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| 11 | <title>Secondary Sources: The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, by JA Froude:
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| 12 | Chapter Three</title>
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| 38 | <p align="center"> </p>
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| 39 | <p align="center"><b><font size="7">The Divorce of<br>Catherine of Aragon</font></b><br>
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| 40 | <font size="5">by
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| 41 | JA Froude, 1891</font></p>
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| 42 | <p align="center">
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| 43 | <img border="0" src="aragon-new1.jpg" alt="miniature portrait of Katharine of Aragon by Lucas Horenbout" width="325" height="321"></td>
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| 46 | </table>
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| 47 | <blockquote>
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| 48 | <blockquote>
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| 49 | <font face="Times New Roman">
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| 50 | </font><font face="Times New Roman">
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| 51 | <div align="left">
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| 52 | <b><font size="4">CHAPTER THREE</font></b></div>
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| 53 | <blockquote>
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| 54 | <p align="left"><font size="4">Anxiety of the Pope to satisfy the King --
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| 55 | Fears of the Emperor -Proposed alternatives -- France and England declare
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| 56 | war in the Pope's defence -- Campeggio to be sent to England -- The King's
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| 57 | account of the Pope's conduct -- The Pope's distress and alarm -The secret
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| 58 | decretal -- Instructions to Campeggio. </font></p>
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| 59 | </blockquote>
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| 60 | <p align="left">THE story returns to Orvieto. The dispensation was promised
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| 61 | on condition that it should not be immediately acted on. Catherine having
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| 62 | refused to acquiesce in a private arrangement, Wolsey again pressed the Pope
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| 63 | for a commission to decide the cause in England, and to bind himself at the
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| 64 | same time not to revoke it, but to confirm any judgment which he might
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| 65 | himself give. "There were secret causes," he said, "which could not be
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| 66 | committed to writing which made such a concession imperative: certain
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| 67 | diseases in the Queen defying all remedy, for which, as for other causes,
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| 68 | the King would never again live with her as his wife." </p>
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| 69 | <p align="left">The Pope, smarting from ill-treatment and grateful for the
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| 70 | help of France and England, professed himself earnestly anxious to do what
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| 71 | Henry desired. But he was still virtually a prisoner. He had been obliged by
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| 72 | the General of the Observants, when in St. Angelo, to promise to do nothing
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| 73 | "whereby the King's divorce might be judged in his own dominions." He
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| 74 | pleaded for time. He promised a commission of some kind, but he said he was
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| 75 | undone if action was taken upon it while the Germans and Spaniards remained
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| 76 | in Italy. He saw evident ruin before him, he said, but he professed to be
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| 77 | willing to run the hazard rather than that Wolsey should suspect him of
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| 78 | ingratitude. He implored the Cardinal, <i>cum suspiriis et lacrymis,</i> not
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| 79 | to precipitate him for ever, and precipitated he would be if, on receiving
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| 80 | the commission, the Cardinal at once began the process. A fortnight later
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| 81 | Casalis described a long conversation with the Pope and Cardinals on the
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| 82 | course to be pursued. Henry bad desired that a second Legate should be sent
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| 83 | from Rome to act with Wolsey. To consent to this would directly compromise
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| 84 | the Papal Court. Clement had no objection to the going forward with the
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| 85 | cause, but he did not wish to be himself responsible. He signed an imperfect
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| 86 | commission not inconsistent with his promise to the General of the
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| 87 | Observants. On this Wolsey might act or, if he preferred it, might proceed
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| 88 | on his own Legatine authority. For himself, instead of engaging to confirm
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| 89 | Wolsey's sentence, he said that no doctor could better resolve the point at
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| 90 | issue than the King himself. If he was resolved, said the Pope, let him
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| 91 | commit his cause to the Legate, marry again, follow up the trial, and then
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| 92 | let a public application be made for a Legate to be sent from the
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| 93 | Consistory. If the Queen was cited first, she would put in no answer, save
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| 94 | to protest against the place and judges. The Imperialists would demand a
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| 95 | prohibition, and then the King could not marry, or, if he did, the offspring
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| 96 | would be illegitimate. They would also demand a commission for the cause to
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| 97 | be heard at Rome, which the Pope would be unable to refuse. But the King
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| 98 | being actually married again, they could not ask for a prohibition. They
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| 99 | could only ask that the cause should be re-examined at Rome, when the Pope
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| 100 | would give sentence and a judgment could be passed which would satisfy the
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| 101 | whole world. This was the Pope's own advice, but he did not wish it to be
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| 102 | known that it had come from himself. Casalis might select the Legate to
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| 103 | England after the first steps had been taken. Campeggio he thought the
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| 104 | fittest, being already an English bishop. At any rate, the Pope bade Casalis
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| 105 | say he would do his best to satisfy the King, though he knew that the
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| 106 | Emperor would never forgive him. </p>
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| 107 | <p align="left">It is not certain what would have followed had Henry acted
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| 108 | on the Pope's suggestion. The judgment which Clement promised might have
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| 109 | been in his favour. Clement evidently wished him to think that it would. But
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| 110 | he might, after all, have found himself required to take Catherine back.
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| 111 | Either alternative was possible. At any rate he did not mean, if he could
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| 112 | help it, to have recourse to violent methods. Charles himself, though he
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| 113 | intended to prevent, if he could, a legal decision against his aunt, had
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| 114 | hinted at the possibility and even desirableness of a private arrangement,
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| 115 | if Catherine would agree. Catherine, unfortunately, would agree to nothing,
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| 116 | but stood resolutely upon her rights, and Charles was forced to stand by
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| 117 | her. Henry was equally obstinate, and the Pope was between the rock and the
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| 118 | whirlpool. </p>
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| 119 | <p align="left">The Pope had promised, however, and had promised with
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| 120 | apparent sincerity. The Papal states remaining occupied by the Imperial
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| 121 | troops, Henry carried out his own part of the engagement by joining France
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| 122 | in a declaration of war against the Emperor. Toison d'or and Clarencieulx
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| 123 | appeared before Charles at Burgos on the 22nd of January, Charles sitting on
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| 124 | his throne to receive their defiance. Toison d'or said that the Emperor had
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| 125 | opened Christendom to the Turks, had imprisoned the Pope, had allowed his
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| 126 | armies to sack Rome and plunder churches and monasteries, had insulted the
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| 127 | holy relics, slain or robbed princes of the Church, cardinals, patriarchs,
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| 128 | archbishops, outraged nunneries and convents, had encouraged Lutheran
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| 129 | heretics in committing these atrocities, &c. For these reasons France
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| 130 | declared open war with the Emperor. The English herald -- he was accused
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| 131 | afterwards of having exceeded his instructions -- was almost as peremptory.
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| 132 | Henry, in earlier times, had lent Charles large sums of money, which had not
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| 133 | been repaid. Clarencieulx said that, unless the Pope was released and the
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| 134 | debt settled, the King of England must make common cause with his brother of
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| 135 | France. Six weeks' interval was allowed for the Emperor to consider his
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| 136 | answer before hostilities on the side of England should commence. </p>
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| 137 | <p align="left">The Emperor replied with calmness and dignity. War with
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| 138 | France was inevitable. As to England, he felt like Cicero, when doubting
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| 139 | whether he should quarrel with Cæsar, that it was inconvenient to be in debt
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| 140 | to an enemy. If England attacked him he said he would defend himself, but he
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| 141 | declined to accept the defiance. Mendoza was not recalled from London. At
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| 142 | the end of the six weeks the situation was prolonged by successive truces
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| 143 | till the peace of Cambray. But Henry had kept his word to the Pope. England
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| 144 | appeared by the side of France in the lists as the armed champion of the
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| 145 | Papacy, and the Pope was expected to fulfil his promises without disguise or
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| 146 | subterfuge. </p>
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| 147 | <p align="left">Clement's method of proceeding with the divorce was
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| 148 | rejected. The dispensation and commission which had been amended with a view
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| 149 | to it were rejected also as worthless. Dr. Fox and Stephen Gardiner were
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| 150 | despatched to Orvieto with fuller powers and with a message peremptory and
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| 151 | even menacing. They were again to impress on the Pope the danger of a
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| 152 | disputed succession. They were to hint that, if relief was refused in
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| 153 | deference to the Emperor, England might decline from obedience to the Holy
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| 154 | See. The Pope must, therefore, pass the commission and the dispensation in
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| 155 | the form in which it had been sent from England. If he objected that it was
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| 156 | unusual, they were to announce that the cause was of great moment. The King
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| 157 | would not be defrauded of his expectation through fear of the Emperor. If he
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| 158 | could not obtain justice from the Pope, he would be compelled to seek it
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| 159 | elsewhere.</p>
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| 160 | <p align="left">The language of these instructions shows that the King and
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| 161 | Wolsey understood the Proteus that they were dealing with, and the necessity
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| 162 | of binding his hands if he was not to slip from them. It was not now the
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| 163 | fountain of justice, the august head of Christendom, that they were
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| 164 | addressing, but a shifty old man, clad by circumstances with the robe of
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| 165 | authority, but whose will was the will of the power which happened to be
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| 166 | strongest in Italy. It was not tolerable that the Emperor should dictate on
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| 167 | a question which touched the vital interests of an independent kingdom. </p>
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| 168 | <p align="left">Spanish diplomatists had afterwards to excuse and explain
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| 169 | away Clement's concessions on the ground that they were signed when he was
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| 170 | angry at his imprisonment, had been extorted by threats, and were therefore
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| 171 | of no validity. He struggled hard to avoid committing himself. The unwelcome
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| 172 | documents were recast into various forms. The dispensation was not signed
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| 173 | after all, but in the place of it other briefs were signed of even graver
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| 174 | importance. The Pope yielded to the demand to send a second Legate to try
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| 175 | the cause with Wolsey in England, where it was assumed as a matter of course
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| 176 | that judgment would be given for the King. The Legate chosen was Campeggio,
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| 177 | who was himself, as was said, an English bishop. The Pope also did express
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| 178 | in writing his own opinion on the cause as favourable to the King's plea.
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| 179 | What passed at Orvieto was thus afterwards compendiously related by Henry in
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| 180 | a published statement of his case. </p>
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| 181 | <p align="left">"On his first scruple the King sent to the Bishop of Rome,
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| 182 | as Christ's Vicar, who had the keys of knowledge, to dissolve his doubts.
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| 183 | The said Bishop refused to take any knowledge of it and desired the King to
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| 184 | apply for a commission to be sent into the realm, authorised to determine
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| 185 | the cause, thus pretending that it might no wise be entreated at Rome, but
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| 186 | only within the King's own realm. He delegated his whole powers to Campeggio
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| 187 | and Wolsey, giving them also a special commission in form of a decretal,
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| 188 | wherein he declared the King's marriage null and empowered him to marry
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| 189 | again. In the open commission also he gave them full authority to give
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| 190 | sentence for the King. Secretly he gave them instructions to burn the
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| 191 | commission decretal and not proceed upon it; (but) at the time of sending
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| 192 | the commission he also sent the King a brief, written in his own hand,
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| 193 | admitting the justice of his cause and promising <i>sanctissime sub</i> <i>
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| 194 | verbo Pontificis</i> that he would never advocate it to Rome."</p>
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| 195 | <p align="left">Engagements which he intended to keep or break according to
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| 196 | the turns of the war between Francis and Charles did not press very heavily
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| 197 | perhaps on Clement's conscience, but they were not extorted from him without
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| 198 | many agonies. "He has granted the commission," Casalis wrote. "He is not
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| 199 | unwilling to please the King and Wolsey, but fears the Spaniards more than
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| 200 | ever he did. The Friar-General has forbidden him in the Emperor's name to
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| 201 | grant the King's request. He fears for his life from the Imperialists if the
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| 202 | Emperor knows of it. Before he would grant the brief he said, weeping, that
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| 203 | it would be his utter ruin. The Venetians and Florentines desired his
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| 204 | destruction. His sole hope of life was from the Emperor. He asked me to
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| 205 | swear whether the King would desert him or not. Satisfied on this point, he
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| 206 | granted the brief, saying that he placed himself in the King's arms, as he
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| 207 | would be drawn into perpetual war with the Emperor. Wolsey might dispose of
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| 208 | him and the Papacy as if he were Pope himself."</p>
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| 209 | <p align="left">The Emperor had insisted, at Catherine's desire, that the
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| 210 | cause should not be heard in England. The Pope had agreed that it should be
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| 211 | heard in England. Consent had been wrung from him, but his consent had been
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| 212 | given, and Campeggio was to go and make the best of it. His open commission
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| 213 | was as ample as words could make it. He and Wolsey were to hear the cause
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| 214 | and decide it. The secret "decretal" which he had wept over while he signed
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| 215 | it declared, before the cause was heard, the sentence which was to be given,
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| 216 | and he had pledged his solemn word not to revoke the hearing to Rome. All
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| 217 | that Clement could do was to instruct the Legate before he started to waste
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| 218 | time on his way, and, on his arrival in England, to use his skill to
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| 219 | "accommodate matters," and to persuade the Queen -- if he found her
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| 220 | persuadeable -- to save him from his embarrassments by taking the veil. This
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| 221 | was a course which Charles himself in his private mind would have
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| 222 | recommended, but was too honourable to advise it. The fatal decretal was to
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| 223 | be seen only by a very few persons, and then, as Henry said, Campeggio was
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| 224 | to burn it. He was instructed also to pass no sentence without first
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| 225 | referring back to Rome, and, if driven to extremity, was to find an excuse
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| 226 | for postponing a decision; very natural conduct on the part of a weak,
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| 227 | frightened mortal -- conduct not unlike that of his predecessor, Alexander
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| 228 | III., in the quarrel between Becket and Henry II. -- but in both cases
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| 229 | purely human, not such as might have been looked for in a divinely guided
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| 230 | Vicar of Christ. </p>
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| 231 | </font>
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| 232 | <font face="Times New Roman" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
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| 233 | <hr>
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| 234 | <p align="left"><font size="2">From <i>The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon:
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| 235 | The Story as Told by the Imperial Ambassadors Resident at the Court of Henry
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| 236 | VIII</i> by J.A. Froude. Published in New York by C. Scribner's Sons,
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| 237 | 1891.</font></p>
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| 238 | </blockquote>
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| 239 | </blockquote>
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| 240 |
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| 241 | <p align="center"><font size="2">
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| 242 | <a href="froudefour.html">to Chapter Four</a></font></p>
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| 243 | <p align="center"><a href="secondary.html">
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| 244 | <font size="2">to Secondary Sources</font></a></p>
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| 245 | <p align="center">
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| 246 | <a href="monarchs/aragon.html"><font size="2">to
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| 247 | Katharine of Aragon website</font></a></p>
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| 248 | </font>
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| 249 | <blockquote>
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| 250 | <blockquote>
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| 254 | </font>
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| 255 | <p class="3text" align="left"> </p>
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| 256 | </font>
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| 257 | </blockquote>
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| 258 | </blockquote>
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| 259 |
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