CHAP his part, for the Emperor (who must necessarily be III looked on as the chief opponent of it, on behalf of A.D. 1527 Catherine, who was his aunt) was engaged in a Charles V. at war strife with the Pope, which ended in Clement's captivity and a fearful slaughter of the citizens of Rome. Pope and Yet, such is the consciousness of vitality which always upholds the Holy See, that even in its hour of greatest depression and weakness it can afford to assume the appearance of authority and independence; and the King found that he could not depend upon so early and complete a settlement of his case as he expected. The first communication on the subject between Henry and the Pope took place in the autumn of 1527, and the business went on almost unceasingly from that time for nearly six weary years following. The history of these negotiations is a tangled web of intrigue, selfishness, hypocrisy, and double dealing. We may spare ourselves the more minute details, and be content to take a general view of the whole business as it is to be elucidated from State Papers, and from contemporary or nearly contemporary accounts which have been handed down to us. Beginning Sir Gregory Cassilis, one of the three brothers gotiations engaged in the diplomatic affairs of England and with Cle Italy, being the King's regular agent at the Roman court, a special agent was sent out between July and September of the year 1527 to co-operate with him on this particular matter. This was the King's secretary, Dr. Knight, an old and infirm man, but one in whom Henry seems to have placed implicit confidence. At his arrival in Rome, on November 25th, he found that the Pope was imprisoned in the Castle of St. Angelo, in company of the ne ment VII. III dors find with a small body of cardinals, the city having been CHAP taken and sacked by the Duke of Bourbon on May 7th of that year. Although he contrived to hold A.D. 1527 some immediate communication with the Pope by letter, Knight was not able to obtain an interview with him until after his escape from Rome, which was effected on December 9th. He then followed Clement to Orvieto, where Cassilis and himself had Ambassaan audience, at which some preliminary discussion of him at Orthe case took place, the Pope appearing to be willing vieto to grant what was requested, and writing to that effect himself to the King. They also communicated their business to the Cardinal Secretary of State, who seemed open to conviction when he heard their arguments, accompanied as they were by liberal promises of a "competent reward" at the King's hands.9 8 try the case land to marry The ambassadors had been instructed to ask for Authority two documents at first. The one was a commission asked to empowering Cardinal Wolsey or (in case he should in Engbe thought too much interested) Cardinal Staphilæus to hear and determine the cause as between the King and the Queen in England. The other was a dispensation by which the King was to be per- or for King mitted, in case the divorce was decreed, to contract mond another marriage, the children of both marriages being declared legitimate. The drafts of these instruments were sent out by Dr. Knight, and in that of the dispensation there was actually a clause which authorized marriage with any lady, even in the first degree of affinity, provided she were not the widow of his brother. To sign these documents 8 State Papers, vii. 27. crowns as soon as the bulls were a wife CHAP III A. D. 134 REFUSES TO DECREE NULLITY OF MARRIAGE would be to make a still worse enemy of the Emperor, and it was by no means certain that the lavish promises of support and assistance sent by 1527-8 Henry were likely to be fulfilled. It was only, therefore, after much persuasion that the Pope Pope signs agreed to do so, and it is evident that his signing both docu- them was considered to add much to his dangers and difficulties both by himself and by the King's own agent, Secretary Knight." ments While the courier whom Knight despatched with these important documents was still on the road, Gardiner (afterwards Bishop of Winchester) and Fox (afterwards Bishop of Hereford) appeared before the Pope with a request for further concessions. No confidence was felt as to his ratification of any act which was not made very binding, and he was now desired to grant another bull, by which he should (1) declare the marriage of Henry and Catherine null annul mar- and void, provided certain questions of fact were siage with established before the legates; and (2) give a solemn promise never to admit an appeal from the and to for- decision so pronounced, nor to revoke the cause to bid any ap- Rome for investigation before himself. This bull, of Is then asked to Catherine peal to himself which also a draft had been sent out ready prepared from England, the Pope utterly refused to sign. Arguments, persuasions, and threats were all used in 66 1 To Wolsey, Knight wrote un January 1st, that the Pope was content to put himself into evident ruin and utter undoing" rather than be thought ungrateful by the King or the Cardinal. To the King himself Knight also wrote his own opinion thus. "But albeit that everything is passed according unto your Highness' pleasure, I cannot see, but in case the same be put in execution at this time the Pope is utterly undone, and so he saith himself;. wherefore he puts his honour and health wholly into your Highness' power and disposition." Burnet, iv. 36, 39, Pocock's Ed. Even while the Pope was in St. Angelo, the General of the Spanish Observants had been sent to require him not to grant any such requests. III A.D. 1527-8 of succession. It was shown how great danger might CHAP ensue to England if Henry should die without a son to succeed him, and the Pope acknowledged the force of this reasoning, but yet was not moved by it to do that which was requested. He was reminded of the friendship which Henry had always shown to the Holy See, and of the special service he had done by writing his book against Luther. Gardiner even proceeded to taunt the Pope in sarcastic language Bold lan while in the midst of his cardinals. "If the King's English Majesty and the nobility of England," he said, agents "being persuaded of your good will to answer, if you can do so, shall be brought to doubt your ability, they will be forced to a harder conclusion respecting the See, namely, that God has taken from it the key of knowledge. And they will begin to give better ear to that opinion of some persons to which they have as yet refused to listen, that those papal laws, which neither the Pope himself nor his council can interpret, deserve only to be committed to the flames.' But neither argument, persuasion, nor threat could But the move the Pope to commit himself so entirely as he Pope will would have done by signing this instrument; and it sent may be hoped that he was prevented from doing so as much by a sense of justice and determination not to prejudge the cause, as by fear that ruin would follow an act so hostile to the Queen, and therefore to her nephew the Emperor. But it cannot be doubted that Clement also desired, if possible, to let the case settle itself; or at least to prevent it from coming immediately before himself as the judge of ultimate appeal for Christendom. He even sug- and falls gested that Henry should marry a second wife, if his the preconscience would permit him so to do, and then let not con back on vious bulls III CHAP the cause be brought before Wolsey, that he might give sentence upon it in his ordinary jurisdiction as A.D. 1528 legate a latere. But he felt that a dangerous chapter of events had opened. "It would be for the wealth of Christendom," he said to Gardiner, "if the Queen were in her grave, like as the Emperor has destroyed the temporalities of the Church, so shall she be the destruction of the spiritualities." And it is not surprising that he should wish to commit himself as little as possible with respect to that future of which he took so gloomy a view. Wolsey and Cam hear the cause The end of these, and of other similar embassies peggio ap- for the present, was the appointment of Wolsey and pointed legates to Campeggio as legates for the purpose of hearing the cause in England. The Pope had at first offered to join the Archbishop of Canterbury, or any other English bishop, in commission with Wolsey, and a bull was signed on April 13, 1528, to this effect, but it seems to have been thought that no English bishop was to be trusted. Cardinal Campeggio was old, miserably infirm with the gout, and in charge at Rome during the Pope's absence. But five of the Cardinals were detained as hostages by the Emperor, others had gone to their cures, disgusted with the state of affairs in Italy, and only five remained with the Pope at Orvieto to assist him with their counsel, and to conduct official business. There was, besides Reasons this necessity, a fitness in the choice of Campeggio, for he had already been in England, and was thus Campeg- less of a stranger than any other cardinal would have gio been; and he was also, nominally, Bishop of Salisbury. for selec tion of |
