Emperor. Pescara threw his tempter into | ported that the rivals had made a simoniacal prison; and a year passed without an effort compact by which Medici obtained the tiara, to mend the fortune of Italy. At length while Colonna received the richest office and Francis was released, and the Italian patriots the finest palace in the gift of the Pope. took heart to avow their warlike purpose. But by a recent law of Julius II. an election Clement put himself at the head of a Sacred won by bribes or promises was for ever inLeague, which was joined by France, and valid. The Pope's courage gave way; even protected by England. Giberti called upon Sadolet declared that resistance was unavailhis countrymen to cast out the invader; ing; and Giberti, boiling with indignation and Sadolet, in State papers, which are per- and resentment, and bewailing that it was haps the noblest compositions of the Renais- his fate to serve the subtle and vacillating sance, proclaimed the liberty and the inde- Florentine instead of the resolute English pendence of Italy. Cardinal, confessed that, without encouragement from France or hope from England, it was necessary to submit to terms dictated by Spanish generals. In a condition so precarious, the Pope could take no active share in a transaction which was an outrage to the Royal family of Spain. But Datario's animosity against the Imperialists was such as to incline him towards measures which would injure them without compromising the Papacy. The moment for which Henry waited had come. Clement had burned his ships, had refused fair terms of peace, and could not venture to deny the allies who sheltered him from manifest ruin. The secret matter which had slumbered for a year revived. Giberti assured Wolsey that the Pope would do for him all that was within his power.* But Clerk who was again at Rome, reported that all else would be well, but for the inauspicious business of the divorce. Henry paid a large sum into the Papal Treasury but his cause made no progress during the autumn of 1526. Six months later the difficulties were overcome, and matters were arranged in a way so satisfactory to Wolsey that he boasted of it as a triumph of skill. The Pope soon repented of the temerity with which he had challenged the supremacy of Spain. The stronger confederates held back, while the weaker stood exposed to the calculated vengeance of Charles V. Imperial partisans made their way into the Leonine City, and plundered the Vatican. The Emperor appealed before the assembled Cardinals to a General Council against the acts of the Pontiff. This threat had power over Clement. He could not, without danger, allow his claim to be disputed before a bostile audience. His right to enjoy the higher honours of the Church had been questioned by reason of his birth, and his election to the Papacy had been accomplished under conditions which gave ground for cavil. He was elected in consequence of a private agreement with Cardinal Colonna, who was his enemy through life, who had tried to exclude him from the conclave, who attempted afterwards to expel him from the throne. Men suspected the secret method which had wrought that surprising change. It was re *In iis secretioribus ac majoris momenti tantum sibi polliceri potest D. V. R. de S. D. N. voluntate quantum progredi potest auctoritas S. S.'-Brewer, iv. 2579. Wherin such good and substancial ordre and processe hathe hitherto been made and used, as the like, I suppose, hathe not been seen in any time hertofore.'-State Papers, i. 189. Giberti had applied for an English pension, and he long continued to be trusted as a supporter of Henry's cause. After the fall of Rome he withdrew to his diocese of Verona, where the fame which he won as the model of a perfect bishop has obscured the memory of his political career. He confided to the English agents the fact that he had left the Court because Clement was ungrateful to those who deserved well of him.* They understood that Giberti had advised him to concede what Henry asked for in his matrimonial affairs; and they induced him to return to Rome, under a promise that he would use all his influence in the King's behalf. What was the measure of encouragement he gave during the last days of his ministry, in the spring of 1527, cannot be ascertained. It probably amounted to no more than this, that the marriage might be tried in England without the interference of the Pope. As things then stood, such an understanding would be sufficient to justify the exultation of Wolsey. Up to this time the idea of divorce had occupied the thoughts of Henry in a vague and languid way. Neither aversion for the * He promises, however, to use all efforts in the King's behalf. He says the only cause of his leaving the Pope's palace was that the Pope did not attend to good advice, and was not grateful to those that deserved well of him; but Wolsey must take care not to tell this to Campeggio.'-Vannes to Wolsey, Brewer, iv. 5344. Præcepit etiam Dominus Veronensis Vicario suo non modo favere Maj. tuæ causæ, sed etiam in absentia sua convocare et hortari Theologos ut pro Maj. tua scribant; sed et se quoque subscripturum pollicitus est.'-Croke to Henry, Pocock's Records, i. 531. Queen, nor desire of an heir, nor religious | red a match between Renée and Hercules, scruple caused him to pursue it with a fixed Prince of Este.* In the spring of 1527 no determination. Whilst it was uncertain princess was left who could have taken the who was to be his future Queen, the King place of Catharine. The repudiation of his displayed no eagerness. The only Power Spanish wife would not enable Henry to whose aid was worth seeking, or that could compensate himself by closer ties with venture to affront Charles by taking advan France. The divorce, promising no political tage of his kinswoman's disgrace, was France. advantage, could only make way for the eleIn the House of Valois there were two prin- vation of an English bride. But though cesses. Renée, the Queen's sister, was ill-purposeless now as an affair of State, it befavoured and all but deformed. Henry was came an object of passion. not likely to incur such risk for such a bride. On his last journey to France Wolsey met an envoy from Hungary, who had been sent to ask the hand of Renée for his master. He wrote to the King that the envoy when he saw her had forthwith renounced his purpose. He wrote in terms he would not have thought it prudent if he had lately designed that she should be Catharine's successor. After long preliminaries a treaty of alliance with France was signed in April 1527; and Henry betrothed his daughter Mary to the son of his ally. The event was celebrated on the 4th of May by a ball, at which the French ambassador, Turenne, danced with the Princess. King Henry's partner was Anne Boleyn. At that time she had lived at Court four years, and Henry, though not dissolute according to the standard of contemporary monarchs, had long regarded her with feelings which contributed to make him indifferent to a foreign match. She repelled his suit; and for more than a year he could obtain no sign of requited love. At length he made her an offer of marriage, which was accepted. His letter is undated; but it must have been written about the time when Anne Boleyn first became conspicuous: not later, because the intrigue which was designed to make her Queen stood revealed before the end of May. There is cogent reason to believe that it was not written earlier. Lord Rochford deposed before the Legates at Blackfriars that the conjugal estrangement between the King and Queen had begun in 1527. His evidence is worthless regarding the date of the desertion of Catharine; but it goes far to determine the date of the engagement of Anne, which he must have known. For in the in The King's sister, Margaret Duchess of Alençon, was richly endowed with talent and beauty, and she became a widow in April 1525, at the moment when England forsook her Burgundian ally. At first it was imagined that she would marry the Emperor; and she visited Spain, hoping, perhaps, in that way to effect her brother's deliverance. In the year 1526 Margaret was again in France and a widely-spread tradition, doubted but not discussed by Mr. Brewer, points to her as the wife intended for the King. The Venetian Falier, the only diplomatist who showed a disposition to accept the Cardinal's account of the divorce, says that he had made proposals for her hand. The testimony of other writers is vitiated by an anachronism; for they assign the divorce to the year 1527, when Margaret was already married to a second husband. Guicciardini and Harpsfield speak of Renée, as if either name was a guess sug-terest of the Boleyns it was essential that gested by obvious probability. Du Bellay, the shrewdest of courtiers, conjectured that Renée had been thought of. He cannot have heard that it was Margaret. She herself once reminded Henry, in after years, that she was to have been his wife. This speech, which would have been ungracious if she had refused him, was an allusion to proposals made by Lewis XII., immediately after Prince Arthur's death, and renewed in vain until 1507. Francis I. was willing to encourage a measure which would perpetuate enmity between his powerful neighbours; but he would have lost his advantage by implicating himself irrevocably on one side of the quarrel. Intermarriage with the House of Tudor was an object of his policy; but before concluding it he gave his sister in Speaking on the 15th of July, 1529, he said marriage to the King of Navarre, and plar-about two years since.'-Herbert's Life, 114. the scruples of Henry should have preceded the proposals of marriage to their daughter. If the offer had been made earlier than 1527, it would have ruined their cause to assign to that year the awakening of the King's conscience. As soon as the Queen had an appointed rival, and the pleas of policy and religion were absorbed in the stronger influences of passion, the divorce was pressed forward with desperate and unrelenting energy. The friendship of France was secured, and *Margaret was betrothed to Navarre at Christmas, 1526. The proposed match between Renée and the son of the Duke of Ferrara was known April 4, 1527.-Desjardins, Négoc. avec la Toscane, ii. 935. there was nothing to be feared from Rome. On the 17th of May, the Archbishops, Warham and Wolsey, responsible in their character of Legates for the observance of public morality and ecclesiastical law, called Henry to justify himself before them, forasmuch as he was living, in defiance of the Levitical prohibition, in wedlock with his brother's widow. The proceedings were secret. Proctors appeared to accuse and to defend the marriage. Both accuser and defender were officers in the household of the King. The effect of this collusive suit was to put Henry in the position of defendant. He took charge of the Queen's interests as well as his own. He was not a persecutor, but a victim; the protector, not the assailant, of her happiness and honour. It was in his power so to conduct the defence as to ensure his condemnation, and so to contrive his appeal as to ensure its rejection. Instead of putting forward his own suspicious scruples, he would appear to yield, with grief and remorse, to the solemn voice of the Church, reproaching him with involuntary sin, and dividing those whom God had not joined. It was intended that Catharine should know nothing until sentence was given. At the end of a fortnight Wolsey adjourned the court. So grave an issue required, he said, that he should consult with the most learned prelates. In truth, the plot was marred by the fall of Rome. The Pope was shut up in the castle of St. Angelo. There was no hope that the Emperor's prisoner would confirm a sentence against the Emperor's aunt. There was danger that he might be induced, by fear or calculation, to revoke the Legate's authority, or to visit the fraudulent intrigue with the censures which were never better employed than in protecting the weak, and upholding the sanctity of marriage. That danger neither Henry nor Wolsey had the hardihood to face. No more was heard of the abortive suit until, in our day, Mr. Brewer dragged it into light. Wolsey had already sounded the opinion of the divines. The first consultation was unfavourable. The Bishop of London, the Dean of St. Paul's, Wakefield, the first Hebrew scholar in the country, six learned men sent up to Lambeth by the University of Cambridge, pronounced that the marriage was valid. Pace and Wakefield promptly retracted. Cambridge was partially brought round by Cranmer. It was generally believed in England that Catharine, in her brief union with Prince Arthur, had not, in fact, contracted affinity with her husband's kin dred. It was difficult otherwise to understand how Henry VII. could have spoken seriously of making her his Queen. Such things might be in Portugal, where the King could scarcely be prevented from marrying his step-mother. But in England stricter notions prevailed. Tunstall afterwards declared that he had defended the marriage only until he was convinced that the popular belief on this point was wrong. No English divine enjoyed so high a reputation as, John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester. Of all the works written against Luther in the beginning of the Reformation, his were the most important; and he was eminent not only in controversy, but as a promoter of that new learning which theologians who were weaker in the faith looked on with detestation and dismay. Fisher's support would have been worth having; for he was neither subservient to Wolsey, like the Bishops of Lincoln and Bath, nor afraid of him, like the Primate; and he would have carried with him the whole weight of the school of Erasmus, which constituted the best portion of the English Church. As Wolsey deemed him an enemy, the question was submitted to him in terms so general that Fisher appears to have made answer. without suspecting that he was taking the first step on a road ending at the scaffold. Catharine had been apprised, very early, of all that was done. In the month of March she had taken alarm. She was not allowed to see the Spanish ambassador alone; but she warned him that she had need of his protection. On the 22d of June Henry informed her that he could regard her no longer as his lawful wife. In spite of the vigilance of the Government, Catharine despatched her physician and one of her attendants to Spain, to instruct the Emperor of the outrage inflicted on his blood. The remedy she desired was that he should cause the Pope to revoke the powers which had been delegated to the Cardinal for life. The ambassador, Mendoza, reported at the same time that public animosity was rising against him; that his enemies were forcing upon him measures by which he would inevitably work out his own destruction; and that Tunstall would soon be Chancellor in his stead. The French alliance afforded Wolsey the means of recovering his influence, and of becoming once more, for a short space, the principal personage in Europe. At the head of the most splendid embassy that ever crossed the Channel, he went to concert with *Esta muy sospechosa que en ninguna cosa se hablen verdad.'-Mendoza to Charles, March 10, 1527. Francis the measures to be taken in com- it less likely that the Emperor would coerce mon defence against their triumphant enemy. It was necessary to provide, during the abeyance of the Papacy, for the government of the national Churches. Wolsey agreed with Francis that they should administer the ecclesiastical interests of both countries without reference to the Pope while his captivity lasted, and should be free to accept his acts or to reject them at pleasure. A still larger scheme for the government of the entire Church was proposed by the French. The suspension of the Papal authority was not so formidable as the uses to which it might be put by the ambition of Charles. If he could not compel his prisoner to serve him as the instrument of his vengeance against France and England, it was in his power to put a more pliant and trusty cardinal in his place. This was no visionary apprehension. Ferdinand of Austria was entreating his brother not to relax his grasp until the Pope had accomplished all that was wanted for the settlement of Europe; and Mendoza, seek ing to tempt Wolsey away from the connection with France, whispered to him that the Emperor now united the spiritual and temporal power, and was in a position to fulfil his ancient promise, by deposing Clement. Wolsey was proof against such solicitation. The Divorce parted him irrevocably from Charles; and when the Emperor, seriously alarmed by the report that Wolsey was to be made Patriarch of Gaul, and meant to detach the Gallican and Anglican Churches from the See of Rome, offered him a sum which would be now 160,000l. even that stupendous bribe was tendered in vain. him. But he refused to permit his cardinals to accept the ominous invitation to Avignon, for Gattinara met it by threatening him with a council to be summoned by Colonna. To meet the resistance of the Italian cardinals, Wolsey devised the boldest of all his manœuvres. He proposed that Clement should sign a protest nullifying all the acts he might perform under pressure of captivity; and should appoint Wolsey his Vicar-General until the moment of his deliverance. He charged Gambara, the Nuncio in England, to obtain these powers by persuading the Pope that Charles would never set him free, and that his Vicar would do his will in all things. He was carefully to conceal from him the purpose to which the required authority was to be applied. It would have settled the question of Divorce, by enabling Wolsey to appoint the judges and to hear the appeal. To strengthen his envoy's hands, he proposed to the French Chancellor, Duprat, that Francis should pledge himself to Wolsey to employ all the resources of France in the Pope's service, and not to sheath the sword until he was delivered. The engagement was to be seen before starting by Gambara. Then Wolsey undertook, by virtue of his special powers, to release the French King from his bond. After it had been described in fitting terms to Clement, and had exalted his confidence and admiration for the Cardinal, it was to become waste paper. It was the opinion of Henry's advisers that the question of his marriage might still have been settled, as it was begun, within the realm; and Wolsey's elaborate and deFrancis I. offered passports to the Italian monstrative arrangements for a separation cardinals, inviting them to assemble at from Rome that might endure indefinitely, Avignon to consult with Wolsey and with confirmed their advice. It was unreasonable their French colleagues for the welfare of that grave ecclesiastical causes should wait religion. Wolsey urged them to come, in the pleasure of the hostile soldiery that the expectation that he would, at their head, guarded the Pontiff; or that an issue of possess a virtual supremacy. The cardinals vital consequence to the English crown and who were in France joined with him to in-nation should be left to the judgment of form Clement that they held themselves absolved from their obedience, and intended, if he should die in captivity, to elect a Pontiff for themselves. Among the signatures to this momentous declaration are the names not only of the French and English Chancellors, but of the Legate Salviati, who was nearly related to the Pope. It was not entirely unwelcome to Clement himself,* as it made *Gaudeoque nostra in S. D. N. ecclesiastica que authoritatis gratiam suscepta consilia, ex his indiciis ab ejus Sanctitate probari, quæ exhibuit per nuncium illum clandestinum quem ad Dom. Lautrec ab ea nuper missum V. R. D. scribit.'-Wolsey to Duprat, October 5, 1527. men who were the helpless prisoners of an interested and adverse party. But on this point Wolsey was resolved to bear down all opposition. Rome supplied the qualification that made him indispensable. To preserve that supply, to maintain his position as Legate against the influence of Charles V., he upheld with a firm and jealous hand the prerogatives of the Papacy; and he succeeded, with some difficulty, in convineing his master that it would be unsafe to proceed with no better warrant than they possessed already. The Cardinal was absent during the whole summer; the ablest men who were engaged in public affairs, Tunstall, More, and Gardi- | ner, were in his retinue, and those who envied his greatness and denied his capacity, possessed the King's car. They disbelieved that the Pope would be willing now to help them against the Emperor, or would assent to Wolsey's audacious plans for assuming his place. He might succeed, without any profit to the King. He might effect his own exaltation, and might then be intimidated from employing it for the desired end. It was plain that he was using the Divorce for his own aggrandisement. His aggrandisement might, after all, do nothing for the Divorce. When his vast designs were unfolded, a sense that they were outwitted fell upon the cabal that were pushing the fortunes of Anne Boleyn. Wolsey had been ready in May to go all lengths, and he now declined to go further without the cognisance of Rome, or to question the plenitude of the dispensing power. It seemed that he was betraying the King to the Pope. He defended himself in a remarkable letter, and fancied that he had dispersed the gathering storm. When Henry expressed a wish to see Gardiner, he replied that he could not spare him. Then, for a season, his adversaries prevailed. They persuaded Henry that he could reach his end by a shorter road; and he sent his Secretary Knight to Rome, with instructions which were unknown to Wolsey. For the delicate mission of inducing the Pope to abdicate his supreme functions in Wolsey's hands, he had chosen to employ none but Italians. The Nuncio Gambara, supported by letters from Cardinal Salviati, was to open the matter. Gambara was to be followed by Casale and Ghinucci. Stafileo, Bishop of Sebenico and Dean of the Rota, promised his assistance; for Wolsey had found him in France, and had no difficulty in moulding his opinion. Ghinucci and Casale were the most respectable of all the agents engaged in these transactions. But Gambara was a man steeped in Italian intrigue; and Stafileo obtained the promise of a French bishopric and a Cardinal's hat, and died in the following summer, claiming his reward with a vigour injurious to the credit of his legal advice. Clement afterwards accused Stafileo of having been the author of the mischief. His adhesion was a notable event, for he presided over the supreme tribunal by which, in the last instance, the validity of marriages was decided; and it was a significant circumstance that the King's cause was at once taken up and pleaded by the official agents of the Papacy. But the artful machinery which Wolsey had contrived was thrust aside, the management was wrested from his hands, and he was obliged to recall his instructions; while Knight proceeded to execute orders which were studiously concealed from his knowledge. During the interval in which his adversaries pursued the matter in their own way, and laboured to rob him of the merit of success, Clement made terms with his conquerors. The Protest and the Vicariate became words without a meaning, and Wolsey's dream of superseding the Pope was dissolved. The substance of Knight's mission was to procure a dispensation for bigamy. The original intention was only to seek a dispensation for marriage within the forbidden degrees when the first should be dissolved. It could be requisite only because the King had been the lover of the mother or sister of Anne Boleyn. He declared that it was not the mother. The dispensation demanded would, in some measure, have confirmed the right to try the cause in London, But the Nuncio advised that it should be unconditional, and should not be made to depend on the divorce of Catharine. petition was not brought before the Pope. Knight was overtaken on the way by Lord Rochford's chaplain, bringing an altered draft. Cranmer was chaplain to Lord Rochford. He was so much averse to the theories that were undermining the mar riage-law, that he protested vehemently against the later practice of his Lutheran friends, calling them Mahomedans for their encouragement of polygamy. It would appear that he was the author of the altered counsels. This When Wolsey on his return reported himself to Henry, the answer came to him in the shape of an order from Anne Boleyn. He could measure the ground he had lost by his prolonged absence. He regained it in the following winter by his inexhaustible energy and resource; and the importunities of Anne for some token of attention, were it even a basket of shrimps, confirmed him in the assurance of recovered power. Knight's negotiations with Roman and Tuscan masters of refined diplomacy ended in quick discomfiture. Long before his com placent incompetence was exposed, Wolsey had taken back into his own hands the con duct of affairs. The sharp lesson just administered had taught him caution. services in promoting the Divorce were cer tain to increase the exasperation of the people, and could never disarm the hatred or the vengeance of the magnates whom he had humbled. Success was not less dangerous than failure. It became the ob His 1 |