History of the Reformation, vol. 5

Chapter 3

Political Changes—Fresh Instructions from the Pope to Campeggio—His Delays—He unbosoms himself to Francis—A Prediction—Arrival of Campeggio—Wolsey’s Uneasiness—Henry’s Satisfaction—The Cardinal’s Project—Campeggio’s Reception—First Interview with the Queen and with the King—Useless Efforts to make Campeggio part with the Decretal—The Nuncio’s Conscience—Public Opinion—Measures taken by the King—His Speech to the Lords and Aldermen—Festivities—Wolsey seeks French Support—Contrariety

While these persecutions were agitating the fields and the capital of England, all had changed in the ecclesiastical world, because all had changed in the political. The pope, pressed by Henry VIII and intimidated by the armies of Francis I, had granted the decretal and despatched Campeggio. But, on a sudden, there was a new evolution; a change of events brought a change of counsels. Doria had gone over to the emperor; his fleet had restored abundance to Naples; the army of Francis I, ravaged by famine and pestilence, had capitulated; and Charles V, triumphant in Italy, had said proudly to the pope: “We are determined to defend the queen of England against King Henry’s injustice.” HRSCV5 817.3

Charles having recovered his superiority, the affrighted pope opened his eyes to the justice of Catherine’s cause. “Send four messengers after Campeggio,” said he to his officers; “and let each take a different road; bid them travel with all speed and deliver our despatches to him.” They overtook the legate, who opened the pope’s letters. “In the first place,” said Clement VII to him, “protract your journey. In the second place, when you reach England, use every endeavour to reconcile the king and queen. In the third place, if you do not succeed, persuade the queen to take the veil. And in the last place, if she refuses, do not pronounce any sentence favorable to the divorce without a new and express order from me. This is the essential: Summum et maximum mandatum.” The ambassador of the sovereign pontiff had a mission to do nothing. This instruction is sometimes as effective as any. HRSCV5 817.4

Campeggio, the youngest of the cardinals, was the most intelligent and the slowest; and this slowness caused his selection by the pope. He understood his master. If Wolsey was Henry’s spur to urge on Campeggio, the latter was Clement’s bridle to check Wolsey. One of the judges of the divorce was about to pull forwards, the other backwards; thus the business stood a chance of not advancing at all, which was just what the pope required. HRSCV5 817.5

The legate, very eager to relax his speed, spent three months on his journey from Italy to England. He should have embarked for France on the 23rd of July; but the end of August was approaching, and no one knew in that country what had become of him. At length they learned that he had reached Lyons on the 22nd of August. The English ambassador in France sent him horses, carriages, plate, and money, in order to hasten his progress; the legate complained of the gout, and Gardiner found the greatest difficulty in getting him to move. Henry wrote every day to Anne Boleyn, complaining of the slow progress of the nuncio. “He arrived in Paris last Sunday or Monday,” he says at the beginning of September; “Monday next we shall hear of his arrival in Calais, and then I shall obtain what I have so longed for, to God’s pleasure and both our comforts.” HRSCV5 817.6

At the same time this impatient prince sent message after message to accelerate the legate’s rate of travelling. HRSCV5 818.1

Anne began to desire a future which surpassed all that her youthful imagination had conceived, and her agitated heart expanded to the breath of hope. She wrote to Wolsey: HRSCV5 818.2

“This shall be to give unto your grace, as I am most bound, my humble thanks for the great pain and travail that your grace doth take in studying, by your wisdom and great diligence, how to bring to pass honorably the greatest wealth [well-being] that is possible to come to any creature living; and in especial remembering how wretched and unworthy I am in comparison to his highness Now, good my lord, your discretion may consider as yet how little it is in my power to recompense you but alonely [only] with my good will; the which I assure you, look what thing in this world I can imagine to do you pleasure in, you shall find me the gladdest woman in the world to do it.” HRSCV5 818.3

But the impatience of the king of England and of Anne seemed as if it would never be satisfied. Campeggio, on his way through Paris, told Francis I that the divorce would never take place, and that he should soon go to Spain to see Charles V… This was significative. “The king of England ought to know,” said the indignant Francis to the duke of Suffolk, “that Campeggio is imperialist at heart, and that his mission in England will be a mere mockery.” HRSCV5 818.4

In truth, the Spanish and Roman factions tried every manoeuvre to prevent a union they detested. Anne Boleyn, queen of England, signified not only Catherine humbled, but Charles offended; the clerical party weakened, perhaps destroyed, and the evangelical party put in its place. The Romish faction found accomplices even in Anne’s own family. Her brother George’s wife, a proud and passionate woman, and a rigid Roman-catholic, had sworn an implacable hatred against her young sister. By this means wounds might be inflicted, even in the domestic sanctuary, which would not be the less deep because they were the work of her own kindred. One day we are told that Anne found in her chamber a book of pretended prophecies, in which was a picture representing a king, a queen shedding tears, and at their feet a young lady headless. Anne turned away her eyes with disgust. She desired, however, to know what this emblem signified, and officious friends brought to her one of those pretended wise men, so numerous at all times, who abuse the credulity of the ignorant by professing to interpret such mysteries. “This prophetic picture,” he said, “represents the history of the king and his wife.” Anne was not credulous, but she understood what her enemies meant to insinuate, and dismissed the mock interpreter without betraying any signs of fear; then turning to her favorite attendant, Anne Saville, “Come hither, Nan,” said she, “look at this book of prophecies; this is the king, this is the queen wringing her hands and mourning, and this (putting her finger on the bleeding body) is myself, with my head cut off.”—The young lady answered with a shudder: “If I thought it were true, I would not myself have him were he an emperor.”—“Tut, Nan,” replied Anne Boleyn with a sweet smile, “I think the book a bauble, and am resolved to have him, that my issue may be royal, whatever may become of me.” This story is based on good authority, and there were so many predictions of this kind afloat that it is very possible one of them might come true; people afterwards recollected only the prophecies confirmed by the events. But, be that as it may, this young lady, so severely chastised in after-days, found in her God an abundant consolation. HRSCV5 818.5

At length Campeggio embarked at Calais on the 29th of September, and unfortunately for him he had an excellent passage across the Channel. A storm to drive him back to the French coast would have suited him admirably. But on the 1st of October he was at Canterbury, whence he announced his arrival to the king. At this news, Henry forgot all the delays which had so irritated him. “His majesty can never be sufficiently grateful to your holiness for so great a favor,” wrote Wolsey to the pope; “but he will employ his riches, his kingdom, his life even, and deserve the name of Restorer of the Church as justly as he has gained that of Defender of the Faith.” This zeal alarmed Campeggio, for the pope wrote to him that any proceeding which might irritate Charles would inevitably cause the ruin of the church. The nuncio became more dilatory than ever, and although he reached Canterbury on the 1st of October, he did not arrive at Dartford until the 5th, thus taking four days for a journey of about thirty miles. HRSCV5 818.6

Meanwhile preparations were making to receive him in London. Wolsey, feeling contempt for the poverty of the Roman cardinals, and very uneasy about the equipage with which his colleague was likely to make his entrance into the capital, sent a number of showy chests, rich carpets, litters hung with drapery, and harnessed mules. On the other hand Campeggio, whose secret mission was to keep in the back-ground, and above all to do nothing, feared these banners, and trappings, and all the parade of a triumphal entry. Alleging therefore an attack of gout in order to escape from the pomps his colleague had prepared for him, he quietly took a boat, and thus reached the palace of the bishop of Bath, where he was to lodge. HRSCV5 818.7

While the nuncio was thus proceeding unnoticed up the Thames, the equipages sent by Wolsey entered London through the midst of a gaping crowd, who looked on them with curiosity as if they had come from the banks of the Tiber. Some of the mules however took fright and ran away, the coffers fell off and burst open, when there was a general rush to see their contents; but to the surprise of all they were empty. This was an excellent jest for the citizens of London. “Fine outside, empty inside; a just emblem of the popedom, its embassy, and foolish pomps,” they said; “a sham legate, a procession of masks, and the whole a farce!” HRSCV5 819.1

Campeggio was come at last, and now what he dreaded most was an audience. “I cannot move,” he said, “or endure the motion of a litter.” Never had an attack of gout been more seasonable. Wolsey, who paid him frequent visits, soon found him to be his equal in cunning. To no purpose did he treat him with every mark of respect, shaking his hand and making much of him; it was labor lost, the Roman nuncio would say nothing, and Wolsey began to despair. The king, on the contrary, was full of hope, and fancied he already had the act of divorce in his portfolio, because he had the nuncio in his kingdom. HRSCV5 819.2

The greatest effect of the nuncio’s arrival was the putting an end to Anne Boleyn’s indecision. She had several relapses: the trials which she foresaw, and the grief Catherine must necessarily feel, had agitated her imagination and disturbed her mind. But when she saw the church and her own enemies prepared to pronounce the king’s divorce, her doubts were removed, and she regarded as legitimate the position that was offered her. The king, who suffered from her scruples, was delighted at this change. “I desire to inform you,” he wrote to her in English, “what joy it is to me to understand of your conformableness with reason, and of the suppressing of your inutile and vain thoughts and fantasies with the bridle of reason. I assure you all the greatness of this world could not counterpoise for my satisfaction the knowledge and certainty thereof… The unfeigned sickness of this well-willing legate doth somewhat retard his access to your person.” It was therefore the determination of the pope that made Anne Boleyn resolve to accept Henry’s hand; this is an important lesson for which we are indebted to the Vatican letters. We should be grateful to the papacy for having so carefully preserved them. HRSCV5 819.3

But the more Henry rejoiced, the more Wolsey despaired; he would have desired to penetrate into Clement’s thoughts, but could not succeed. Imagining that De Angelis, the general of the Spanish Observance, knew all the secrets of the pope and of the emperor, he conceived the plan of kidnapping him. “If he goes to Spain by sea,” said he to Du Bellay, “a good brigantine or two would do the business; and if by land, it will be easier still.” Du Bellay failed not (as he informs us himself) “to tell him plainly that by such proceedings he would entirely forfeit the pope’s good will.”—“What matter?” replied Wolsey, “I have nothing to lose.” As he said this, tears started to his eyes. At last he made up his mind to remain ignorant of the pontiff’s designs, and wiped his eyes, awaiting, not without fear, the interview between Henry and Campeggio. HRSCV5 819.4

On the 22nd of October, a month after his arrival, the nuncio, borne in a sedan chair of red velvet, was carried to court. He was placed on the right of the throne, and his secretary in his name delivered a high-sounding speech, saluting Henry with the name of Saviour of Rome, Liberator urbis. “His majesty,” replied Fox in the king’s name, “has only performed the duties incumbent on a Christian prince, and he hopes that the holy see will bear them in mind.”—“Well attacked, well defended,” said Du Bellay. For the moment, a few Latin declamations got the papal nuncio out of his difficulties. HRSCV5 819.5

Campeggio did not deceived himself: if the divorce were refused, he foresaw the reformation of England. Yet he hoped still, for he was assured that Catherine would submit to the judgment of the church; and being fully persuaded that the queen would refuse the holy father nothing, the nuncio began “his approaches,” as Du Bellay calls them. On the 27th of October, the two cardinals waited on Catherine, and in flattering terms insinuated that she might prevent the blow which threatened her by voluntary retirement into a convent. And then, to end all indecision in the queen’s mind, Campeggio put on a severe look and exclaimed: “How is it, madam, explain the mystery to us? From the moment the holy father appointed us to examine the question of your divorce, you have been seen not only at court, but in public, wearing the most magnificent ornaments, participating with an appearance of gaiety and satisfaction at amusements and festivities which you had never tolerated before. The church is in the most cruel embarrassment with regard to you; the king, your husband, is in the greatest perplexity; the princess, your daughter, is taken from you and instead of shedding tears, you give yourself up to vanity. Renounce the world, madam; enter a nunnery. Our holy father himself requires this of you.” HRSCV5 819.6

The agitated queen was almost fainting; stifling her emotion, however, she said mildly but firmly: “Alas! my lords, is it now a question whether I am the king’s lawful wife or not, when I have been married to him almost twenty years and no objection raised before? Divers prelates and lords are yet alive who then adjudged our marriage good and lawful,—and now to say it is detestable! this is a great marvel to me, especially when I consider what a wise prince the king’s father was, and also the natural love and affection my father, King Ferdinand, bare unto me. I think that neither of these illustrious princes would have made me contract an illicit union.” At these words, Catherine’s emotion compelled her to stop.—“If I weep, my lords,” she continued almost immediately, “it is not for myself, it is for a person dearer to me than my life. What! I should consent to an act which deprives my daughter of a crown? No, I will not sacrifice my child. I know what dangers threaten me. I am only a weak woman, a stranger, without learning, advisers or friends and my enemies are skillful, learned in the laws, and desirous to merit their master’s favor and more than that, even my judges are my enemies. Can I receive as such,” she said as she looked at Campeggio, “a man extorted from the pope by manifest lying? And as for you,” added she, turning haughtily to Wolsey, “having failed in attaining the tiara, you have sworn to revenge yourself on my nephew the emperor and you have kept him true promise; for of all his wars and vexations, he may only thank you. One victim was not enough for you. Forging abominable suppositions, you desire to plunge his aunt into a frightful abyss… But my cause is just, and I trust it in the Lord’s hand.” After this bold language, the unhappy Catherine withdrew to her apartments. The imminence of the danger effected a salutary revolution in her; she laid aside her brilliant ornaments, assumed the sober garments in which she is usually represented, and passed days and nights in mourning and in tears. HRSCV5 820.1

Thus Campeggio saw his hopes deceived; he had thought to find a nun, and had met a queen and a mother He now proceeded to set every imaginable spring at work; as Catherine would not renounce Henry, he must try and prevail upon Henry to renounce his idea of separating from the queen. The Roman legate therefore changed his batteries, and turned them against the king. HRSCV5 820.2

Henry, always impatient, went one day unannounced to Campeggio’s lodging, accompanied by Wolsey only: “As we are without witnesses,” he said, taking his seat familiarly between the two cardinals, “let us speak freely of our affairs.—How shall you proceed?” But to his great astonishment and grief, the nuncio prayed him, with all imaginable delicacy, to renounce the divorce. At these words the fiery Tudor burst out: “Is this how the pope keeps his word? He sends me an ambassador to annul my marriage, but in reality to confirm it.” He made a pause. Campeggio knew not what to say. Henry and Catherine being equally persuaded of the justice of their cause, the nuncio was in a dilemma. Wolsey himself suffered a martyrdom. The king’s anger grew fiercer; he had thought the legate would hasten to withdraw an imprudent expression, but Campeggio was dumb. “I see that you have chosen your part,” said Henry to the nuncio; “mine, you may be sure, will soon be taken also. Let the pope only persevere in this way of acting, and the apostolical see, covered with perpetual infamy, will be visited with a frightful destruction.” The lion had thrown off the lamb’s skin which he had momentarily assumed. Campeggio felt that he must appease the monarch. “Craft and delay” were his orders from Rome; and with that view the pope had provided him with the necessary arms. He hastened to produce the famous decretal which pronounced the divorce. “The holy father,” he told the king, “ardently desires that this matter should be terminated by a happy reconciliation between you and the queen; but if that is impossible, you shall judge yourself whether or not his holiness can keep his promises.” He then read the bull, and even showed it to Henry, without permitting it, however, to leave his hands. This exhibition produced the desired effect: Henry grew calm. “Now I am at ease again,” he said; “this miraculous talisman revives all my courage. This decretal is the efficacious remedy that will restore peace to my oppressed conscience, and joy to my bruised heart. Write to his holiness, that this immense benefit binds me to him so closely, that he may expect from me more than his imagination can conceive.” HRSCV5 820.3

And yet a few clouds gathered shortly after in the king’s mind. HRSCV5 820.4

Campeggio having shown the bull had hastened to lock it up again. Would he presume to keep it in his own hands? Henry and Wolsey will leave no means untried to get possession of it; that point gained, and victory is theirs. HRSCV5 820.5

Wolsey having returned to the nuncio, he asked him for the decretal with an air of candor as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He desired, he said, to show it to the king’s privy councilors. “The pope,” replied Campeggio, “has granted this bull, not to be used, but to be kept secret; he simply desired to show the king the good feeling by which he was animated.” Wolsey having failed, Henry tried his skill. “Have the goodness to hand me the bull which you showed me,” said he. The nuncio respectfully refused. “For a single moment,” he said. Campeggio still refused. The haughty Tudor retired, stifling his anger. Then Wolsey made another attempt, and founded his demand on justice. “Like you, I am delegated by his holiness to decide this affair,” he said, “and I wish to study the important document which is to regulate our proceedings.”—This was met by a new refusal. “What!” exclaimed the minister of Henry VIII, “am I not, like you, a cardinal? like you, a judge? your colleague?” It mattered not, the nuncio would not, by any means, let the decretal go. Clement was not deceived in the choice he had made of Campeggio; the ambassador was worthy of his master. HRSCV5 821.1

It was evident that the pope in granting the bull had been acting a part: this trick revolted the king. It was no longer anger that he felt, but disgust. Wolsey knew that Henry’s contempt was more to be feared than his wrath. He grew alarmed, and paid the nuncio another visit. “The general commission,” he said, “is insufficient, the decretal commission alone can be of service, and you do not permit us to read a word of it. The king and I place the greatest confidence in the good intentions of his holiness, and yet we find our expectations frustrated. Where is that paternal affection with which we had flattered ourselves? What prince has ever been trifled with as the king of England is now? If this is the way in which the Defender of the Faith is rewarded, Christendom will know what those who serve Rome will have to expect from her, and every power will withdraw its support. Do not deceive yourselves: the foundation on which the holy see is placed is so very insecure that the least movement will suffice to precipitate it into everlasting ruin. What a sad futurity! what inexpressible torture! whether I wake or sleep, gloomy thoughts continually pursue me like a frightful nightmare.” This time Wolsey spoke the truth. HRSCV5 821.2

But all his eloquence was useless; Campeggio refused to give up the so much desired bull. When sending him, Rome had told him: “Above all, do not succeed!” This means having failed, there remained for Wolsey one other way of effecting the divorce. “Well, then,” he said to Campeggio, “let us pronounce it ourselves.”—“Far be it from us,” replied the nuncio; “the anger of the emperor will be so great, that the peace of Europe will be broken for ever.”—“I know how to arrange all that,” replied the English cardinal, “in political matters you may trust to me.” The nuncio then took another tone, and proudly wrapping himself up in his morality, he said: “I shall follow the voice of my conscience; if I see that the divorce is possible, I shall leap the ditch; if otherwise, I shall not.”—“Your conscience! that may be easily satisfied,” rejoined Wolsey. “Holy Scripture forbids a man to marry his brother’s widow; now no pope can grant what is forbidden by the law of God.”—“The Lord preserve us from such a principle,” exclaimed the Roman prelate; “the power of the pope is unlimited.”—The nuncio had hardly put his conscience forward before it stumbled; it bound him to Rome and not to heaven. But for that matter, neither public opinion nor Campeggio’s own friends had any great idea of his morality; they thought that to make him leap the ditch, it was only requisite to know the price at which he might be bought. The bishop of Bayonne wrote to Montmorency: “Put at the close of a letter which I can show Campeggio something promissory, that he shall have benefices That will cost you nothing, and may serve in this matter of the marriage; for I know that he is longing for something of the sort.”—“What is to be done then,” said Wolsey at last, astonished at meeting with a resistance to which he was unaccustomed. “I shall inform the pope of what I have seen and heard,” replied Campeggio, “and I shall wait for his instructions.” Henry was forced to consent to this new course, for the nuncio hinted, that if it were opposed he would go in person to Rome to ask the pontiff’s orders, and he never would have returned. By this means several months were gained. HRSCV5 821.3

During this time men’s minds were troubled. The prospect of a divorce between the king and queen had stirred the nation; and the majority, particularly among the women, declared against the king. “Whatever may be done,” the people said boldly, “whoever marries the Princess Mary will be king of England.” Wolsey’s spies informed him that Catherine and Charles V had many devoted partisans even at the court. He wished to make sure of this. “It is pretended,” he said one day in an indifferent tone, “that the emperor has boasted that he will get the king driven from his realm, and that by his majesty’s own subjects What do you think of it, my lords?”—“Tough against the spur,” says Du Bellay, the lords remained silent. At length, however, one of them more imprudent than the rest, exclaimed: “Such a boast will make the emperor lose more than a hundred thousand Englishmen.” This was enough for Wolsey. To lose them, he thought, Charles must have them. If Catherine thought of levying war against her husband, following the example of former queens of England, she would have, then, a party ready to support her; this became dangerous. HRSCV5 821.4

The king and the cardinal immediately took their measures. More than 15,000 of Charles’s subjects were ordered to leave London; the arms of the citizens were seized, “in order that they might have no worse weapon than the tongue;” the Flemish councilors accorded to Catherine were dismissed, after they had been heard by the king and Campeggio, “for they had no commission to speak to the other [Wolsey]”—and finally, they kept “a great and constant watch” upon the country. Men feared an invasion of England, and Henry was not of a humor to subject his kingdom to the pope. HRSCV5 822.1

This was not enough; the alarmed king thought it his duty to come to an explanation with his people; and having summoned the lords spiritual and temporal, the judges, the members of the privy-council, the mayor and aldermen of the city, and many of the gentry, to meet him at his palace of Bridewell on the 13th of November, he said to them with a very condescending air: “You know, my lords and gentlemen, that for these twenty years past divine Providence has granted our country such prosperity as it had never known before. But in the midst of all the glory that surrounds me, the thought of my last hour often occurs to me, and I fear that if I should die without an heir, my death would cause more damage to my people than my life has done them good. God forbid, that for want of a legitimate king England should be again plunged into the horrors of civil war!” Then calling to mind the illegalities invalidating his marriage with Catherine, the king continued: “These thoughts have filled my mind with anxiety, and are continually pricking my conscience. This is the only motive, and God is my witness, which has made me lay this matter before the pontiff. As touching the queen, she is a woman incomparable in gentleness, humility, and buxomness, as I these twenty years have had experiment of; so that if I were to marry again, if the marriage might be good, I would surely choose her above all other women. But if it be determined by judgment that our marriage was against God’s law, and surely void, then I shall not only sorrow in departing from so good a lady and loving companion, but much more lament and bewail my unfortunate chance, that I have so long lived in adultery, to God’s great displeasure, and have no true heir of my body to inherit this realm Therefore I require of you all to pray with us that the very truth may be known, for the discharging of our conscience and the saving of our soul.” These words, though wanting in sincerity, were well calculated to soothe men’s minds. Unfortunately, it appears that after this speech from the crown, the official copy of which has been preserved, Henry added a few words of his own. “If however,” he said, according to Du Bellay, casting a threatening glance around him, “there should be any man whatsoever who speaks of his prince in other than becoming terms, I will show him that I am the master, and there is no head so high that I will not roll it from his shoulders.” This was a speech in Henry’s style; but we cannot give unlimited credit to Du Bellay’s assertions, this diplomatist being very fond, like others of his class, of “seasoning” his despatches. But whatever may be the fact as regards the postscript, the speech on the divorce produced an effect. From that time there were no more jests, not even on the part of the Boleyns’ enemies. Some supported the king, others were content to pity the queen in secret; the majority prepared to take advantage of a court-revolution which every one foresaw. “The king so plainly gave them to understand his pleasure,” says the French ambassador, “that they speak more soberly than they have done hitherto.” HRSCV5 822.2

Henry wishing to silence the clamors of the people, and to allay the fears felt by the higher classes, gave several magnificent entertainments at one time in London, at another at Greenwich, now at Hampton Court, and then at Richmond. The queen accompanied him, but Anne generally remained “in a very handsome lodging which Henry had furnished for her,” says Du Bellay. The cardinal, following his master’s example, gave representations of French plays with great magnificence. All his hope was in France. “I desire nothing in England, neither in word nor in deed, which is not French,” he said to the bishop of Bayonne. At length Anne Boleyn had accepted the brilliant position she had at first refused, and every day her stately mansion (Suffolk House) was filled with a numerous court,—“more than ever had crowded to the queen.”—“Yes, yes,” said Du Bellay, as he saw the crowd turning towards the rising sun, “they wish by these little things to accustom the people to endure her, that when great ones are attempted, they may not be found so strange.” HRSCV5 822.3

In the midst of these festivities the grand business did not slumber. When the French ambassador solicited the subsidy intended for the ransom of the sons of Francis I, the cardinal required of him in exchange a paper proving that the marriage had never been valid. Du Bellay excused himself on the ground of his age and want of learning; but being given to understand that he could not have the subsidy without it, he wrote the memoir in a single day. The enraptured cardinal and king entreated him to speak with Campeggio. The ambassador consented, and succeeded beyond all expectation. The nuncio, fully aware that a bow too much bent will break, made Henry by turns become the sport of hope and fear. “Take care how you assert that the pope had not the right to grant a dispensation to the king,” said he to the French bishop; “this would be denying his power, which is infinite. But,” added he in a mysterious tone, “I will point out a road that will infallibly lead you to the mark. Show that the holy father has been deceived by false information. Push me hard on that,” he continued, “so as to force me to declare that the dispensation was granted on erroneous grounds.” Thus did the legate himself reveal the breach by which the fortress might be surprised. “Victory!” exclaimed Henry, as he entered Anne’s apartments all beaming with joy. HRSCV5 823.1

But this confidence on the part of Campeggio was only a new trick. “There is a great rumor at court,” wrote Du Bellay soon after, “that the emperor and the king of France are coming together, and leaving Henry alone, so that all will fall on his shoulders.” Wolsey, finding that the intrigues of diplomacy had failed, thought it his duty to put fresh springs in motion, “and by all good and honest means to gain the pope’s favor. He saw, besides, to his great sorrow, the new catholicity then forming in the world, and uniting, by the closest bonds, the Christians of England to those of the continent. To strike down one of the leaders of this evangelical movement might incline the court of Rome in Henry’s favor. The cardinal undertook, therefore, to persecute Tyndale; and this resolution will now transport us to Germany. HRSCV5 823.2