Emperor. Had the French driven the Imperialists out of Italy, the divorce would have been granted without further question. The supreme tribunal in Christendom was transparently influenced by no motive save interest or fear. Clement, in fact, had anticipated judgment, though he dared not avow it. He had appointed a commission, and by the secret decretal had ruled what the decision was to be. The decretal could not be produced, but, with or without it, the King insisted that the court should sit. Campeggio had been sent to try the cause, and try it he should. Notice was given that the suit was to be heard at the end of June. Wolsey perhaps had chosen a date not far from the close of term, that the vacation might suspend the process, and give time for further delay.

Since a trial of some kind could not be avoided, final instructions were sent from Rome to Campeggio. “If,” wrote Sanga to him, “the Pope was not certain that he remembered the injunctions which he gave him by word of mouth, and which had been written to him many times, he would be very anxious. His Holiness had always desired that the cause should be protracted in order to find some means by which he could satisfy the King without proceeding to sentence. The citation of the cause to Rome, which he had so often insisted on, had been deferred, not because it was doubted whether the matter could be treated with less scandal at Rome than there, but because His Holiness had ever shrunk from a step which would offend the King. But, since Campeggio had not been able to prevent the commencement of the proceedings, His Holiness warned him that the process must be slow, and that no sentence must in any manner be pronounced. He would not lack a thousand means and pretexts, if on no other point, at least upon the brief which had been produced.”[66]

According to Casalis the view taken of the general situation at Rome was this.

“The Pope would not declare openly for the Emperor till he saw how matters went. He thought the Emperor would come to Italy, and if there was a war would be victorious, so that it would be for His Holiness’s advantage to obtain his friendship beforehand. If peace was made the Emperor would dictate terms, and more was to be hoped from his help than from the French King. The Emperor was the enemy of the Allies, and sought to recover the honour which he lost by the sack of Rome by making himself protector of the Pope.”[67]

Wolsey’s dream was over, and with it the dreams of Lope de Soria and Micer Mai. The fine project to unite France and England in defence of the Papacy was proving baseless as the sand on which it was built. Henry VIII. was to lead the reform of the Church in England. Charles, instead of beheading cardinals, was to become the champion of the Roman hierarchy. The air was clearing. The parties in the great game were drifting into their natural situations. The fate which lay before Wolsey himself, the fate which lay before the Church of England, of the worst corruptions of which he was himself the chief protector and example, his own conscience enabled him too surely to foresee.

Mendoza was recalled, and before leaving had an interview with the King. “The Emperor,” he said, “was obliged to defend his aunt. It was a private affair, which touched the honour of his family.” The King answered that the Emperor had no right to interfere. He did not meddle himself with the private affairs of other princes. Mendoza was unable to guess what was likely to happen. The suit was to go on. If a prohibitory mandate arrived from the Pope, it was uncertain whether Wolsey would obey it, and it was doubtful also whether any such mandate would be sent. He suspected Clement of possible deliberate treachery. He believed that orders had been sent to the Legate to proceed, and give sentence in virtue of the first commission. In that case the sentence would certainly be against the Queen, and not a moment must be lost in pressing an appeal to Rome.[68]

CHAPTER VI.