man living that more hateth it. These things having been thus committed, either I must have reserved them in pectore, whereby more displeasure might happen to breed, or else thus soundly and plainly to declare them to you, because I do think that cum amico et familiari sincere semper est agendum, and especially the master to his best beloved servant and friend, for in so doing the one shall be more circumspect in his doing, the other shall declare and show the lothness that is in him to have any occasion to be displeased with him.
“And as touching the redress of Religion [convent discipline], if it be observed and continued, undoubtedly it is a gracious act. Notwithstanding, if all reports be true, ab imbecillis imbecilla expectantur. How be it, Mr. Bell hath informed me that the Prioress’s age, personage and manner, præ se fert gravitatem. I pray God it be so indeed, seeing she is preferred to that room. I understand furthermore, which is greatly to my comfort, that you have ordered yourself to Godward as religiously and virtuously as any Prelate or father of Christ’s Church can do, where in so doing and persevering there can be nothing more acceptable to God, more honour to yourself, nor more desired of your friends, among the which I reckon myself not the least…
“I pray you, my Lord, think it not that it is upon any displeasure that I write this unto you. For surely it is for my discharge before God, being in the room that I am in, and secondly for the great zeal I bear unto you, not undeserved in your behalf. Wherefore I pray you take it so; and I assure you, your fault acknowledged, there shall remain in me no spark of displeasure, trusting hereafter you shall recompense that with a thing much more acceptable to me. And thus fare you well; advertising you that, thanked be God, I and all my folk be, and have been since we came to Ampthill, which was on Saturday last, July 11, in marvellous good health and clearness of air.
“Written with the hand of him that is, and shall be your loving Sovereign Lord and friend, – Henry R.”38
Campeggio meanwhile was loitering on his way as he had been directed, pretending illness, pretending difficulties of the road. In sending him at all the Pope had broken his promise to Charles. He engaged, however, that no sentence should be given which had not been submitted first to Charles’s approval. The Emperor, anxious to avoid a complete rupture with England, let the Legate go forward, but he directed Mendoza to inform Wolsey that he must defend his aunt’s honour; her cause was his and he would hold it as such.39 Wolsey, though afraid of the consequence of opposing the divorce to himself and the Church, yet at heart had ceased to desire it. Mendoza reported that English opinion was still unfavourable, and that he did not believe that the commission would have any result. The Pope would interpose delays. Wolsey would allow and recognise them. Both Legates would agree privately to keep the matter in suspense. The English Cardinal appeared to be against the Queen, but every one knew that secretly he was now on her side.40 Catherine only was seriously frightened. She had doubtless been informed of the secret decretal by which the Pope appeared to have prejudged her cause. She supposed that the Pope meant it, and did not understand how lightly such engagements sate upon him. The same Clement, when Benvenuto Cellini reproached him for breaking his word, replied, smiling, that the Pope had power to bind and to loose. Catherine came before long to know him better and to understand the bearings of this singular privilege; but as yet she thought that words meant what they seemed to say. When she heard that Campeggio was actually coming, she wrote passionately to the Emperor, flinging herself upon him for protection. Charles calmed her alarm. She was not, he said, to be condemned without a hearing. The Pope had assured him that the Legates should determine nothing to her detriment. The case should be decided at Rome, as she had desired. Campeggio’s orders were to advise that it should be dropped. Apart from his present infatuation, the King was a good Christian and would act as one. If he persisted, she might rely on the Pope’s protection. She must consent to nothing which would imply the dissolution of her marriage. If the worst came, the King would be made conscious of his duties.41
In the middle of October the Legate arrived. He had been ill in earnest from gout and was still suffering. He had to rest two days in Calais before he could face the Channel. The passage was wild. A deputation of Peers and Bishops waited to receive him at Dover. Respectful demonstrations had been prepared at the towns through which he was to pass, and a state ceremonial was to accompany his entrance into London. But he was, or pretended to be, too sick to allow himself to be seen. He was eight days on the road from the coast, and on reaching his destination he was carried privately in a state barge to the house provided for his residence. Wolsey called the next morning. The King was absent, but returned two days later to the Bridewell palace. There Campeggio waited on him, accompanied by Wolsey. The weather continued to frown. “I wish,” wrote Gerardo Molza to the Marchioness of Mantua, “that you could have seen the two Cardinals abreast, one on his mule, the other carried in his chair, the rain falling fast so that we were all drenched.” The King, simple man, believed that the documents which he held secured him. The Pope in sending the Legate had acted in the teeth of the Emperor’s prohibition, and no one guessed how the affair had been soothed down. The farce was well played, and the language used was what Henry expected. Messer Floriano, one of Campeggio’s suit, made a grand oration, setting out the storming of Rome, the perils of the Church, and the misery of Italy, with moving eloquence. The crowd was so dense in the hall of audience that some of the Italians lost their shoes, and had to step back barefoot to their lodgings through the wet streets.
The Legate was exhausted by the exertion, but he was not allowed to rest, and the serious part of the business began at once behind the scenes. He had hoped, as the Emperor said, that the case might be dropped. He found Henry immoveable. “An angel from heaven,” he wrote on the 17th of October,42 “would not be able to persuade the King that his marriage was not invalid. The matter had come to such a pass that it could no longer be borne with. The Cardinal of York and the whole kingdom insisted that the question must be settled in some way.” One road out of the difficulty alone presented itself. The Emperor had insisted that the marriage should not be dissolved by Catherine’s consent, objecting reasonably that a judgment invalidating it would shake other royal marriages besides hers. But no such judgment would be necessary if Catherine could be induced to enter “lax religion,” to take vows of chastity which, at her age and under her conditions of health, would be a mere form. The Pope could then allow Henry to take another wife without offence to any one. The legitimacy of the Princess would not be touched, and the King undertook that the succession should be settled upon her if he had no male heir. The Queen in consenting would lose nothing, for the King had for two years lived apart from her, and would never return to cohabitation. The Emperor would be delivered from an obligation infinitely inconvenient to him, and his own honour and the honour of Spain would be equally untouched.
These arguments were laid before the Queen by both the Legates, and urged with all their eloquence. In the interests of the realm, in the interests of Europe, in the interests of the Church, in her own and her daughter’s interest as well, it would have been wiser if she had complied. Perhaps she would have complied had the King’s plea been confined, as at first, to the political exigencies of the succession. But the open and premature choice of the lady who was to take her place was an indignity not to be borne. She had the pride of her race. Her obstinacy was a match for her husband’s. She was shaken for a moment by the impassioned entreaties of Campeggio, and she did not at once absolutely refuse. The Legate postponed the opening of his court. He referred to Rome for further instructions, complaining of the responsibility which was thrown upon him. Being on the spot he was able to measure the danger of disappointing the King after the secret commission, the secret decretal, and the Pope’s private letter telling Henry that he was right. Campeggio wrote to Salviati, after his first interview with Catherine, that he did not yet despair. Something might be done if the Emperor would advise her to comply. He asked Fisher to help him, and Fisher seemed not wholly unwilling; but, after a few days’ reflection, Catherine told him that before she would consent she would be torn limb from limb; she would have an authoritative sentence from the Pope, and would accept nothing else;
The Emperor to Mendoza, July 5, 1528. —
Mendoza to the Emperor, September 18, 1528. —
Charles V. to Queen Catherine, September 1, 1528. —
Campeggio to Salviati and to Sanga, October 17, 1528. —
