the legates. CH. 2. have been unequal to the restraint which ordinary persons in similar circumstances are able to Opinion of impose on their caprices. The legates spoke no more than the truth when they wrote to the pope, saying that it was mere madness to suppose that the king would act as he was doing merely out of dislike of the queen, or out of inclination for another person; he was not a man whom harsh manners and an unpleasant disposition (duri mores et injucunda consuetudo) could so far provoke; nor could any sane man believe him to be so infirm of character that sensual allurements would have led him to dissolve a connexion in which he had passed the flower of youth without stain or blemish, and in which he had borne himself in his trial so reverently and honourably." I consider this entirely true in a sense which no great knowledge of human nature is required to understand. The king's personal dissatisfaction was great: if this had been all, however, it would have been extinguished or endured; but the interests of the nation, imperilled as they were by the maintenance of the marriage, entitled him to regard his position under another aspect. Even if the marriage in itself had never been questioned, he might justly have desired the dissolution of it; and when he recalled the circumstances under which it was contracted, the hesitation of the council, the reluctance of the pope, the alarms and vacillation of his father, we may readily perceive how scruples of conscience ** * Legates to the Pope, printed in BURNET's Collectanea, p. 40. The inte rests of the nation com private persuade a must have arisen in a soil well prepared to receive СH. 2. them-how the loss of his children must have appeared as a judicial sentence on a violation of the Divine law. The divorce presented itself to him as a moral obligation, when national advantage bined with combined with superstition to encourage what he feeling to secretly desired; and if he persuaded himself that divorce. those public reasons, without which, in truth and fact, he would not have stirred, were those that alone were influencing him, the self-deceit was of a kind with which the experience of most men will probably have made them too familiar. In those rare cases where inclination coincides with right, we cannot be surprised if mankind should mislead themselves with the belief that the disinterested motives weigh more with them than the personal. Henry's own ac himself. A remarkable and very candid account of count of Henry's feelings is furnished by himself in one of the many papers of instructions* which he forwarded to his secretary at Rome. Hypocrisy was not among his faults, and in detailing the arguments which were to be laid before the pope he has exhibited a more complete revelation of what was passing in himself-and indirectly of his own nature in its strength and weakness-than he perhaps imagined while he wrote. The despatch is long and perplexed; the style that of a man who saw his end clearly, and was vexed with the intricate and dishonest trifling with which his way was impeded, and * State Papers, vol. vii. p. 117. rate. CH. 2. which nevertheless he was struggling to toleThe secretary was to say, 'that the King's Highness having above all other things his intent and mind ever founded upon such respect unto Almighty God as to a Christian and catholic prince doth appertain, knowing the fragility and uncertainty of all earthly things, and how displeasant unto God, how much dangerous to the soul, how dishonourable and damageable to the world it were to prefer vain and transitory things unto those that be perfect and certain, hath in this cause, doubt, and matter of matrimony, whereupon depend so high and manifold consequences of greatest importance, always cast from his conceit the darkness and blundering confusion of falsity, and specially hath had and put before his eyes the light and shining brightness of truth; upon which foundation as a most sure base for perpetual tranquillity of his conscience his Highness hath expressly resolved and determined with himself to build and establish all his acts, deeds, and cogitations touching this matter; without God did build the house, in vain they laboured that went about to build it; and all actions grounded upon that immovable fundament of truth, must needs therein be firm, sound, whole, perfect, and worthy of a Christian man; which if truth were put apart, they could not for the same reason be but evil, vain, slipper, uncertain, and in nowise perHe seems manent or endurable.' He then laboured to urge straightfor- on the pope the duty of straightforward dealing; and dwelt in words which have a sad interest for to desire ward deal ing both in himself and all parties concerned. us (when we consider the manner in which the subject of them has been dealt with) on the judg- CH. 2. ment bar, not of God only, but of human posterity, at which his conduct would be ultimately tried. 'The causes of private persons dark and doubtful be sometimes,' the king said, 'pretermitted and passed over as things more meet at some seasons to be dissimuled than by continual strife and plea to nourish controversies. Yet since all people have their eyes conject upon princes, whose acts and doings not only be observed in the mouths of them that now do live, but also remain in such perpetual memory to our posterity [so that] the evil, if any there be, cannot but appear and come to light, there is no reason for toleration, no place for dissimulation; but [there is reason] more deeply, highly, and profoundly to penetrate and search for the truth, so that the same may vanquish and overcome, and all guilt, craft, and falsehood clearly be extirpate and reject.' I am anticipating the progress of the story in making these quotations; for the main burden of the despatch concerns a forgeddocument which had been introduced by the Roman lawyers to embarrass the process, and of which I shall by-and-bye have to speak directly; but I have desired to illustrate the spirit in which Henry entered upon the general question-assuredly a more calm and rational one than historians have usually represented it to be. In dealing with the obstacle which had been raised, he displayed a most efficient mastery over himself, although he did not conclude without touching the pith of the matter with telling clearness. The secretary was to A.D. 1527. undoubted ly determined to persevere. CH. 2. take some opportunity of speaking to the pope privately; and of warning him, 'as of himself,' But he was that there was no hope that the king would give way: he was to 'say plainly to his Holiness that the king's desire and intent convolare ad secundas nuptias non patitur negativum ; and whatsoever should be found of bull, brief, or otherwise, his Highness found his conscience so inquieted, his succession in such danger, and his most royal person in such perplexity for things unknown and not to be spoken, that other remedy there was not but his Grace to come by one way or other, and specially at his hands, if it might be, to the desired end; and that all concertation to the contrary should be vain and frustrate.' So peremptory a conviction and so determined a purpose were of no sudden growth, and had been probably maturing in his mind for years, when the gangrene was torn open by the Bishop of Tarbês, and accident precipitated his resolution. The momentous consequences involved, and the reluctance to encounter a probable quarrel with the emperor, might have long kept him silent, except for some extraneous casualty; but the tree Wolsey being thus rudely shaken, the ripe fruit fell. The vantage of capture of Rome occurring almost at the same the capture moment, Wolsey caught the opportunity to and breaks break the Spanish alliance; and the prospect of with Spain. a divorce was grasped at by him as a lever by which to throw the weight of English power and influence into the papal scale, to commit Henry definitely to the catholic cause. Like his acceptance of legatine authority, the takes ad of Rome, the alliance expedient was a |