A.D. 1528. connexion, and mistook the English character; but Cn. 2. he was not blind to the hazard which he was incurring, and would have welcomed an escape from the dilemma perhaps as warmly as Henry would have welcomed it himself. The pope, who well knew his feelings, told Gardiner, 'It would be for May 4. the wealth of Christendom if the queen were in her grave; and he thought the emperor would be thereof most glad of all;' saying, also, 'that he thought like as the emperor had destroyed the temporalities of the church, so should she be the destruction of the spiritualities.'* sets out for In the summer of 1528, before the disaster at Campeggio Naples, Cardinal Campeggio had left Rome on his England. way to England, where he was to hear the cause in conjunction with Wolsey. An initial measure of this obvious kind it had been impossible to refuse; and the pretexts under which it was for many months delayed, were exhausted before the pope's ultimate course had been made clear to him. But Campeggio was instructed to protract his journey to its utmost length, giving time for the campaign to decide itself. He loitered into the autumn, under the excuse of gout and other convenient accidents, until the news reached him of De Lautrec's death, which took place on the 21st of August; and then at length proceeding, he betrayed to Francis I., on passing through Paris, that he had no intention of allowing judgment to be passed upon the cause.† Even Wolsey was August 21. *Gardiner to the King: BURNET's Collectanea, p. 426. † Duke of Suffolk to Henry the Eighth: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 183. His lan guage at Paris. A.D. 1528. State of feeling in London. CH. 2. beginning to tremble at what he had attempted, and was doubtful of success. * The seeming relief came in time, for Henry's patience was fast running out. He had been over-persuaded into a course which he had never cordially approved. The majority of the council, especially the Duke of Norfolk and the Duke of Suffolk, were traditionally imperial, and he himself might well doubt whether he might not have found a nearer road out of his difficulties by adhering to Charles. Charles, after all, was not ruining the papacy, and had no intention of ruining it; and his lightest word weighed more at the court of Rome than the dubious threats and prayers of France. The Bishop of Bayonne, resident French ambassador in London, whose remarkable letters transport us back into the very midst of that unquiet and stormy scene, tells us plainly that the French alliance was hated by the country, that the nobility were all for the emperor, and that among the commons the loudest discontent was openly expressed against Wolsey from the danger of the interruption of the trade with Flanders. Flemish ships had been detained in London, and English ships in retaliation had been arrested in the Zealand ports; corn was unusually dear, and the expected supplies from Spain and Germany were cut off; while the derangement of the woollen trade, from the reluctance of the merchants to commerce. venture purchases, was causing distress all over the country, and Wolsey had been driven to the Derange ment of English * Duke of Suffolk to Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 183. † HALL, p. 744. A.D. 1528. credit most arbitrary measures to prevent open disturb- CH. 2. ance.* He had set his hopes upon the chance of a single cast which he would not believe could fail him, but on each fresh delay he was compelled to feel his declining credit, and the Bishop of Wolsey's Bayonne wrote, on the 20th of August, 1528, that declines. the cardinal was in bad spirits, and had told him in confidence, that ' if he could only see the divorce arranged, the king remarried, the succession settled, and the laws and the manners and customs of the country reformed, he would retire from the Wolsey world and would serve God the remainder of his retire into days.'t To these few trifles he would be contented religion," to confine himself-only to these; he was past sixty, he was weary of the world, and his health was breaking, and he would limit his hopes to * When the clothiers of Es- | artificers; for where the clothiers sex, Kent, Wiltshire, Suffolk, and do daily bring cloths to the other shires which are cloth- market for your ease, to their making, brought cloths to Lon- great cost, and then be ready to don to be sold, as they were sell them, you of your wilfulness wont, few merchants or none will not buy them, as you have bought any cloth at all. When been accustomed to do. What the clothiers lacked sale, then manner of men be you?' said they put from them their spin- the cardinal. I tell you that ners, carders, tuckers, and such the king straitly commandeth others that lived by cloth working, you to buy their cloths as beforewhich caused the people greatly time you have been accustomed to murmur, and specially in Suf- to do, upon pain of his high disfolk, for if the Duke of Norfolk pleasure.'-HALL, p. 746. had not wisely appeased them, no doubt but they had fallen to some rioting. When the king's council was advertised of the inconvenience, the cardinal sent for a great number of the merchants of London, and to them said, 'Sirs, the king is informed that you use not yourselves like merchants, but like graziers and LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 157. By manners and customs he was referring clearly to his intended reformation of the church. See the letter of Fox, Bishop of Winchester (STRYPE's Memorials, vol. ii. p. 25), in which Wolsey's intentions are dwelt upon at length. wishes to ' but what he would do first. A.D. 1528. more CH. 2. the execution of a work for which centuries imperfectly sufficed. It seemed as if he measured his stature by the lengthening shadow, as his sun made haste to its setting. Symptoms of misgiving may be observed in the many anxious letters which he wrote while Campeggio was so long upon his road; and the Bishop of Bayonne, whose less interested eyes could see deeply into the game, warned him throughout that the pope was playing him false.* Only in a revulsion from violent despondency could such a man as Wolsey have allowed himself, on the mere arrival of the legate, and after a few soft words from him, to write in the following strain to Sir Gregory Cassalis: October 4. 'You cannot believe the exultation with which at length I find myself successful in the object for which these many years, with all my industry, I have laboured. At length I have found means to bind my most excellent sovereign and this glorious realm to the holy Roman see in faith and obedience for ever. Henceforth will this people become the most sure pillar of support to bear up the sacred fabric of the church. Henceforth, in recompense for that enduring felicity which he has secured to it, our most Holy Lord has all England at his devotion. In brief time will this noble land make its grateful acknowledgments to his clemency at once for the preservation of the most just, most wise, most excellent of princes, and for the secure establishment of the realm and the protection of the royal succession.'† * LEGRAND, vol. iii. pp. 136, 7. structions work by This letter was dated on the fourth of Octo- СH. 2. ber, and was written in the hope that the pope A.D. 1528. had collected his courage, and that the legate October 4. had brought powers to proceed to judgment. In a few days the prospect was again clouded, and Nov. 1. Wolsey was once more in despair.* Campeggio The inhad brought with him instructions if possible to of Campegarrange a compromise,-if a compromise was im- gio. possible, to make the best use of his ingenuity, and do nothing and allow nothing to be done. In one of two ways, however, it was hoped that he might effect a peaceful solution. He urged the king to give way and to proceed no further; and this failing, as he was prepared to find, he urged the same thing upon the queen.† He in- He was to vited Catherine, or he was directed to invite her, persuasion in the pope's name, for the sake of the general or not at all. interests of Christendom, to take the vows and enter what was called religio laxa, a state in which she might live unincumbered by obligations except the easy one of chastity, and free from all other restrictions either of habit, diet, or order. The proposal was Wolsey's, and was formed when he found the limited nature of Campeggio's instructions; but it was adopted by the latter; and I cannot but think (though I have no proof of it) that it was not adopted without the knowledge of the emperor. Whatever were his own Proposal interests, Charles V. gave Catherine his unwaver- Catherine, ing support: he made it his duty to maintain her probably in the ignominious position in which she was consent of * Wolsey to Cassalis: Ibid. P. 100. + State Papers, vol. vii. pp. 106, 7. § Ibid. vii. p. 113. Ibid. p. 113. made to with the the empe ror, |