it produced. “The Pope,” he wrote, “very angry, laid his hand on my arm and forbade me to proceed, saying there was but too good ground for complaint, and he was deluded by his own councillors. He had granted the decretal only to be shown to the King, and then burnt. Wolsey now wished to divulge it. He saw what would follow, and would gladly recall what had been done, even with the loss of one of his fingers.”
Casalis replied that Wolsey wished only to show it to a few persons whose secrecy might be depended on. Was it not demanded for that purpose? Why had the Pope changed his mind? The Pope, only the more excited, said he saw the Bull would be the ruin of him, and he would make no more concessions. Casalis prayed him to consider. Waving his arms violently, Clement said, “I do consider. I consider the ruin which is hanging over me. I repent what I have done. If heresies arise, is it my fault? I will not violate my conscience. Let them, if they like, send the Legate back, because he will not proceed. They can do as they please, provided they do not make me responsible.”
Did the Pope mean, then, Casalis asked, that the commission should not proceed? The Pope could not say as much as that; he had told Campeggio, he said, to dissuade the King and persuade the Queen. “What harm could there be,” Casalis inquired, “in showing the decretal, under oath, to a few of the Privy Council?”
The Pope said the decretal ought to have been burnt, and refused to discuss the matter further.51
CHAPTER V
Demands of the Imperial Agent at Rome – The alleged Brief – Illness of the Pope – Aspirations of Wolsey – The Pope recovers – Imperial menaces – Clement between the anvil and the hammer – Appeal of Henry to Francis – The trial of the cause to proceed – Instructions to Campeggio – Opinion at Rome – Recall of Mendoza – Final interview between Mendoza and the King.
Human pity is due to the unfortunate Pope – Vicar of Christ, supreme judge in Europe, whose decrees were the inspirations of the Holy Ghost – spinning like a whipped top under the alternate lashes of the King of England and the Emperor. He had hoped that his decretal would not be known. It could not be concealed from Mendoza, who discovered, putting the worst interpretation upon it, “that the Pope and King had been endeavouring to intimidate the Queen into retiring into a convent.” Finding that he, too, could put no faith in Clement, the Emperor’s representative at Rome now forced a new promise from him. The proceedings in England were not to be opened without a fresh direct order from the Pope, and this the Pope was to be forbidden to give. If the King was obstinate and the Queen demanded it, Campeggio was to leave England, and, notwithstanding his engagements to the contrary, Clement was to advocate the cause to Rome. The new brief was sufficient plea. Without it the Legates could come to no conclusion, “the whole right of the Queen being based upon its contents.” The Emperor had it in his hands, and by refusing to allow it to be examined, except at Rome, might prevent them from moving.
There was little doubt that the brief had been forged for the occasion. The Pope having sent a commission to England, the King considered that he had a right to the production of documents essential to the case. He required Catherine to write to Charles to ask for it. Catherine did as he desired, and the messenger who carried her letter to the Spanish Court was sworn to carry no private or separate missive from her. Mendoza dared not write by the same hand himself, lest his despatches should be examined. He made the messenger, therefore, learn a few words by heart, telling the Emperor that the Queen’s letter was not to be attended to. “We thought,” he said, “that the man’s oath was thus saved.”52 Thus time drifted on. The new year came, and no progress had been made, though Campeggio had been three months in England. The Pope, more helpless than dishonest, continued to assure the King that he would do all that by law could be required of him, and as much as he could do ex plenitudine potestatis. No peril should prevent him. “If the King thought his resigning the Papacy would conduce to his purpose, he could be content, for the love he bore his Highness, rather than fail to do the same.”
If the Pope was so well disposed, the King could not see where the difficulty lay. The Queen had refused his entreaty that she should enter religion. Why should not the Pope, then, allow the decretal to be put in execution? But Cardinal Salviati informed Casalis that a sentence given in virtue of the decretal would have no effect, but would only cause the Pope’s deposition.53 Visibly and unpleasantly it became now apparent to Henry to what issues the struggle was tending. He had not expected it. Wolsey had told him that the Pope would yield; and the Pope had promised what was asked; but his promises were turning to vapour. Wolsey had said that the Emperor could not afford to quarrel with him. The King found that war with the Emperor in earnest was likely enough unless he himself drew back, and draw back he would not. The poor Pope was as anxious as Henry. He had spoken of resigning. He was near being spared the trouble. Harassed beyond his strength, he fell ill, and was expected to die; and before Wolsey there was now apparently the strange alternative either of utter disgrace or of himself ascending the chair of St. Peter as Clement’s successor. His election, perhaps, was really among the chances of the situation. The Cardinals had not forgiven the sack of Rome. A French or English candidate had a fair prospect of success, and Wolsey could command the French interest. He had boundless money, and money in the Sacred College was only not omnipotent. He undertook, if he was chosen, to resign his enormous English preferments and reside at Rome, and the vacancy of his three bishoprics and his abbey would pour a cataract of gold into the Cardinals’ purses. The Bulls for English bishoprics had to be paid for on a scale which startled Wolsey himself. Already archbishop of York, bishop of Winchester, and abbot of St. Albans, he had just been presented to Durham. He had paid 8,000 ducats to “expedite” his Bulls for Winchester. The Cardinals demanded 13,000 ducats for Durham. The ducat was worth five shillings, and five shillings in 1528 were worth fifty shillings of modern money. At such a rate were English preferments bled to support the College of Cardinals; and if all these great benefices were again vacated there would be a fine harvest to be gathered. For a week or two the splendid vision suspended even the agitation over the divorce; but the Pope revived, and the Legates and he had to resume their ungrateful burden.
It was still really uncertain what Clement would do. Weak, impulsive men often leave their course to fate or chance to decide for them. Casalis, when he was able to attend to business again, told him in Wolsey’s name that he must take warning from his late danger. “By the wilfully suffering a thing of such high importance to be unreformed to the doing whereof Almighty God worked so openly he would incur God’s displeasure and peril his soul.” The Imperialists were as anxious as Wolsey, and equally distrustful. In the Sacred College English gold was an influence not to be despised, and Henry had more to give than Charles. Micer Mai, the Imperial agent at Rome, found, as the spring came on, that the Italian Cardinals were growing cold. Salviati insisted to him that Catherine must go into a convent. Casalis denounced the new brief as a forgery, and the Sacred College seemed to be of the same opinion. The fiery Mai complained in the Pope’s presence of the scant courtesy which the Ministers of the Emperor were meeting with, while the insolent and overbearing were regaled like the Prodigal Son.54 The Pope assured him that, come what might, he would never authorise the divorce; but Mai only partially believed him. At trying moments Mai was even inclining to take the same view of the Papacy as Lope de Soria. “At other times,” he said, “many things could be got out of the Pope by sheer intimidation; but now that could not be tried, for he would fall into despair, and the Imperialists would lose him altogether. They owed him something for what he had done for them before, otherwise he would be of opinion that it would be for God’s service to reduce them to their spiritual powers.”55
Occasionally Mai’s temper broke through, and he used language worth observing. One of the Cardinals had spoken slightingly of the Emperor.
“I did not call on his Holiness,” he wrote to Charles, “but sent him a message, adding that, if ever
John Casalis to Wolsey, Dec. 17, 1528. —
Mendoza to Charles V., Feb. 4, 1529. —
Knight and Benet to Wolsey, Jan. 8, 1529. —
Mai to Charles V., April 3, 1529, —
Micer Mai to the Emperor, May 11, 1529. —
