History of the Reformation, vol. 5

Chapter 10

Disappointment in England—War declared against Charles V—Wolsey desires to get him deposed by the Pope—A new Scheme—Embassy of Fox and Gardiner—Their Arrival at Orvieto—Their first Interview with Clement—The Pope reads a Treatise by Henry—Gardiner’s Threats and Clement’s Promise—The Modern Fabius—Fresh Interview and Menaces—The Pope has not the Key—Gardiner’s Proposition—Difficulties and Delays of the Cardinals—Gardiner’s last Blows—Reverses of Charles V in Italy—The Pope’s Terror and Concession—The Commission granted—Wolsey demands the Engagement—A Loop-hole—The Pope’s Distress

Never was disappointment more complete than that felt by Henry and Wolsey after the arrival of Gambara with the commission; the king was angry, the cardinal vexed. What Clement called the sacrifice of his life was in reality but a sheet of paper fit only to be thrown into the fire. “This commission is of no value,” said Wolsey.—“And even to put it into execution,” added Henry, “we must wait until the imperialists have quitted Italy! The pope is putting us off to the Greek calends.”—“His holiness,” observed the cardinal, “does not bind himself to pronounce the divorce; the queen will therefore appeal from our judgment.”—“And even if the pope had bound himself,” added the king, “it would be sufficient for the emperor to smile upon him, to make him retract what he had promised.”—“It is all a cheat and a mockery,” concluded both king and minister. HRSCV5 801.3

What was to be done next? The only way to make Clement ours, thought Wolsey, is to get rid of Charles; it is time his pride was brought down. Accordingly, on the 21st of January 1528, France and England declared hostilities against the Emperor. When Charles heard of this proceeding he exclaimed: “I know the hand that has flung the torch of war into the midst of Europe. My crime is not having placed the cardinal of York on St. Peter’s throne.” HRSCV5 801.4

A mere declaration of war was not enough for Wolsey; the bishop of Bayonne, ambassador from France, seeing him one day somewhat excited, whispered in his ear: “In former times popes have deposed emperors for smaller offenses.” Charles’s deposition would have delivered the king of France from a troublesome rival; but Du Bellay, fearing to take the initiative in so bold an enterprise, suggested the idea to the cardinal. Wolsey reflected: such a thought had never before occurred to him. Taking the ambassador aside to a window, he there swore stoutly, said Du Bellay, that he should be delighted to use all his influence to get Charles deposed by the pope. “No one is more likely than yourself,” replied the bishop, “to induce Clement to do it.”—“I will use all my credit,” rejoined Wolsey, and the two priests separated. This bright idea the cardinal never forgot, Charles had robbed him of the tiara; he will retaliate by depriving Charles of his crown. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Staffileo, dean of the Rota, was then in London, and, still burning with resentment against the author of the Sack of Rome, he favorably received the suggestions Wolsey made to him; and, finally, the envoy from John Zapolya, king-elect of Hungary, supported the project. But the kings of France and England were not so easily induced to put the thrones of kings at the disposal of the priests. It appears, however, that the pope was sounded on the subject and if the emperor had been beaten in Italy, it is probable that the bull would have been fulminated against him. His sword preserved his crown, and the plot of the two bishops failed. HRSCV5 801.5

The king’s councilors began to seek for less heroic means. “We must prosecute the affair at Rome,” said some.—“No,” said others, “in England. The pope is too much afraid of the emperor to pronounce the divorce in person.”—“If the pope fears the emperor more than the king of England,” exclaimed the proud Tudor, “we shall find some other way to set him at ease.” Thus, at the first contradiction, Henry placed his hand on his sword, and threatened to sever the ties which bound his kingdom to the throne of the Italian pontiff. HRSCV5 801.6

“I have hit it!” said Wolsey at length; “we must combine the two plans—judge the affair in London, and at the same time bind the pontiff at Rome.” And then the able cardinal proposed the draft of a bull, by which the pope, delegating his authority to two legates, should declare that the acts of that delegation should have a perpetual effect, notwithstanding any contrary decrees that might subsequently emanate from his infallible authority. A new mission was decided upon for the accomplishment of this bold design. HRSCV5 801.7

Wolsey, annoyed by the folly of Knight and his colleagues, desired men of another stamp. He therefore cast his eyes on his own secretary, Stephen Gardiner, an active man, intelligent, supple, and crafty, a learned canonist, desirous of the king’s favor, and, above all, a good Romanist, which at Rome was not without its advantage. Gardiner was in small the living image of his master; and hence the cardinal sometimes styled him the half of himself. Edward Fox, the chief almoner, was joined with him—a moderate, influential man, a particular friend of Henry’s, and a zealous advocate of the divorce. Fox was named first in the commission; but it was agreed that Gardiner should be the real head of the embassy. “Repeat without ceasing,” Wolsey told them, “that his majesty cannot do otherwise than separate from the queen. Attack each one on his weak side. Declare to the pope that the king promises to defend him against the emperor; and to the cardinals that their services will be nobly rewarded. If that does not suffice, let the energy of your words be such as to excite a wholesome fear in the pontiff.” HRSCV5 802.1

Fox and Gardiner, after a gracious reception at Paris (23rd February) by Francis I, arrived at Orvieto on the 20th of March, after many perils, and with their dress in such disorder, that no one could have taken them for ambassadors of Henry VIII. “What a city!” they exclaimed, as they passed through its streets; “what ruins, what misery! It is indeed truly called Orvieto (urbs vetus)!” The state of the town gave them no very grand idea of the state of the popedom, and they imagined that with a pontiff so poorly lodged, their negotiation could not be otherwise than easy. “I give you my house,” said Da Casale, to whom they went, “my room and my own bed;” and as they made some objections, he added: “It is not possible to lodge you elsewhere; I have even been forced to borrow what was necessary to receive you.” Da Casale, pressing them to change their clothes, which were still dripping (they had just crossed a river on their mules), they replied, that being obliged to travel post, they had not been able to bring a change of raiment. “Alas!” said Casale, “what is to be done? there are few persons in Orvieto who have more garments than one; even the shopkeepers have no cloth for sale; this town is quite a prison. People say the pope is at liberty here. A pretty liberty indeed! Want, impure air, wretched lodging, and a thousand other inconveniences, keep the holy father closer than when he was in the Castle of St. Angelo. Accordingly, he told me the other day, it was better to be in captivity at Rome than at Liberty here.” HRSCV5 802.2

In two days, however, they managed to procure some new clothing; and being now in a condition to show themselves, Henry’s agents were admitted to an after-dinner audience on Monday the 22nd of March (1528). HRSCV5 802.3

Da Casale conducted them to an old building in ruins. “This is where his holiness lives,” he said. They looked at one another with astonishment, and crossing the rubbish lying about, passed through three chambers whose ceilings had fallen in, whose windows were curtainless, and in which thirty persons, “riff-raff, were standing against the bare walls for a garnishment.” This was the pope’s court. HRSCV5 802.4

At length the ambassadors reached the pontiff’s room, and placed Henry’s letters in his hands. “Your holiness,” said Gardiner, “when sending the king a dispensation, was pleased to add, that if this document were not sufficient, you would willingly give a better. It is that favor the king now desires.” The pope with embarrassment strove to soften his refusal. “I am informed,” he said, “that the king is led on in this affair by a secret inclination, and that the lady he loves is far from being worthy of him.” Gardiner replied with firmness: “The king truly desires to marry again after the divorce, that he may have an heir to the crown; but the woman he proposes to take is animated by the noblest sentiments; the cardinal of York and all England do homage to her virtues.” The pope appeared convinced. “Besides,” continued Gardiner, “the king has written a book on the motives of his divorce.”—“Good! come and read it to me to-morrow,” rejoined Clement. HRSCV5 802.5

The next day the English envoys had hardly appeared before Clement took Henry’s book, ran over it as he walked up and down the room, and then seating himself on a long bench covered with an old carpet, “not worth twenty pence,” says an annalist, he read the book aloud. He counted the number of arguments, made objections as if Henry were present, and piled them one upon another without waiting for an answer. “The marriages forbidden in Leviticus,” said he, in a short and quick tone of voice, “are permitted in Deuteronomy; now Deuteronomy coming after Leviticus, we are bound by the latter. The honor of Catherine and the emperor is at stake, and the divorce would give rise to a terrible war.” The pope continued speaking, and whenever the Englishmen attempted to reply, he bade them be silent, and kept on reading. “It is an excellent book,” said he, however, in a courteous tone, when he had ended; “I shall keep it to read over again at my leisure.” Gardiner then presenting a draft of the commission which Henry required, Clement made answer: “It is too late to look at it now; leave it with me.”—“But we are in haste,” added Gardiner.—“Yes, yes, I know it,” said the pope. All his efforts tended to protract the business. HRSCV5 802.6

On the 28th of March, the ambassadors were conducted to the room in which the pope slept; the cardinals Sanctorum Quatuor and De Monte, as well as the councillor of the Rota, Simonetta, were then with him. Chairs were arranged in a semicircle. “Be seated,” said Clement, who stood in the middle. “Master Gardiner, now tell me what you want.”—“There is no question between us but one of time. You promised to ratify the divorce, as soon as it was pronounced; and we require you to do before what you engage to do after. What is right on one day, must be right on another.” Then, raising his voice, the Englishman added: “If his majesty perceives that no more respect is paid to him than to a common man, he will have recourse to a remedy which I will not name, but which will not fail in its effect.” HRSCV5 803.1

The pope and his councilors looked at one another in silence; they had understood him. The imperious Gardiner, remarking the effect which he had produced, then added in an absolute tone: “We have our instructions, and are determined to keep to them.”—“I am ready to do everything compatible with my honor,” exclaimed Clement, in alarm.—“What your honor would not permit you to grant,” said the proud ambassador, “the honor of the king, my master, would not permit him to ask.” Gardiner’s language became more imperative every minute. “Well, then,” said Clement, driven to extremity, “I will do what the king demands, and if the emperor is angry, I cannot help it.” The interview, which had commenced with a storm, finished with a gleam of sunshine. HRSCV5 803.2

That bright gleam soon disappeared: Clement, who imagined he saw in Henry a Hannibal at war with Rome, wished to play the temporizer, the Fabius Cunctator. “Bis dat qui cito dat,” said Gardiner sharply, who observed this manoeuvre.—“It is a question of law,” replied the pope, “and as I am very ignorant in these matters, I must give the doctors of the canon law the necessary time to make it all clear.”—“By his delays Fabius Maximus saved Rome,” rejoined Gardiner; “you will destroy it by yours.”—“Alas!” exclaimed the pope, “if I say the king is right, I shall have to go back to prison.”—“When truth is concerned,” said the ambassador, “of what consequence are the opinions of men?” Gardiner was speaking at his ease, but Clement found that the castle of St. Angelo was not without weight in the balance. “You may be sure that I shall do everything for the best,” replied the modern Fabius. With these words the conference terminated. HRSCV5 803.3

Such were the struggles of England with the popedom—struggles which were to end in a definitive rupture. Gardiner knew that he had a skilful adversary to deal with; too cunning to allow himself to be irritated, he coolly resolved to frighten the pontiff: that was in his instructions. On the Friday before Palm Sunday, he was ushered into the pope’s closet; there he found Clement attended by De Monte, Sanctorum Quatuor, Simonetta, Staffileo, Paul, auditor of the Rota, and Gambara. “It is impossible,” said the cardinals, “to grant a decretal commission in which the pope pronounces de jure in favor of the divorce, with a promise of confirmation de facto.” Gardiner insisted; but no persuasion, “neither dulce nor poynante,” could move the pontiff. The envoy judged the moment had come to discharge his strongest battery. “O perverse race,” said he to the pontiff’s ministers, “instead of being harmless as doves, you are as full of dissimulation and malice as serpents; promising everything but performing nothing. England will be driven to believe that God has taken from you the key of knowledge, and that the laws of the popes, ambiguous to the popes themselves, are only fit to be cast into the fire. The king has hitherto restrained his people, impatient of the Romish yoke; but he will now give them the rein.” A long and gloomy silence followed. Then the Englishman, suddenly changing his tone, softly approached Clement, who had left his seat, and conjured him in a low voice to consider carefully what justice required of him. “Alas!” replied Clement, “I tell you again, I am ignorant in these matters. According to the maxims of the canon law the pope carries all laws in the tablets of his heart, but unfortunately God has never given me the key that opens them.” As he could not escape by silence, Clement retreated under cover of a jest, and heedlessly pronounced the condemnation of the popedom. If he had never received the famous key, there was no reason why other pontiffs should have possessed it. The next day he found another loophole; for when the ambassadors told him that the king would carry on the matter without him, he sighed, drew out his handkerchief, and said as he wiped his eyes: “Would to God that I were dead!” Clement employed tears as a political engine. HRSCV5 803.4

“We shall not get the decretal commission,” (that which pronounced the divorce) said Fox and Gardiner after this, “and it is not really necessary. Let us demand the general commission (authorizing the legates to pronounce it), and exact a promise that shall supply the place of the act which is denied us.” Clement, who was ready to make all the promises in the world, swore to ratify the sentence of the legates without delay. Fox and Gardiner then presented to Simonetta a draft of the act required. The dean, after reading it, returned it to the envoys, saying, “It is very well, I think, except the end; show it Sanctorum Quatuor.” The next morning they carried the draft to that cardinal: “How long has it been the rule for the patient to write the prescription? I always thought it was the physician’s business.”—“No one knows the disease so well as the patient,” replied Gardiner: “and this disease may be of such a nature that the doctor cannot prescribe the remedy without taking the patient’s advice.” Sanctorum Quatuor read the prescription, and then returned it, saying: “It is not bad, with the exception of the beginning. Take the draft to De Monte and the other councilors.” The latter liked neither beginning, middle, nor end. “We will send for you this evening,” said De Monte. HRSCV5 804.1

Three of four days having elapsed, Henry’s envoys again waited on the pope, who showed them the draft prepared by his councilors. Gardiner remarking in it additions, retrenchments, and corrections, threw it disdainfully from him, and said coldly: “Your holiness is deceiving us; you have selected these men to be the instruments of your duplicity.” Clement, in alarm, sent for Simonetta; and after a warm discussion, the envoys, more discontented than ever, quitted the pope at one in the morning. HRSCV5 804.2

The night brings wisdom. “I only desire two little words more in the commission,” said Gardiner next day to Clement and Simonetta. The pope requested Simonetta to wait upon the cardinals immediately; the latter sent word that they were at dinner, and adjourned the business until the morrow. HRSCV5 804.3

When Gardiner heard of this epicurean message, he thought the time had come for striking a decisive blow. A new tragedy began. “We are deceived,” exclaimed he “you are laughing at us. This is not the way to gain the favor of princes. Water mixed with wine spoils it; your corrections nullify our document. These ignorant and suspicious priests have spelled over our draft as if a scorpion was hidden under every word.—You made us come to Italy,” said he to Staffileo and Gambara, “like hawks which the fowler lures by holding out to them a piece of meat; and now that we are here, the bait has disappeared, and, instead of giving us what we sought, you pretend to lull us to sleep by the sweet voice of the sirens.” Then, turning to Clement, the English envoy added, “Your holiness will have to answer for this.” The pope sighed and wiped away his tears. “It was God’s pleasure,” continued Gardiner, whose tone became more threatening every minute, “that we should see with our own eyes the disposition of the people here. It is time to have done. Henry is not an ordinary prince,—bear in mind that you are insulting the defender of the faith You are going to lose the favor of the only monarch who protects you, and the apostolical chair, already tottering, will fall into dust, and disappear entirely amidst the applause of all Christendom.” HRSCV5 804.4

Gardiner paused. The pope was moved. The state of Italy seemed to confirm but too strongly the sinister predictions of the envoy of Henry VIII. The imperial troops, terrified and pursued by Lautrec, had abandoned Rome and retired on Naples. The French general was following up this wretched army of Charles V, decimated by pestilence and debauchery; Doria, at the head of his galleys, had destroyed the Spanish fleet; Gaeta and Naples only were left to the imperialists; and Lautrec, who was besieging the latter place, wrote to Henry on the 26th of August that all would soon be over. The timid Clement VII had attentively watched all these catastrophes. Accordingly, Gardiner had hardly denounced the danger which threatened the popedom, before he turned pale with affright, rose from his seat, stretched out his arms in terror, as if he had desired to repel some monster ready to devour him, and exclaimed, “Write, write! Insert whatever words you please.” As he said this, he paced up and down the room, raising his hands to heaven and sighing deeply, while Fox and Gardiner, standing motionless, looked on in silence. A tempestuous wind seemed to be stirring the depths of the abyss; the ambassadors waited until the storm was abated. At last Clement recovered himself, made a few trivial excuses, and dismissed Henry’s ministers. It was an hour past midnight. HRSCV5 804.5

It was neither morality, nor religion, nor even the laws of the church which led Clement to refuse the divorce; ambition and fear were his only motives. He would have desired that Henry should first constrain the emperor to restore him his territories. But the king of England, who felt himself unable to protect the pope against Charles, required, however, this unhappy pontiff to provoke the emperor’s anger. Clement reaped the fruits of that fatal system which had transformed the church of Jesus Christ into a pitiful combination of policy and cunning. HRSCV5 804.6

On the next day, the tempest having thoroughly abated, Sanctorum Quatuor corrected the commission. It was signed, completed by a leaden seal attached to a piece of string, and then handed to Gardiner, who read it. The bull was addressed to Wolsey, and “authorized him, in case he should acknowledge the nullity of Henry’s marriage, to pronounce judicially the sentence of divorce, but without noise or display of judgment; for that purpose he might take any English bishop for his colleague.”—“All that we can do you can do,” said the pope. “We are very doubtful,” said the importunate Gardiner after reading the bull, “whether this commission, without the clauses of confirmation and revocation, will satisfy his majesty; but we will do all in our power to get him to accept it.”—“Above all, do not speak of our altercations,” said the pope. Gardiner, like a discreet diplomatist, did not scruple to note down every particular in cipher in the letters whence these details are procured. “Tell the king,” continued the pontiff, “that this commission is on my part a declaration of war against the emperor, and that I now place myself under his majesty’s protection.” The chief almoner of England departed for London with the precious document. HRSCV5 805.1

But one storm followed close upon another. Fox had not long quitted Orvieto when new letters arrived from Wolsey, demanding the fourth of the acts previously requested, namely, the engagement to ratify at Rome whatever the commissioners might decide in England. Gardiner was to set about it in season and out of season; the verbal promise of the pope counted for nothing; this document must be had, whether the pope was ill, dying, or dead. “Ego et Rex meus, his majesty and I command you,” said Wolsey; “this divorce is of more consequence to us than twenty popedoms.” The English envoy renewed the demand. “Since you refuse the decretal,” he said, “there is the greater reason why you should not refuse the engagement.” This application led to fresh discussion and fresh tears. Clement gave way once more; but the Italians, more crafty than Gardiner, reserved a loophole in the document through which the pontiff might escape. The messenger Thaddeus carried it to London; and Gardiner left Orvieto for Rome to confer with Campeggio. HRSCV5 805.2

Clement was a man of penetrating mind, and although he knew as well as any how to deliver a clever speech, he was irresolute and timid; and accordingly the commission had not long been despatched before he repented. Full of distress, he paced the ruined chambers of his old palace, and imagined he saw hanging over his head that terrible sword of Charles the Fifth, whose edge he had already felt. “Wretch that I am,” said he; “cruel wolves surround me; they open their jaws to swallow me up I see none but enemies around me. At their head is the emperor… What will he do? Alas! I have yielded that fatal commission which the general of the Spanish observance had enjoined me to refuse. Behind Charles come the Venetians, the Florentines, the Duke of Ferrara They have cast lots upon my vesture Next comes the king of France, who promises nothing, but looks on with folded arms; or rather, what perfidy! calls upon me at this critical moment to deprive Charles V of his crown And last, but not least, Henry VIII, the defender of the faith, indulges in frightful menaces against me The emperor desires to maintain the queen on the throne of England; the latter, to put her away Would to God that Catherine were in her grave! But, alas! she lives to be the apple of discord dividing the two greatest monarchies, and the inevitable cause of the ruin of the popedom Wretched man that I am! how cruel is my perplexity, and around me I can see nothing but horrible confusion.” HRSCV5 805.3