A.D. 1528. CH. 2. placed, and submitted his own conduct to be guided by her wishes. It cannot be doubted, however, from the pope's words, and also from the circumstances of the case, that if she could have prevailed upon herself to yield, it would have relieved him from a painful embarrassment. As a prince, he must have felt the substantial justice of Henry's demand, and in refusing to allow the pope to pass a judicial sentence of divorce, he could not but have known that he was compromising the position of the Holy See: while Catherine herself, on the other hand, if she had yielded, would have retired without a stain; no opinion would have been pronounced upon her marriage; the legitimacy of the Princess Mary would have been left without impeachment; and her right to the succession, in the event of no male heir following from any new connexion which the king might form, would have been readily secured to her by act of parliament. It may be asked why she did not yield, and it is difficult to answer the question. She was not a person who would have been disturbed by the loss of a few court vanities. Her situation as Henry's wife could not have had many charms been well if cepted, for her, nor can it be thought that she retained a Which it personal affection for him. If she had loved him, would have she would have suffered too deeply in the struggle she had ac- to have continued to resist, and the cloister would have seemed a paradise. Or if the cloister had appeared too sad a shelter for her, she might have gone back to the gardens of the Alhambra, where she had played as a child, carrying with her the A.D. 1528. affectionate remembrance of every English heart, CH. 2. and welcomed by her own people as an injured saint. Nor again can we suppose that the possible injury of her daughter's prospects from the birth of a prince by another marriage could have seemed of so vast moment to her. Those pros pects were already more than endangered, and would have been rather improved than brought into further peril. which she ill-advised answer. It is not for us to dictate the conduct which a woman smarting under injuries so cruel ought to have pursued. She had a right to choose the course which seemed the best to herself, and England especially could not claim of a stranger that readiness to sacrifice herself which it might have demanded and exacted of one of its own children. We may regret, however, what we are unable to But to censure; and the most refined ingenuity could returned an scarcely have invented a more unfortunate answer than that which the Queen returned to the legate's request. She seems to have said that she was ready to take vows of chastity if the king would do the same. It does not appear whether the request was formally made, or whether it was merely suggested to her in private conversation. That she told the legates, however, what her answer would be, appears certain from the following passage, sadly indicating the ' devices of policy' to which in this unhappy business honourable men allowed themselves to be driven : 'Forasmuch as it is like that the queen shall Wrong promake marvellous difficulty, and in nowise be vokes wrong. A.D. 1528. CH. 2. conformable to enter religion* or take vows of chastity, but that to induce her thereunto, there must be ways and means of high policy used, and all things possible devised to encourage her to the same; wherein percase she shall resolve that she in no wise will condescend so to do, unless that the King's Highness also do the semblable for his part; the king's said orators shall therefore in like wise ripe and instruct themselves by their secret learned council in the court of Rome, if, for so great a benefit to ensue unto the king's succession, realm, and subjects, with the quiet of his conscience, his Grace should promise so to enter religion on vows of chastity for his part, only thereby to conduce the queen thereunto, whether in that case the Pope's Holiness may dispense with the King's Highness for the same promise, oath, or vow, discharging his Grace clearly of the same.'t The explanation of the queen's conduct lies explanation probably in regions into which it is neither easy nor well to penetrate; in regions of outraged delicacy and wounded pride, in a vast drama of passion which had been enacted behind the scenes. From the significant hints which are let fall of the original cause of the estrangement, it was of a kind more difficult to endure than the ordinary trial of married women, the transfer of a husband's affection to some fairer face; and a wife whom so painful a misfortune had failed to crush would be likely to have been moved by it Probable of her con duct. Dec. I. *Take the veil. Instruction to the Ambassadours at Rome: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 136. CH. 2. A.D. 1528. licly ac leyn as his wife. to a deeper and more bitter indignation even, because while she could not blame herself, she knew not whom she might rightly allow herself to blame. And if this were so, the king is not likely to have allayed the storm when at length, putting faith in Wolsey's promises, he allowed himself openly to regard another person as his future wife, establishing her in the palace at Greenwich under the same roof with the queen, with reception rooms, and royal state, and a position openly acknowledged,* the gay court Henry puband courtiers forsaking the gloomy dignity of the knowledges actual wife for the gaudy splendour of her brilliant Anne Borival. Tamer blood than that which flowed in intended the veins of a princess of Castile would have boiled under these indignities; and we have little reason to be surprised if policy and prudence were alike forgotten by Catherine in the bitterness of the draught which was forced upon her, and if her own personal wrongs outweighed the interests of the world. Henry had proceeded to the last unjustifiable extremity as soon as the character of Campeggio's mission had been made clear to him, as if to demonstrate to all the world that he was determined to persevere at all costs and hazards.† Taking the management of He threatthe negotiation into his own keeping, he sent Sir pope. Francis Bryan, the cousin of Anne Boleyn, to the pope, to announce that what he required must be done, and to declare peremptorily, no * Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne, LEGRAND, vol. iii. ens the Сн. CH. 2. more with covert hints, but with open menace, that in default of help from Rome, he would lay the matter before parliament, to be settled at home by the laws of his own country. A.D. 1528. The empe ror's intrigues in Meanwhile, the emperor, who had hitherto conducted himself with the greatest address, had England. fallen into his first error. He had retreated skilfully out of the embarrassment in which the pope's imprisonment involved him, and mingling authority and dictation with kindness and deference, he had won over the Holy See to his devotion, and neutralized the danger to which the alliance of France and England threatened to expose him. His correspondence with the latter country assured him of the unpopularity of the course which had been pursued by the cardinal; he was aware of the obstruction of trade which it had caused, and of the general displeasure felt by the people at the breach of an old friendship; while the league with France in behalf of the Roman church had been barren of results, and was made ridiculous by the obvious preference of the pope for the enemy from whom it was formed to deliver him. If Charles had understood the English temper, therefore, and had known how to avail himself of the opportunity, events might have run in a very different channel. But he was not aware of the earnestness with which the nature of people were bent upon securing the succession, nor of their loyal attachment to Henry. He supposed that disapproval of the course followed by Wolsey to obtain the divorce implied an aversion to it altogether; and trusting to his interest in The empe ror mistakes the his influ ence in England. |