THE POPE'S DILEMMA.
In February, 1527, in pursuance of the alliance with France, which
Wolsey, recognising too late the fatal effects of the union with
Charles, was seeking to make the basis of English policy, a French
embassy arrived in England to conclude a marriage between Francis I.
and the Princess Mary. At its head was Gabriel de Grammont, Bishop of
Tarbes; and in the course of his negotiations he is alleged to have
first suggested those doubts of the validity of Henry's marriage,
which ended in the divorce. The allegation was made by Wolsey three
months later, and from that time down to our own day it has done duty
with Henry's apologists as a sufficient vindication of his conduct. It
is now denounced as an impudent fiction, mainly on the ground that no
hint of these doubts occurs in the extant records of the negotiations.
But unfortunately we have only one or two letters relating to this
diplomatic mission.[554] There exists, indeed, a detailed (p. 196)
narrative, drawn up some time afterwards by Claude Dodieu, the French
secretary; but the silence, on so confidential a matter, of a third
party who was not present when the doubts were presumably suggested,
proves little or nothing. Du Bellay, in 1528, reported to the French
Government Henry's public assertion that Tarbes had mentioned these
doubts;[555] the statement was not repudiated; Tarbes himself believed
in the validity of Henry's case and was frequently employed in efforts
to win from the Pope an assent to Henry's divorce. It is rather a
strong assumption to suppose in the entire absence of positive
evidence that Henry and Wolsey were deliberately lying. There is
nothing impossible in the supposition that some such doubts were
expressed; indeed, Francis I. had every reason to encourage doubts of
Henry's marriage as a means of creating a breach between him and
Charles V. In return for Mary's hand, Henry was endeavouring to obtain
various advantages from Francis in the way of pensions, tribute and
territory. Tarbes represented that the French King was so good a match
for the English princess, that there was little need for further
concession; to which Henry replied that Francis was no doubt an
excellent match for his daughter, but was he free to marry? His
precontract with Charles V.'s sister, Eleanor, was a complication
which seriously diminished the value of Francis's offer; and the papal
dispensation, which he hoped to obtain, might not be forthcoming (p. 197)
or valid.[556] As a counter to this stroke, Tarbes may well have
hinted that the Princess Mary was not such a prize as Henry made out.
Was the dispensation for Henry's own marriage beyond cavil? Was Mary's
legitimacy beyond question? Was her succession to the English throne,
a prospect Henry dangled before the Frenchman's eyes, so secure? These
questions were not very new, even at the time of Tarbes's mission. The
divorce had been talked about in 1514, and now, in 1527, the position
of importance given to the Duke of Richmond was a matter of public
comment, and inevitably suggested doubts of Mary's succession. There
is no documentary evidence that this argument was ever employed,
beyond the fact that, within three months of Tarbes's mission, both
Henry and Wolsey asserted that the Bishop had suggested doubts of the
validity of Henry's marriage.[557] Henry, however, does not say that
Tarbes _first_ suggested the doubts, nor does Wolsey. The Cardinal
declares that the Bishop objected to the marriage with the Princess
Mary on the ground of these doubts; and some time later, when Henry
explained his position to the Lord-Mayor and aldermen of London, he
said, according to Du Bellay, that the scruple of conscience, which he
had _long_ entertained, had terribly increased upon him since Tarbes
had spoken of it.[558]
[Footnote 554: Dr. Gairdner (_Engl. Hist. Rev._,
xi., 675) speaks of the "full diplomatic
correspondence which we possess"; the documents are
these: (1) an undated letter (_L. and P._, iv.,
App. 105) announcing the ambassador's arrival in
England; (2) a letter of 21st March (iv., 2974);
(3) a brief note of no importance to Dr. Brienne,
dated 2nd April (_ibid._, 3012); (4) the formal
commission of Francis I., dated 13th April
(_ibid._, 3059); (5) the treaty of 30th April
(3080); and (6) three brief notes from Turenne to
Montmorenci, dated 6th, 7th and 24th April. From
Tarbes himself there are absolutely no letters
relating to his negotiations, and it would almost
seem as though they had been deliberately
destroyed. Our knowledge depends solely upon
Dodieu's narrative.]
[Footnote 555: _L. and P._, iv., 4942.]
[Footnote 556: "There will be great difficulty,"
wrote Clerk, "_circa istud benedictum divortium_."
Brewer interpreted this as the earliest reference
to Henry's divorce; it was really, as Dr. Ehses
shows, in reference to the dissolution of the
precontract between Francis I. and Charles V.'s
sister Eleanor (_Engl. Hist. Rev._, xi., 676).]
[Footnote 557: _L. and P._, iv., 3231.]
[Footnote 558: _Ibid._, iv., 4231, 4942. Henry's
own account of the matter was as follows: "For some
years past he had noticed in reading the Bible the
severe penalty inflicted by God on those who
married the relicts of their brothers"; he at
length "began to be troubled in his conscience, and
to regard the sudden deaths of his male children as
a Divine judgment. The more he studied the matter,
the more clearly it appeared to him that he had
broken a Divine law. He then called to counsel men
learned in pontifical law, to ascertain their
opinion of the dispensation. Some pronounced it
invalid. So far he had proceeded as secretly as
possible that he might do nothing rashly" (_L. and
P._, iv., 5156; _cf._ iv., 3641). Shakespeare,
following Cavendish (p. 221), makes Henry reveal
his doubts first to his confessor, Bishop Longland
of Lincoln: "First I began in private with you, my
Lord of Lincoln" ("Henry VIII.," Act II., sc. iv.);
and there is contemporary authority for this
belief. In 1532 Longland was said to have suggested
a divorce to Henry ten years previously (_L. and
P._, v., 1114), and Chapuys termed him "the
principal promoter of these practices" (_ibid._,
v., 1046); and in 1536 the northern rebels thought
that he was the beginning of all the trouble
(_ibid._, xi., 705); the same assertion is made in
the anonymous "Life and Death of Cranmer" (_Narr.
of the Reformation_, Camden Soc., p. 219). Other
persons to whom the doubtful honour was ascribed
are Wolsey and Stafileo, Dean of the Rota at Rome
(_L. and P._, iv., 3400; _Sp. Cal._, iv., 159).]
However that may be, before the Bishop's negotiations were (p. 198)
completed the first steps had been taken towards the divorce, or, as
Wolsey and Henry pretended, towards satisfying the King's scruples as
to the validity of his marriage. Early in April, 1527, Dr. Richard
Wolman was sent down to Winchester to examine old Bishop Fox on the
subject.[559] The greatest secrecy was observed and none of the
Bishop's councillors were allowed to be present. Other evidence was
doubtless collected from various sources, and, on 17th May, a week
after Tarbes's departure, Wolsey summoned Henry to appear before him
to explain his conduct in living with his brother's widow.[560] Wolman
was appointed promoter of the suit; Henry put in a justification, (p. 199)
and, on 31st May, Wolman replied. With that the proceedings terminated.
In instituting them Henry was following a precedent set by his
brother-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk.[561] In very early days that
nobleman had contracted to marry Sir Anthony Browne's daughter, but
for some reason the match was broken off, and he sought the hand of
one Margaret Mortimer, to whom he was related in the second and third
degrees of consanguinity; he obtained a dispensation, completed the
marriage, and cohabited with Margaret Mortimer. But, like Henry VIII.,
his conscience or other considerations moved him to regard his
marriage as sin, and the dispensation as invalid. He caused a
declaration to that effect to be made by "the official of the
Archdeacon of London, to whom the cognisance of such causes of old
belongs," married Ann Browne, and, after her death, Henry's sister
Mary. A marriage, the validity of which depended, like Henry's, upon a
papal dispensation, and which, like Henry's, had been consummated, was
declared null and void on exactly the same grounds as those upon which
Henry himself sought a divorce, namely, the invalidity of the previous
dispensation. On 12th May, 1528, Clement VII. issued a bull confirming
Suffolk's divorce and pronouncing ecclesiastical censures on all who
called in question the Duke's subsequent marriages. That is precisely
the course Henry wished to be followed. Wolsey was to declare the
marriage invalid on the ground of the insufficiency of the papal
dispensation; Henry might then marry whom he pleased; the Pope was to
confirm the sentence, and censure all who should dispute the second
marriage or the legitimacy of its possible issue.
[Footnote 559: _L. and P._, iv., 5291. This
examination took place on 5th and 6th April.]
[Footnote 560: _Ibid._, iv., 3140.]
[Footnote 561: _L. and P._, iv., 5859; _cf._ iv.,
737.]
Another precedent was also forced on Henry's mind. On 11th March, (p. 200)
1527, two months before Wolsey opened his court, a divorce was granted
at Rome to Henry's sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland.[562] Her
pretexts were infinitely more flimsy than Henry's own. She alleged a
precontract on the part of her husband, Angus, which was never proved.
She professed to believe that James IV. had survived Flodden three
years, and was alive when she married Angus. Angus had been
unfaithful, but that was no ground for divorce by canon law; and she
herself was living in shameless adultery with Henry Stewart, who had
also procured a divorce to be free to marry his Queen. No objection
was found at Rome to either of these divorces; but neither Angus nor
Margaret Mortimer had an Emperor for a nephew; no imperial armies
would march on Rome to vindicate the validity of their marriages, and
Clement could issue his bulls without any fear that their justice
would be challenged by the arms of powerful princes. Not so with
Henry; while the secret proceedings before Wolsey were in progress,
the world was shocked by the sack of Rome, and Clement was a prisoner
in the hands of the Emperor's troops. There was no hope that a Pope in
such a plight would confirm a sentence to the detriment of his
master's aunt. "If the Pope," wrote Wolsey to Henry on receipt of the
news, "be slain or taken, it will hinder the King's affairs not a
little, which have hitherto been going on so well."[563] A little
later he declared that, if Catherine repudiated his authority, it
would be necessary to have the assent of the Pope or of the cardinals
to the divorce. To obtain the former the Pope must be liberated; to
secure the latter the cardinals must be assembled in France.[564] (p. 201)
[Footnote 562: _L. and P._, iv., 4130.]
[Footnote 563: _Ibid._, iv., 3147.]
[Footnote 564: _L. and P._, iv., 3311.]
To effect the Pope's liberation, or rather to call an assembly of
cardinals in France during Clement's captivity, was the real object of
the mission to France, on which Wolsey started in July. Such a body,
acting under Wolsey's presidency and in the territories of the French
King, was as likely to favour an attack upon the Emperor's aunt as the
Pope in the hands of Charles's armies was certain to oppose it. Wolsey
went in unparalleled splendour, not as Henry's ambassador but as his
lieutenant; and projects for his own advancement were, as usual, part
of the programme. Louise of Savoy, the queen-mother of France,
suggested to him that all Christian princes should repudiate the
Pope's authority so long as he remained in captivity, and the Cardinal
replied that, had the overture not been made by her, it would have
been started by himself and by Henry.[565] It was rumoured in Spain
that Wolsey "had gone into France to separate the Church of England
and of France from the Roman, not merely during the captivity of the
Pope and to effect his liberation, but for a perpetual division,"[566]
and that Francis was offering Wolsey the patriarchate of the two
schismatic churches. To win over the Cardinal to the interest of
Spain, it was even suggested that Charles should depose Clement and
offer the Papacy to Wolsey.[567] The project of a schism was not found
feasible; the cardinals at Rome were too numerous, and Wolsey only
succeeded in gaining four, three French and one Italian, to join him
in signing a protest repudiating Clement's authority so long as (p. 202)
he remained in the Emperor's power. It was necessary to fall back
after all on the Pope for assent to Henry's divorce, and the news that
Charles had already got wind of the proceedings against Catherine made
it advisable that no time should be lost. The Emperor, indeed, had
long been aware of Henry's intentions; every care had been taken to
prevent communication between Catherine and her nephew, and a plot had
been laid to kidnap a messenger she was sending in August to convey
her appeal for protection. All was in vain, for the very day after
Wolsey's court had opened in May, Mendoza wrote to Charles that Wolsey
"as the finishing stroke to all his iniquities, had been scheming to
bring about the Queen's divorce"; and on the 29th of July, some days
before Wolsey had any suspicion that a hint was abroad, Charles
informed Mendoza that he had despatched Cardinal Quignon to Rome, to
act on the Queen's behalf and to persuade Clement to revoke Wolsey's
legatine powers.[568]
[Footnote 565: _Ibid._, iv., 3247, 3263.]
[Footnote 566: _Ibid._, iv., 3291.]
[Footnote 567: _Sp. Cal._, iii., 273.]
[Footnote 568: _Sp. Cal._, iii., 193, 276, 300; _L.
and P._, iv., 3312.]
In ignorance of all this, Wolsey urged Henry to send Ghinucci, the
Bishop of Worcester, and others to Rome with certain demands, among
which was a request for Clement's assent to the abortive proposal for
a council in France.[569] But now a divergence became apparent between
the policy of Wolsey and that of his king. Both were working for a
divorce, but Wolsey wanted Henry to marry as his second wife Renee,
the daughter of Louis XII., and thus bind more closely the two kings,
upon whose union the Cardinal's personal and political schemes were
now exclusively based. Henry, however, had determined that his (p. 203)
second wife was to be Anne Boleyn, and of this determination Wolsey
was as yet uninformed. The Cardinal had good reason to dread that
lady's ascendancy over Henry's mind; for she was the hope and the tool
of the anti-clerical party, which had hitherto been kept in check by
Wolsey's supremacy. The Duke of Norfolk was her uncle, and he was
hostile to Wolsey for both private and public reasons; her father,
Viscount Rochford, her cousins, Sir William Fitzwilliam and Sir
Francis Brian, and many more distant connections, were anxious at the
first opportunity to lead an attack on the Church and Cardinal. Before
the divorce case began Wolsey's position had grown precarious; taxes
at home and failure abroad had turned the loyalty of the people to
sullen discontent, and Wolsey was mainly responsible. "Disaffection to
the King," wrote Mendoza in March, 1527, "and hatred of the Legate are
visible everywhere.... The King would soon be obliged to change his
councillors, were only a leader to present himself and head the
malcontents;" and in May he reported a general rumour to the effect
that Henry intended to relieve the Legate of his share in the
administration.[570] The Cardinal had incurred the dislike of nearly
every section of the community; the King was his sole support and the
King was beginning to waver. In May there were high words between
Wolsey and Norfolk in Henry's presence;[571] in July King and Cardinal
were quarrelling over ecclesiastical patronage at Calais,[572] and,
long before the failure of the divorce suit, there were other (p. 204)
indications that Henry and his minister had ceased to work together in
harmony.
[Footnote 569: _Ibid._, iv., 3400.]
[Footnote 570: _Sp. Cal._, iii., 109, 190, 192,
193; _cf._ iv., 3951, Du Bellay to Montmorenci,
"those who desire to catch him tripping are very
glad the people cry out 'Murder'".]
[Footnote 571: _L. and P._, iv., 1411.]
[Footnote 572: _Ibid._, iv., 3304.]
It is, indeed, quite a mistake to represent Wolsey's failure to obtain
a sentence in Henry's favour as the sole or main cause of his fall.
Had he succeeded, he might have deferred for a time his otherwise
unavoidable ruin, but it was his last and only chance. He was driven
to playing a desperate game, in which the dice were loaded against
him. If his plan failed, he told Clement over and over again, it would
mean for him irretrievable ruin, and in his fall he would drag down
the Church. If it succeeded, he would be hardly more secure, for
success meant the predominance of Anne Boleyn and of her
anti-ecclesiastical kin. Under the circumstances, it is possible to
attach too much weight to the opinion of the French and Spanish
ambassadors, and of Charles V. himself, that Wolsey suggested the
divorce as the means of breaking for ever the alliance between England
and the House of Burgundy, and substituting for it a union with
France.[573] The divorce fitted in so well with Wolsey's French
policy, that the suspicion was natural; but the same observers also
recorded the impression that Wolsey was secretly opposing the divorce
from fear of the ascendancy of Anne Boleyn.[574] That suspicion had
been brought to Henry's mind as early as June, 1527. It was probably
due to the facts that Wolsey was not blinded by passion, as Henry was,
to the difficulties in the way, and that it was he who persuaded Henry
to have recourse to the Pope in the first instance,[575] when the
King desired to follow Suffolk's precedent, obtain a sentence (p. 205)
in England, marry again, and trust to the Pope to confirm his
proceedings.
[Footnote 573: _L. and P._, iv., 4112, 4865, 5512.]
[Footnote 574: _Sp. Cal._, iii., 432, 790; _Ven.
Cal._, 1529, 212.]
[Footnote 575: "He showed me," writes Campeggio,
"that in order to maintain and increase here the
authority of the Holy See and the Pope he had done
his utmost to persuade the King to apply for a
legate... although many of these prelates declared
it was possible to do without one" (iv., 4857;
_cf._ iv., 5072, 5177).]
It is not, however, impossible to trace Wolsey's real designs behind
these conflicting reports. He knew that Henry was determined to have a
divorce and that this was one of those occasions upon which "he would
be obeyed, whosoever spoke to the contrary". As minister he must
therefore either resign--a difficult thing in the sixteenth
century--or carry out the King's policy. For his own part he had no
objection to the divorce in itself; he was no more touched by the
pathos of Catherine's fate than was her nephew Charles V., he wished
to see the succession strengthened, he thought that he might restore
his tottering influence by obtaining gratification for the King, and
he was straining every nerve to weaken Charles V., either because the
Emperor's power was really too great, or out of revenge for his
betrayal over the papal election. But he was strenuously hostile to
Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn for two excellent reasons: firstly
she and her kin belonged to the anti-ecclesiastical party which Wolsey
had dreaded since 1515, and secondly he desired Henry to marry the
French Princess Renee in order to strengthen his anti-imperial policy.
Further, he was anxious that the divorce problem should be solved by
means of the Papacy, because its solution by merely national action
would create a breach between England and Rome, would ruin Wolsey's
chances of election as Pope, would threaten his ecclesiastical
supremacy in England, which was merely a legatine authority (p. 206)
dependent on the Pope,[576] and would throw Clement into the arms of
Charles V., whereas Wolsey desired him to be an effective member of
the anti-imperial alliance. Thus Wolsey was prepared to go part of the
way with Henry VIII., but he clearly saw the point at which their
paths would diverge; and his efforts on Henry's behalf were hampered
by his endeavours to keep the King on the track which he had marked
out.
[Footnote 576: Wolsey "certainly proves himself
very zealous for the preservation of the authority
of the See Apostolic in this kingdom _because all
his grandeur is connected with it_" (Campeggio to
Sanga, 28th Oct., 1528, _L. and P._, iv., 4881).]
Henry's suspicions, and his knowledge that Wolsey would be hostile to
his marriage with Anne Boleyn, induced him to act for the time
independently of the Cardinal; and, while Wolsey was in France hinting
at a marriage between Henry and Renee, the King himself was secretly
endeavouring to remove the obstacles to his union with Anne Boleyn.
Instead of adopting Wolsey's suggestion that Ghinucci should be sent
to Rome as an Italian versed in the ways of the Papal Curia, he
despatched his secretary, Dr. William Knight, with two extraordinary
commissions, the second of which he thought would not be revealed "for
any craft the Cardinal or any other can find".[577] The first was to
obtain from the Pope a dispensation to marry a second wife, without
being divorced from Catherine, the issue from both marriages to be
legitimate. This "licence to commit bigamy" has naturally been the
subject of much righteous indignation. But marriage-laws were lax (p. 207)
in those days, when Popes could play fast and loose with them for
political purposes; and, besides the "great reasons and precedents,
especially in the Old Testament," to which Henry referred,[578] he
might have produced a precedent more pertinent, more recent, and
better calculated to appeal to Clement VII. In 1521 Charles V.'s
Spanish council drew up a memorial on the subject of his marriage, in
which they pointed out that his ancestor, Henry IV. of Castile, had,
in 1437, married Dona Blanca, by whom he had no children; and that the
Pope thereupon granted him a dispensation to marry a second wife on
condition that, if within a fixed time he had no issue by her, he
should return to his first.[579] A licence for bigamy, modelled after
this precedent, would have suited Henry admirably, but apparently he
was unaware of this useful example, and was induced to countermand
Knight's commission before it had been communicated to Clement. The
demand would not, however, have shocked the Pope so much as his modern
defenders, for on 18th September, 1530, Casale writes to Henry: "A few
days since the Pope secretly proposed to me that your Majesty might be
allowed two wives. I told him I could not undertake to make any such
proposition, because I did not know whether it would satisfy your
Majesty's conscience. I made this answer because I know that the
Imperialists have this in view, and are urging it; but why, I know
not."[580] Ghinucci and Benet were equally cautious, and thought the
Pope's suggestion was only a ruse; whether a ruse or not, it is (p. 208)
a curious illustration of the moral influence Popes were then likely
to exert on their flock.
[Footnote 577: Henry VIII. to Knight in Corpus
Christi College, Oxford, MS., 318, f. 3, printed in
the _Academy_, xv., 239, and _Engl. Hist. Rev._,
xi., 685.]
[Footnote 578: _L. and P._, iv., 4977.]
[Footnote 579: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 379.]
[Footnote 580: _L. and P._, iv., 6627, 6705, App.
261.]
The second commission, with which Knight was entrusted, was hardly
less strange than the first. By his illicit relations with Mary
Boleyn, Henry had already contracted affinity in the first degree with
her sister Anne, in fact precisely the same affinity (except that it
was illicit) as that which Catherine was alleged to have contracted
with him before their marriage. The inconsistency of Henry's conduct,
in seeking to remove by the same method from his second marriage the
disability which was held to invalidate his first, helps us to define
the precise position which Henry took up and the nature of his
peculiar conscience. Obviously he did not at this stage deny the
Pope's dispensing power; for he was invoking its aid to enable him to
marry Anne Boleyn. He asserted, and he denied, no principle whatever,
though it must be remembered that his own dispensation was an almost,
if not quite, unprecedented stretch of papal power. To dispense with
the "divine" law against marrying the brother's wife, and to dispense
with the merely canonical obstacle to his marriage with Anne arising
out of his relations with Mary Boleyn, were very different matters;
and in this light the breach between England and Rome might be
represented as caused by a novel extension of papal claims. Henry,
however, was a casuist concerned exclusively with his own case. He
maintained merely that the particular dispensation, granted for his
marriage with Catherine, was null and void. As a concession to others,
he condescended to give a number of reasons, none of them affecting
any principle, but only the legal technicalities of the case--the
causes for which the dispensation was granted, such as his own (p. 209)
desire, and the political necessity for the marriage were fictitious;
he had himself protested against the marriage, and so forth. For
himself, his own conviction was ample sanction; he knew he was living
in sin with Catherine because his children had all died but one, and
that was a manifest token of the wrath of Providence. The capacity for
convincing himself of his own righteousness is the most effective
weapon in the egotist's armoury, and Henry's egotism touched the
sublime. His conscience was clear, whatever other people might think
of the maze of apparent inconsistencies in which he was involved. In
1528 he was in some fear of death from the plague; fear of death is
fatal to the peace of a guilty conscience, and it might well have made
Henry pause in his pursuit after the divorce and Anne Boleyn. But
Henry never wavered; he went on in serene assurance, writing his love
letters to Anne, as a conscientiously unmarried man might do, making
his will,[581] "confessing every day and receiving his Maker at every
feast,"[582] paying great attention to the morals of monasteries, and
to charges of malversation against Wolsey, and severely lecturing his
sister Margaret on the sinfulness of her life.[583] He hopes she will
turn "to God's word, the vively doctrine of Jesu Christ, the only
ground of salvation--1 COR. 3, etc."; he reminds her of "the divine
ordinance of inseparable matrimony first instituted in Paradise," and
urges her to avoid "the inevitable damnation threatened against (p. 210)
advoutrers". Henry's conscience was convenient and skilful. He
believed in the "ordinance of inseparable matrimony," so, when he
wished to divorce a wife, his conscience warned him that he had never
really been married to her. Hence his nullity suits with Catherine of
Aragon, with Anne Boleyn and with Anne of Cleves. Moreover, if he had
never been married to Catherine, his relations with Mary Boleyn and
Elizabeth Blount were obviously not adultery, and he was free to
denounce that sin in Margaret with a clear conscience.
[Footnote 581: _L. and P._, iv., 4404.]
[Footnote 582: _Ibid._, iv., 4542.]
[Footnote 583: _Ibid._, iv., 4131. Wolsey writes
the letter, but he is only giving Henry's
"message". The letter is undated, but it refers to
the "shameless sentence sent from Rome," _i.e._,
sentence of divorce which is dated 11th March,
1527.]
* * * * *
Dr. Knight had comparatively little difficulty in obtaining the
dispensation for Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn; but it was only to
be effective after sentence had been given decreeing the nullity of
his marriage with Catherine of Aragon; and, as Wolsey saw, that was
the real crux of the question.[584] Knight had scarcely turned his
steps homeward, when he was met by a courier with fresh instructions
from Wolsey to obtain a further concession from Clement; the Pope was
to empower the Cardinal himself, or some other safe person, to examine
the original dispensation, and, if it were found invalid, to annul
Henry's marriage with Catherine. So Knight returned to the Papal
Court; and then began that struggle between English and Spanish (p. 211)
influence at Rome which ended in the victory of Charles V. and the
repudiation by England of the Roman jurisdiction. Never did two
parties enter upon a contest with a clearer perception of the issues
involved, or carry it on with their eyes more open to the magnitude of
the results. Wolsey himself, Gardiner, Foxe, Casale, and every English
envoy employed in the case, warned and threatened Clement that, if he
refused Henry's demands, he would involve Wolsey and the Papal cause
in England in a common ruin. "He alleged," says Campeggio of Wolsey,
"that if the King's desire were not complied with... there would
follow the speedy and total ruin of the kingdom, of his Lordship and
of the Church's influence in this kingdom."[585] "I cannot reflect
upon it," wrote Wolsey himself, "and close my eyes, for I see ruin,
infamy and subversion of the whole dignity and estimation of the See
Apostolic if this course is persisted in. You see in what dangerous
times we are. If the Pope will consider the gravity of this cause, and
how much the safety of the nation depends upon it, he will see that
the course he now pursues will drive the King to adopt remedies which
are injurious to the Pope, and are frequently instilled into the
King's mind."[586] On one occasion Clement confessed that, though the
Pope was supposed to carry the papal laws locked up in his breast,
Providence had not vouchsafed him the key wherewith to unlock them;
and Gardiner roughly asked in retort whether in that case the papal
laws should not be committed to the flames.[587] He told how the
Lutherans were instigating Henry to do away with the temporal (p. 212)
possessions of the Church.[588] But Clement could only bewail his
misfortune, and protest that, if heresies and schisms arose, it was
not his fault. He could not afford to offend the all-powerful Emperor;
the sack of Rome and Charles's intimation conveyed in plain and set
terms that it was the judgment of God[589] had cowed Clement for the
rest of his life, and made him resolve never again to incur the
Emperor's enmity.
[Footnote 584: For these intricate negotiations see
Stephan Ehses, _Roemische Dokumente zur Geschichte
der Ehescheidung Heinrichs VIII. von England_,
1893; these documents had all, I think, been
previously printed by Laemmer or Theiner, but only
from imperfect copies often incorrectly deciphered.
Ehses has printed the originals with the utmost
care, and thrown much new light on the subject. The
story of the divorce is retold in this new light by
Dr. Gairdner in the _English Historical Review_,
vols. xi. and xii.; the documents in _L. and P._
must be corrected from these sources.]
[Footnote 585: _L. and P._, iv., 4881.]
[Footnote 586: _Ibid._, iv., 4897.]
[Footnote 587: _Ibid._, iv., 4167; _cf._ iv., 5156,
and Ehses, _Roemische Dokumente_, No. 20, where
Cardinal Pucci gives a somewhat different account
of the interviews.]
[Footnote 588: _L. and P._, iv., 5038, 5417, 5476.]
[Footnote 589: _Sp. Cal._, iii., 309.]
From the point of view of justice, the Pope had an excellent case;
even the Lutherans, who denied his dispensing power, denounced the
divorce. _Quod non fieri debuit_, was their just and common-sense
point, _factum valet_. But the Pope's case had been hopelessly
weakened by the evil practice of his predecessors and of himself.
Alexander VI. had divorced Louis XII. from his Queen for no other
reasons than that Louis XII. wanted to unite Brittany with France by
marrying its duchess, and that Alexander, the Borgia Pope, required
Louis' assistance in promoting the interests of the iniquitous Borgia
family.[590] The injustice to Catherine was no greater than that to
Louis' Queen. Henry's sister Margaret, and both the husbands of his
other sister, Mary, had procured divorces from Popes, and why not
Henry himself? Clement was ready enough to grant Margaret's
divorce;[591] he was willing to give a dispensation for a marriage
between the Princess Mary and her half-brother, the Duke of (p. 213)
Richmond; the more insuperable the obstacle, the more its removal
enhanced his power. It was all very well to dispense with canons and
divine laws, but to annul papal dispensations--was that not to cheapen
his own wares? Why, wrote Henry to Clement, could he not dispense with
human laws, if he was able to dispense with divine at pleasure?[592]
Obviously because divine authority could take care of itself, but papal
prerogatives needed a careful shepherd. Even this principle, such as
it was, was not consistently followed, for he had annulled a dispensation
in Suffolk's case. Clement's real anxiety was to avoid responsibility.
More than once he urged Henry to settle the matter himself,[593] as
Suffolk had done, obtain a sentence from the courts in England, and
marry his second wife. The case could then only come before him as a
suit against the validity of the second marriage, and the accomplished
fact was always a powerful argument. Moreover, all this would take
time, and delay was as dear to Clement as irresponsibility. But Henry
was determined to have such a sentence as would preclude all doubts of
the legitimacy of his children by the second marriage, and was as
anxious to shift the responsibility to Clement's shoulders as the Pope
was to avoid it. Clement next urged Catherine to go into a nunnery,
for that would only entail injustice on herself, and would involve the
Church and its head in no temporal perils.[594] When Catherine (p. 214)
refused, he wished her in the grave, and lamented that he seemed
doomed through her to lose the spiritualties of his Church, as he had
lost its temporalties through her nephew, Charles V.[595]
[Footnote 590: _L. and P._, iv., 5152, where
Henry's ambassadors quote this precedent to the
Pope. _Cf. ibid._, v., 45, for other precedents.]
[Footnote 591: The sentence was actually pronounced
by the Cardinal of Ancona, and the date was 11th
March, 1527, just before Henry commenced
proceedings against Catherine. Henry called it a
"shameless sentence"; but it may nevertheless have
suggested to his mind the possibility of obtaining
one like it.]
[Footnote 592: _L. and P._, iv., 5966.]
[Footnote 593: _Ibid._, iv., 3802, 6290.]
[Footnote 594: _Ibid._, iv., 5072. "It would
greatly please the Pope," writes his secretary
Sanga, "if the Queen could be induced to enter some
religion, because, although this course would be
portentous and unusual, he could more readily
entertain the idea, _as it would involve the injury
of only one person_."]
[Footnote 595: _L. and P._, iv., 5518.]
It was thus with the utmost reluctance that he granted the commission
brought by Knight. It was a draft, drawn up by Wolsey, apparently
declaring the law on the matter and empowering Wolsey, if the facts
were found to be such as were alleged, to pronounce the nullity of
Catherine's marriage.[596] Wolsey desired that it should be granted in
the form in which he had drawn it up. But the Pope's advisers declared
that such a commission would disgrace Henry, Wolsey and Clement
himself. The draft was therefore amended so as to be unobjectionable,
or, in other words, useless for practical purposes; and, with this
commission, Knight returned to England, rejoicing in the confidence of
complete success. But, as soon as Wolsey had seen it, he pronounced
the commission "as good as none at all".[597] The discovery did not
improve his or Henry's opinion of the Pope's good faith; but, dissembling
their resentment, they despatched, in February, 1528, Stephen Gardiner
and Edward Foxe to obtain fresh and more effective powers. Eventually,
on 8th June a commission was issued to Wolsey and Campeggio to try the
case and pronounce sentence;[598] even if one was unwilling, the other
might act by himself; and all appeals from their jurisdiction (p. 215)
were forbidden. This was not a decretal commission; it did not bind
the Pope or prevent him from revoking the case. Such a commission was,
however, granted on condition that it should be shown to no one but
the King and Wolsey, and that it should not be used in the procedure.
The Pope also gave a written promise, in spite of a protest lodged on
Catherine's behalf by the Spanish ambassador, Muxetula,[599] that he
would not revoke, or do anything to invalidate, the commission, but
would confirm the cardinals' decision.[600] If, Clement had said in
the previous December, Lautrec, the French commander in Italy, came
nearer Rome, he might excuse himself to the Emperor as having acted
under pressure.[601] He would send the commission as soon as Lautrec
arrived. Lautrec had now arrived; he had marched down through Italy;
he had captured Melfi; the Spanish commander, Moncada, had been
killed; Naples was thought to be on the eve of surrender.[602] The
Spanish dominion in Italy was waning, the Emperor's thunderbolts were
less terrifying, and the justice of the cause of his aunt less
apparent.
[Footnote 596: It was called a "decretal
commission," and it was a legislative as well as an
administrative act; the Pope being an absolute
monarch, his decrees were the laws of the Church;
the difficulties of Clement VII. and indeed the
whole divorce question could never have arisen had
the Church been a constitutional monarchy.]
[Footnote 597: _L. and P._, iv., 3913.]
[Footnote 598: _Ibid._, iv., 4345.]
[Footnote 599: _Engl. Hist. Rev._, xii., 110-14.]
[Footnote 600: Ehses, _Roemische Dok._, No. 23;
_Engl. Hist. Rev._, xii., 8.]
[Footnote 601: _L. and P._, iv., 3682, 3750.]
[Footnote 602: _Ibid._, iv., 3934, 3949, 4224.]
* * * * *
On 25th July Campeggio embarked at Corneto,[603] and proceeded by slow
stages through France towards England. Henry congratulated himself
that his hopes were on the eve of fulfilment. But, unfortunately for
him, the basis, on which they were built, was as unstable as water.
The decision of his case still depended upon Clement, and Clement
wavered with every fluctuation in the success or the failure of (p. 216)
the Spanish arms in Italy. Campeggio had scarcely set out, when
Doria, the famous Genoese admiral, deserted Francis for Charles;[604]
on the 17th of August Lautrec died before Naples;[605] and, on 10th
September, an English agent sent Wolsey news of a French disaster,
which he thought more serious than the battle of Pavia or the sack of
Rome.[606] On the following day Sanga, the Pope's secretary, wrote to
Campeggio that, "as the Emperor is victorious, the Pope must not give
him any pretext for a fresh rupture, lest the Church should be utterly
annihilated.... Proceed on your journey to England, and there do your
utmost to restore mutual affection between the King and Queen. You are
not to pronounce any opinion without a new and express commission
hence."[607] Sanga repeated the injunction a few days later. "Every
day," he wrote, "stronger reasons are discovered;" to satisfy Henry
"involves the certain ruin of the Apostolic See and the Church, owing
to recent events.... If so great an injury be done to the Emperor...
the Church cannot escape utter ruin, as it is entirely in the power of
the Emperor's servants. You will not, therefore, be surprised at my
repeating that you are not to proceed to sentence, under any pretext,
without express commission; but to protract the matter as long as
possible."[608] Clement himself wrote to Charles that nothing would be
done to Catherine's detriment, that Campeggio had gone merely to urge
Henry to do his duty, and that the whole case would eventually be
referred to Rome.[609] Such were the secret instructions with which
Campeggio arrived in England in October.[610] He readily promised (p. 217)
not to proceed to sentence, but protested against the interpretation
which he put upon the Pope's command, namely, that he was not to begin
the trial. The English, he said, "would think that I had come to
hoodwink them, and might resent it. You know how much that would
involve."[611] He did not seem to realise that the refusal to pass
sentence was equally hoodwinking the English, and that the trial would
only defer the moment of their penetrating the deception; a trial was
of no use without sentence.
[Footnote 603: _Ibid._, iv., 4605.]
[Footnote 604: _L. and P._, iv., 4626.]
[Footnote 605: _Ibid._, iv., 4663.]
[Footnote 606: _Ibid._, iv., 4713.]
[Footnote 607: _Ibid._, iv., 4721.]
[Footnote 608: _Ibid._, iv., 4736-37.]
[Footnote 609: _Sp. Cal._, iii., 779.]
[Footnote 610: _L. and P._, iv., 4857.]
[Footnote 611: _Ibid._, iv., 4736.]
In accordance with his instructions, Campeggio first sought to dissuade
Henry from persisting in his suit for the divorce. Finding the King
immovable, he endeavoured to induce Catherine to go into a nunnery, as
the divorced wife of Louis XII. had done, "who still lived in the
greatest honour and reputation with God and all that kingdom".[612] He
represented to her that she had nothing to lose by such a step; she
could never regain Henry's affections or obtain restitution of her
conjugal rights. Her consent might have deferred the separation of the
English Church from Rome; it would certainly have relieved the Supreme
Pontiff from a humiliating and intolerable position. But these
considerations of expediency weighed nothing with Catherine. She was
as immovable as Henry, and deaf to all Campeggio's solicitations. Her
conscience was, perhaps, of a rigid, Spanish type, but it was as clear
as Henry's and a great deal more comprehensible. She was convinced
that her marriage was valid; to admit a doubt of it would imply that
she had been living in sin and imperil her immortal soul. Henry (p. 218)
did not in the least mind admitting that he had lived for twenty years
with a woman who was not his wife; the sin, to his mind, was continuing
to live with her after he had become convinced that she was really not
his wife. Catherine appears, however, to have been willing to take the
monastic vows, if Henry would do the same. Henry was equally willing,
if Clement would immediately dispense with the vows in his case, but
not in Catherine's.[613] But there were objections to this course, and
doubts of Clement's power to authorise Henry's re-marriage, even if
Catherine did go into a nunnery.
[Footnote 612: _Ibid._, iv., 4858.]
[Footnote 613: _L. and P._, iv., 4977.]
Meanwhile, Campeggio found help from an unexpected quarter in his
efforts to waste the time. Quite unknown to Henry, Wolsey, or Clement,
there existed in Spain a brief of Julius II. fuller than the original
bull of dispensation which he had granted for the marriage of Henry
and Catherine, and supplying any defects that might be found in it.
Indeed, so conveniently did the brief meet the criticisms urged
against the bull, that Henry and Wolsey at once pronounced it an
obvious forgery, concocted after the doubts about the bull had been
raised. No copy of the brief could be found in the English archives,
nor could any trace be discovered of its having been registered at
Rome; while Ghinucci and Lee, who examined the original in Spain,
professed to see in it such flagrant inaccuracies as to deprive it of
all claim to be genuine.[614] Still, if it were genuine, it shattered
the whole of Henry's case. That had been built up, not on the (p. 219)
denial of the Pope's power to dispense, but on the technical defects
of a particular dispensation. Now it appeared that the validity of the
marriage did not depend upon this dispensation at all. Nor did it
depend upon the brief, for Catherine was prepared to deny on oath that
the marriage with Arthur had been anything more than a form;[615] in
that case the affinity with Henry had not been contracted, and there
was no need of either dispensation or brief. This assertion seems to
have shaken Henry; certainly he began to shift his position, and,
early in 1529, he was wishing for some noted divine, friar or other,
who would maintain that the Pope could not dispense at all.[616] This
was his first doubt as to the plenitude of papal power; his marriage
with Catherine must be invalid, because his conscience told him so; if
it was not invalid through defects in the dispensation, it must be
invalid because the Pope could not dispense. Wolsey met the objection
with a legal point, perfectly good in itself, but trivial. There were
two canonical disabilities which the dispensation must meet for
Henry's marriage to be valid; first, the consummation of Catherine's
marriage with Arthur; secondly, the marriage, even though it was not
consummated, was yet celebrated _in facie ecclesiae_, and generally
reputed complete. There was thus an _impedimentum publicae honestatis_
to the marriage of Henry and Catherine, and this impediment was not
mentioned in, and therefore not removed by, the dispensation.[617]
[Footnote 614: _Ibid._, iv., 5376-77, 5470-71,
5486-87. For the arguments as to its validity see
Busch, _England under the Tudors_, Eng. trs., i.,
376-8; Friedmann, _Anne Boleyn_, ii., 329; and Lord
Acton in the _Quarterly Rev._, cxliii., 1-51.]
[Footnote 615: She made this statement to Campeggio
in the confessional (_L. and P._, iv., 4875).]
[Footnote 616: _Ibid._, iv., 5377, 5438; _Sp.
Cal._, iii., 276, 327.]
[Footnote 617: _L. and P._, iv., 3217. See this
point discussed in Taunton's _Cardinal Wolsey_,
chap. x.]
But all this legal argument might be invalidated by the brief. (p. 220)
It was useless to proceed with the trial until the promoters of the
suit knew what the brief contained. According to Mendoza, Catherine's
"whole right" depended upon the brief, a statement indicating a
general suspicion that the bull was really insufficient.[618] So the
winter of 1528-29 and the following spring were spent in efforts to
get hold of the original brief, or to induce Clement to declare it a
forgery. The Queen was made to write to Charles that it was absolutely
essential to her case that the brief should be produced before the
legatine Court in England.[619] The Emperor was not likely to be
caught by so transparent an artifice. Moreover, the emissary, sent
with Catherine's letter, wrote, as soon as he got to France, warning
Charles that his aunt's letter was written under compulsion and
expressed the reverse of her real desires.[620] In the spring of 1529
several English envoys, ending with Gardiner, were sent to Rome to
obtain a papal declaration of the falsity of the brief. Clement,
however, naturally refused to declare the brief a forgery, without
hearing the arguments on the other side,[621] and more important
developments soon supervened. Gardiner wrote from Rome, early in May,
that there was imminent danger of the Pope revoking the case, and (p. 221)
the news determined Henry and Wolsey to relinquish their suit about
the brief, and push on the proceedings of the legatine Court, so as to
get some decision before the case was called to Rome. Once the legates
had pronounced in favour of the divorce, Clement was informed, the
English cared little what further fortunes befel it elsewhere.
[Footnote 618: _Sp. Cal._, iii., 882.]
[Footnote 619: _L. and P._, iv., 4841.]
[Footnote 620: _Ibid._, iv., 5154, 5177, 5211
(ii.); _Sp. Cal._, iii., 877, 882.]
[Footnote 621: _L. and P._, iv., 5474. Yet there is
a letter from Clement to Campeggio (_Cotton MS._,
Vitellius, B, xii., 164; _L. and P._, iv., 5181)
authorising him "to reject whatever evidence is
tendered in behalf of this brief as an evident
forgery". Clement was no believer in the maxim _qui
facit per alium facit per se_; he did not mind what
his legates did, so long as he was free to
repudiate their action when convenient.]
So, on the 31st of May, 1529, in the great hall of the Black Friars,
in London, the famous Court was formally opened, and the King and
Queen were cited to appear before it on the 18th of June.[622] Henry
was then represented by two proxies, but Catherine came in person to
protest against the competence of the tribunal.[623] Three days later
both the King and the Queen attended in person to hear the Court's
decision on this point. Catherine threw herself on her knees before
Henry; she begged him to consider her honour, her daughter's and his.
Twice Henry raised her up; he protested that he desired nothing so
much as that their marriage should be found valid, in spite of the
"perpetual scruple" he had felt about it, and declared that only his
love for her had kept him silent so long; her request for the removal
of the cause to Rome was unreasonable, considering the Emperor's power
there. Again protesting against the jurisdiction of the Court and
appealing to Rome, Catherine withdrew. Touched by her appeal, Henry
burst out in her praise. "She is, my Lords," he said, "as true, as
obedient, and as conformable a wife, as I could, in my phantasy, wish
or desire. She hath all the virtuous qualities that ought to be in a
woman of her dignity, or in any other of baser estate."[624] (p. 222)
But these qualities had nothing to do with the pitiless forms of law.
The legate, overruled her protest, refused her appeal, and summoned
her back. She took no notice, and was declared contumacious.
[Footnote 622: _L. and P._, iv., 5611, 5612.]
[Footnote 623: _Ibid._, iv., 5685, 5694, 5695,
5702.]
[Footnote 624: _L. and P._, iv., Introd., p.
cccclxxv.]
The proceedings then went on without her; Fisher Bishop of Rochester,
made a courageous defence of the validity of the marriage, to which
Henry drew up a bitter reply in the form of a speech addressed to the
legates.[625] The speed with which the procedure was hurried on was
little to Campeggio's taste. He had not prejudged the case; he was
still in doubt as to which way the sentence would go; and he entered a
dignified protest against the orders he received from Rome to give
sentence, if it came to that point, against Henry.[626] He would
pronounce what judgment seemed to him just, but he shrank from the
ordeal, and he did his best to follow out Clement's injunctions to
procrastinate.[627] In this he succeeded completely. It seemed that
judgment could no longer be deferred; it was to be delivered on the
23rd of July.[628] On that day the King himself, and the chief men of
his Court, were present; his proctor demanded sentence. Campeggio
stood up, and instead of giving sentence, adjourned the Court till
October.[629] "By the mass!" burst out Suffolk, giving the table (p. 223)
a great blow with his hand, "now I see that the old-said saw is true,
that there was never a legate nor cardinal that did good in England."
The Court never met again; and except during the transient reaction,
under Mary, it was the last legatine Court ever held in England. They
might assure the Pope, Wolsey had written to the English envoys at
Rome a month before, that if he granted the revocation he would lose
the devotion of the King and of England to the See Apostolic, and
utterly destroy Wolsey for ever.[630]
[Footnote 625: _Ibid._, iv., Introd., p. cccclxxix.]
[Footnote 626: _Ibid._, iv., 5732, 5734.]
[Footnote 627: _Ibid._, iv., 3604.]
[Footnote 628: _Ibid._, iv., 5789.]
[Footnote 629: It was alleged that this adjournment
was only the usual practice of the curia; but it is
worth noting that in 1530 Charles V. asserted that
it was usual to carry on matters so important as
the divorce during vacation (_ibid._, iv., 6452),
and that Clement had repeatedly ordered Campeggio
to prolong the suit as much as possible and above
all to pronounce no sentence.]
[Footnote 630: _L. and P._, iv., 5703, 5715, 5780.]
Long before the vacation was ended, news reached Henry that the case
had been called to Rome; the revocation was, indeed, decreed a week
before Campeggio adjourned his court. Charles's star, once more in the
ascendant, had cast its baleful influence over Henry's fortunes. The
close alliance between England and France had led to a joint
declaration of war on the Emperor in January, 1528, into which the
English ambassadors in Spain had been inveigled by their French
colleagues, against Henry's wishes.[631] It was received with a storm
of opposition in England, and Wolsey had some difficulty in justifying
himself to the King. "You may be sure," wrote Du Bellay, "that he is
playing a terrible game, for I believe he is the only Englishman who
wishes a war with Flanders."[632] If that was his wish, he was doomed
to disappointment. Popular hatred of the war was too strong; a project
was mooted by the clothiers in Kent for seizing the Cardinal and
turning him adrift in a boat, with holes bored in it.[633] The (p. 224)
clothiers in Wiltshire were reported to be rising; in Norfolk
employers dismissed their workmen.[634] War with Flanders meant ruin
to the most prosperous industry in both countries, and the attempt to
divert the Flanders trade to Calais had failed.[635] So Henry and
Charles were soon discussing peace; no hostilities took place; an
agreement, that trade should go on as usual with Flanders,[636] was
followed by a truce in June,[637] and the truce by the Peace of
Cambrai in the following year. That peace affords the measure of
England's decline since 1521. Wolsey was carefully excluded from all
share in the negotiations. England was, indeed, admitted as a
participator, but only after Louise and Margaret of Savoy had
practically settled the terms, and after Du Bellay had told Francis
that, if England were not admitted, it would mean Wolsey's immediate
ruin.[638]
[Footnote 631: _Ibid._, iv., 4564; _Sp. Cal._,
iii., 729.]
[Footnote 632: _L. and P._, iv., 3930.]
[Footnote 633: _L. and P._, iv., 4310.]
[Footnote 634: _Ibid._, iv., 4012, 4040, 4043,
4044, 4239.]
[Footnote 635: _Ibid._, iv., 3262.]
[Footnote 636: _Ibid._, iv., 4147.]
[Footnote 637: _Ibid._, iv., 4376.]
[Footnote 638: _Ibid._, iv., 5679, 5701, 5702,
5713.]
By the Treaty of Cambrai Francis abandoned Italy to Charles. His
affairs beyond the Alps had been going from bad to worse since the
death of Lautrec; and the suggested guard of French and English
soldiers which was to relieve the Pope from fear of Charles was never
formed.[639] That failure was not the only circumstance which made
Clement imperialist. Venice, the ally of England and France, seized
Ravenna and Cervia, two papal towns.[640] "The conduct of the
Venetians," wrote John Casale from Rome, "moves the Pope more than
anything else, and he would use the assistance of any one, except (p. 225)
the Devil, to avenge their injury."[641] "The King and the Cardinal,"
repeated Sanga to Campeggio, "must not expect him to execute his
intentions, until they have used their utmost efforts to compel the
Venetians to restore the Pope's territories."[642] Henry did his best,
but he was not sincerely helped by Francis; his efforts proved vain,
and Clement thought he could get more effective assistance from
Charles. "Every one is persuaded," said one of the Emperor's agents in
Italy on 10th January, 1529, "that the Pope is now sincerely attached
to his Imperial Majesty."[643] "I suspect," wrote Du Bellay from
London, in the same month, "that the Pope has commanded Campeggio to
meddle no further, seeing things are taking quite a different turn
from what he had been assured, and that the Emperor's affairs in
Naples are in such a state that Clement dare not displease him."[644]
The Pope had already informed Charles that his aunt's petition for the
revocation of the suit would be granted.[645] The Italian League was
practically dissolved. "I have quite made up my mind," said Clement to
the Archbishop of Capua on 7th June, "to become an Imperialist, and to
live and die as such... I am only waiting for the return of my
nuncio."[646]
[Footnote 639: _Ibid._, iv., 5179.]
[Footnote 640: _Ibid._, iv., 4680-84.]
[Footnote 641: _L. and P._, iv., 4900.]
[Footnote 642: _Ibid._, iv., 5447.]
[Footnote 643: _Sp. Cal._, iii., 875.]
[Footnote 644: _L. and P._, iv., 5209.]
[Footnote 645: _Sp. Cal._, iii., 890.]
[Footnote 646: _Ibid._, iv., 72.]
That nuncio had gone to Barcelona to negotiate an alliance between the
Pope and the Emperor; and the success of his mission completed
Clement's conversion. The revocation was only delayed, thought
Charles's representative at Rome, to secure better terms for the
Pope.[647] On 21st June, the French commander, St. Pol, was utterly
defeated at Landriano; "not a vestige of the army is left," (p. 226)
reported Casale.[648] A few days later the Treaty of Barcelona between
Clement and Charles was signed.[649] Clement's nephew was to marry the
Emperor's natural daughter; the Medici tyranny was to be re-established
in Florence; Ravenna, Cervia and other towns were to be restored to
the Pope; His Holiness was to crown Charles with the imperial crown,
and to absolve from ecclesiastical censures all those who were present
at, or consented to, the sack of Rome. It was, in effect, a family
compact; and part of it was the quashing of the legates' proceedings
against the Emperor's aunt, with whom the Pope was now to be allied by
family ties. "We found out secretly," write the English envoys at
Rome, on the 16th of July, "that the Pope signed the revocation
yesterday morning, as it would have been dishonourable to have signed
it after the publication of the new treaty with the Emperor, which
will be published here on Sunday."[650] Clement knew that his motives
would not bear scrutiny, and he tried to avoid public odium by a
characteristic subterfuge. Catherine could hope for no justice in
England, Henry could expect no justice at Rome. Political expediency
would dictate a verdict in Henry's favour in England; political
expediency would dictate a verdict for Catherine at Rome. Henry's
ambassadors were instructed to appeal from Clement to the "true Vicar
of Christ," but where was the true Vicar of Christ to be found on (p. 227)
earth?[651] There was no higher tribunal. It was intolerable that
English suits should be decided by the chances and changes of French
or Habsburg influence in Italy, by the hopes and the fears of an
Italian prince for the safety of his temporal power. The natural and
inevitable result was the separation of England from Rome.
[Footnote 647: _Ibid._, iv., 154.]
[Footnote 648: _L. and P._, iv., 5705, 5767; _cf.
Sp. Cal._, iv., 150.]
[Footnote 649: _L. and P._, iv., 5779; _Sp. Cal._,
iv., 117, 161.]
[Footnote 650: _L. and P._, iv., 5780; _Sp. Cal._,
iv., 156. Another detail was the excommunication of
Zapolya, the rival of the Habsburgs in Hungary--a
step which Henry VIII. denounced as "letting the
Turk into Hungary" (_L. and P._, v., 274).]
[Footnote 651: _L. and P._, iv., 5650, 5715.]