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| 14 | <Metadata name="Content">Secondary Sources: The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, by JA Froude: Chapter One</Metadata>
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| 15 | <Metadata name="Page_topic">Secondary Sources: The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, by JA Froude: Chapter One</Metadata>
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| 16 | <Metadata name="Author">Marilee Mongello</Metadata>
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| 17 | <Metadata name="Title">Secondary Sources: The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, by JA Froude: Chapter One</Metadata>
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| 30 |
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| 31 | <table border="0" cellpadding="3" width="100%" height="667">
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| 32 | <tr>
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| 33 | <td width="25%" height="29"></td>
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| 34 | <td valign="top" width="50%" height="29">&nbsp;</td>
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| 35 | <td width="25%" height="29"></td>
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| 36 | </tr>
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| 37 | <tr>
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| 38 | <td width="25%" height="3"></td>
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| 39 | <td width="50%" height="3"><font size="3"></font></td>
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| 40 | <td width="25%" height="3"></td>
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| 41 | </tr>
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| 42 | <tr>
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| 43 | <td width="25%" height="610"></td>
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| 44 | <td valign="top" width="50%" height="610">
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| 45 | <p align="center">&nbsp;</p>
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| 46 | <p align="center"><b><font size="7">The Divorce of<br>Catherine of Aragon</font></b><br>
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| 47 | <font size="5">by
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| 48 | JA Froude, 1891</font></p>
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| 49 | <p align="center">
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| 50 | <img border="0" src="_httpdocimg_/aragon-new1.jpg" alt="miniature portrait of Katharine of Aragon by Lucas Horenbout" width="325" height="321"></td>
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| 51 | <td width="25%" height="610"></td>
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| 52 | </tr>
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| 53 | </table>
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| 54 | <blockquote>
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| 55 | <blockquote>
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| 56 | <font face="Times New Roman">
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| 57 | <div align="left">
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| 58 | <b><font size="4">CHAPTER ONE</font></b></div>
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| 59 | <blockquote>
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| 60 | <p align="left"><font size="4">Prospects of a disputed succession to the
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| 61 | crown -- Various claimants -Catherine incapable of having further children
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| 62 | -- Irregularity of her marriage with the King -- Papal dispensations --
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| 63 | First mention of the divorce -- Situation of the Papacy -- Charles V. --
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| 64 | Policy of Wolsey -- Anglo-French alliance -- Imperial troops in Italy --
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| 65 | Appeal of the Pope -- Mission of Inigo de Mendoza -- The Bishop of Tarbes
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| 66 | -Legitimacy of the Princess Mary called in question -- Secret meeting of
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| 67 | the Legates' court -- Alarms of Catherine -- Sack of Rome by the Duke of
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| 68 | Bourbon -- Proposed reform of the Papacy -- The divorce promoted by Wolsey
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| 69 | -- Unpopular in England -- Attempts of the Emperor to gain Wolsey.</font></p>
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| 70 | </blockquote>
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| 71 | <p align="left">IN the year 1526 the political prospects of England became
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| 72 | seriously clouded. A disputed succession had led in the previous century to
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| 73 | a desperate civil war. In that year it became known in private circles that
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| 74 | if Henry VIII. was to die the realm would again be left without a certain
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| 75 | heir, and that the strife of the Roses might be renewed on an even more
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| 76 | distracting scale. The sons who had been born to Queen Catherine had died in
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| 77 | childbirth or had died immediately after it. The passionate hope of the
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| 78 | country that she might still produce a male child who would survive had been
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| 79 | constantly disappointed, and now could be entertained no longer. She was
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| 80 | eight years older than her husband. She had &quot;certain diseases&quot; which made it
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| 81 | impossible that she should be again pregnant, and Henry had for two years
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| 82 | ceased to cohabit with her. He had two children still living -- the Princess
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| 83 | Mary, Catherine's daughter, then a girl of eleven, and an illegitimate son
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| 84 | born in 1519, the mother being a daughter of Sir John Blount, and married
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| 85 | afterwards to Sir Gilbert Talboys. By presumptive law the Princess was the
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| 86 | next heir; but no woman had ever sat on the throne of England alone and in
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| 87 | her own right, and it was doubtful whether the nation would submit to a
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| 88 | female sovereign. The boy, though excluded by his birth from the prospect of
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| 89 | the crown, was yet brought up with exceptional care, called a prince by his
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| 90 | tutors, and probably regarded by his father as a possible successor should
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| 91 | his sister go the way of her brothers. In 1525, after the King had
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| 92 | deliberately withdrawn from Catherine, he was created Duke of Richmond -- a
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| 93 | title of peculiar significance, since it had been borne by his grandfather,
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| 94 | Henry VII. -- and he was granted precedence over the rest of the peerage.
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| 95 | Illegitimacy was a serious, but, it might be thought, was not an absolute,
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| 96 | bar. The Conqueror had been himself a bastard. The Church, by its habits of
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| 97 | granting dispensations for irregular marriages or of dissolving them on
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| 98 | pleas of affinity or consanguinity or other pretext, had confused the
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| 99 | distinction between legitimate and illegitimate. A Church Court had
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| 100 | illegitimatised the children of Edward IV. and Elizabeth Grey, on the ground
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| 101 | of one of Edward's previous connections; yet no one regarded the princes
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| 102 | murdered in the Tower as having been illegitimate in reality; and to prevent
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| 103 | disputes and for an adequate object, the Duke of Richmond, had he grown to
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| 104 | manhood, might, in the absence of other claims, have been recognised by
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| 105 | Parliament. But the Duke was still a child, and might die as Henry's other
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| 106 | sons had died; and other claims there were which, in the face of the bar
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| 107 | sinister, could not fail to be asserted. James V. of Scotland was next in
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| 108 | blood, being the son of Henry's eldest sister, Margaret. There were the
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| 109 | Greys, inheriting from the second sister, Mary. Outside the royal house
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| 110 | there were the still popular representatives of the White Rose, the Marquis
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| 111 | of Exeter, who was Edward IV.'s grandson; the Countess of Salisbury,
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| 112 | daughter of Edward's brother the Duke of Clarence, and sister of the
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| 113 | murdered Earl of Warwick; and Henry's life was the only obstacle between the
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| 114 | collision of these opposing pretensions. James, it was quite certain, would
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| 115 | not be allowed to succeed without a struggle. National rivalry forbade it.
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| 116 | Yet it was no less certain that he would try, and would probably be backed
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| 117 | by France. There was but one escape from convulsions which might easily be
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| 118 | the ruin of the realm. The King was in the flower of his age, and might
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| 119 | naturally look for a Prince of Wales to come after him if he was married to
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| 120 | a woman capable of bearing one. It is neither unnatural nor, under the
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| 121 | circumstances, a matter to be censured if he and others began to reflect
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| 122 | upon the peculiar character of his connection with Catherine of Aragon. It
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| 123 | is not sufficiently remembered that the marriage of a widow with her
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| 124 | husband's brother was then, as it is now, forbidden by the laws of all
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| 125 | civilised countries. Such a marriage at the present day would be held <i>
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| 126 | ipso facto</i> invalid and not a marriage at all. An irregular power was
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| 127 | then held to rest with the successors of St. Peter to dispense, under
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| 128 | certain conditions, with the inhibitory rules. The popes are now understood
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| 129 | to have never rightly possessed such an authority, and therefore, according
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| 130 | to modern law and sentiment, Henry and Catherine never were husband and wife
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| 131 | at all. At the time it was uncertain whether the dispensing power extended
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| 132 | so far as to sanction such a union, and when the discussion rose upon it the
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| 133 | Roman canonists were themselves divided. Those who maintained the widest
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| 134 | view of thepapal faculty yet agreed that such a dispensation could only be
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| 135 | granted for urgent cause, such as to prevent foreign wars or internal
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| 136 | seditions, and no such cause was alleged to have existed when Ferdinand and
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| 137 | Henry VII. arranged the marriage between their children. The dispensation
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| 138 | had been granted by Pope Julius with reluctance, had been acted upon after
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| 139 | considerable hesitation, and was of doubtful validity, since the necessary
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| 140 | conditions were absent. The marriages of kings were determined with little
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| 141 | reference to the personal affection of the parties. Between Henry and
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| 142 | Catherine there was probably as much and as little personal attachment as
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| 143 | there usually is in such cases. He respected and perhaps admired her
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| 144 | character; but she was not beautiful, she was not attractive, while she was
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| 145 | as proud and intractable as her mother Isabella. Their union had been
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| 146 | settled by the two fathers to cement the alliance between England and Spain.
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| 147 | Such connections rest on a different foundation from those which are
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| 148 | voluntarily entered into between private persons. What is made up for
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| 149 | political reasons may pardonably be dissolved when other reasons of a
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| 150 | similar kind require it; and when it became clear that Catherine could never
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| 151 | bear another child, that the penalty threatened in the Levitical law against
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| 152 | marriages of this precise kind had been literally enforced in the death of
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| 153 | the male offspring, and that civil war was imminent in consequence upon the
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| 154 | King's death, Henry may have doubted in good faith whether she had ever been
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| 155 | his wife at all -- whether, in fact, the marriage was not of the character
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| 156 | which everyone would now allow to attach to similar unions. Had there been a
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| 157 | Prince of Wales, the question would never have arisen, and Henry, like other
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| 158 | kings, would have borne his fate. But there was no prince, and the question
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| 159 | had risen, and there was no reason why it should not. There was no trace at
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| 160 | the outset of an attachment to another woman. If there had been, there would
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| 161 | be little to condemn; but Anne Boleyn, when it was first mooted, was no more
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| 162 | to the King than any other lady of the court. He required a wife who could
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| 163 | produce a son to secure the succession. The powers which had allowed an
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| 164 | irregular marriage could equally dissolve it, and the King felt that he had
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| 165 | a right to demand a familiar concession which other sovereigns had often
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| 166 | applied for in one form or another, and rarely in vain. </p>
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| 167 | <p align="left">Thus as early as 1526 certainly, and probably as much as a
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| 168 | year before, Cardinal Wolsey had been feeling his way at Rome for a
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| 169 | separation between Henry and Catherine. On September 7 in that year the
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| 170 | Bishop of Bath, who was English Ambassador at Paris, informed the Cardinal
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| 171 | of the arrival there of a confidential agent of Pope Clement VII. The agent
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| 172 | had spoken to the Bishop on this especial subject, and had informed him that
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| 173 | there would be difficulties about it. The &quot;blessed divorce&quot; -- <i>benedictum
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| 174 | divorcium</i> the Bishop calls it -- had been already under consideration at
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| 175 | Rome. The difficulties were not specified, but the political features of the
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| 176 | time obliged Clement to be circumspect, and it was these that were probably
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| 177 | referred to. Francis I. had been defeated and taken prisoner by the
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| 178 | Imperialists at Pavia. He had been carried to Spain, and had been released
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| 179 | at Henry's intercession, under severe conditions, to which he had
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| 180 | reluctantly consented, and his sons had been left at Madrid as hostages for
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| 181 | the due fulfilment of them. The victorious army, half Spanish, half German,
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| 182 | remained under the Duke of Bourbon to complete the conquest of Italy; and
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| 183 | Charles V., with his already vast dominions and a treasury which the world
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| 184 | believed to be inexhaustibly supplied from the gold mines of the New World,
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| 185 | seemed advancing to universal empire. </p>
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| 186 | <p align="left">France in the preceding centuries had been the hereditary
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| 187 | enemy of England; Spain and Burgundy her hereditary friends. The marriage of
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| 188 | Catherine of Aragon had been a special feature of the established alliance.
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| 189 | She was given first to Prince Arthur, and then to Henry, as link in the
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| 190 | confederacy which was to hold in check French ambition. Times were changing.
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| 191 | Charles V. had been elected emperor, largely through English influence; but
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| 192 | Charles was threatening to be a more serious danger to Europe than France
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| 193 | had been. The Italian princes were too weak to resist the conqueror of Pavia.
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| 194 | Italy once conquered, the Papacy would become a dependency of the empire,
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| 195 | and, with Charles's German subjects in open revolt against it, the Church
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| 196 | would lose its authority, and the organisation of the Catholic world would
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| 197 | fall into hopeless decrepitude. So thought Wolsey, the most sharp-sighted of
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| 198 | English ministers. He believed that the maintenance of the Papacy was the
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| 199 | best defence of order and liberty. The only remedy which he could see was a
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| 200 | change of partners. England held the balance between the great rival powers.
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| 201 | If the English alliance could be transferred from the Empire to France, the
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| 202 | Emperor could be held in check, and his supposed ambition neutralised.
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| 203 | Wolsey was utterly mistaken; but the mistake was not an unnatural one.
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| 204 | Charles, busy with his Italian wars, had treated the Lutheran schism with
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| 205 | suspicious forbearance. Notwithstanding his Indian ingots his finances were
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| 206 | disordered. Bourbon's lansquenets had been left to pay themselves by
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| 207 | plunder. They had sacked monasteries, pillaged cathedral plate, and ravished
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| 208 | nuns with irreverent ferocity. The estates of the Church had been as little
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| 209 | spared by them as Lombardy; and to Clement VII. the invasion was another
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| 210 | inroad of barbarians, and Bourbon a second Attila. What Bourbon's master
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| 211 | meant by it, and what he might intend to do, was as uncertain to Clement as
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| 212 | perhaps it was to Charles himself. In the prostrate, degraded, and desperate
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| 213 | condition into which the Church was falling, any resolution was possible. To
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| 214 | the clearest eyes in Europe the Papacy seemed tottering to its fall, and
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| 215 | Charles's hand, if he chose to raise it, might precipitate the catastrophe.
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| 216 | To ask a pope at such a time to give mortal offence to the Spanish nation by
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| 217 | agreeing to the divorce of Catherine of Aragon was to ask him to sign his
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| 218 | death-warrant. No wonder, therefore, that he found difficulties. Yet it was
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| 219 | to France and England that Clement had to look for help in his extremities.
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| 220 | The divorce perhaps had as yet been no more than a suggestion, a part of a
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| 221 | policy which was still in its infancy. It could wait at any rate for a more
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| 222 | convenient season. Meantime he sent his secretary, Sanga, to Paris to beg
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| 223 | aid; and to Henry personally he made a passionate appeal, imploring him not
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| 224 | to desert the Apostolic See in its hour of extreme need. He apologised for
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| 225 | his importunacy, but he said he hoped that history would not have to record
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| 226 | that Italy had been devastated in the time of Clement VII. to the dishonour
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| 227 | of the King and of Wolsey. If France and England failed him, he would
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| 228 | himself be ruined. The Emperor would be universal monarch. They would open
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| 229 | their eyes at last, but they would open them too late. So piteous was the
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| 230 | entreaty that Henry when he read the Pope's letter burst into tears. Clement
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| 231 | had not been idle. He had brought his own small army into the field to
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| 232 | oppose Bourbon; he joined the Italian League, and prepared to defend
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| 233 | himself. He was called the father of Christendom, yet he was at open war
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| 234 | with the most Catholic king. But Wolsey reasonably considered that unless
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| 235 | the Western powers interfered the end would come. </p>
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| 236 | <p align="left">If England was to act, she could act only in alliance with
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| 237 | France. The change of policy was ill understood, and was not popular among
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| 238 | Henry's subjects. The divorce as yet had not been spoken of. No breath of
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| 239 | such a purpose had gone abroad. But English sentiment was imperial, and
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| 240 | could endure with equanimity even the afflictions of a pope. The King was
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| 241 | more papal than his people; he allowed Wolsey to guide him, and negotiations
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| 242 | were set on foot at once for a special treaty with France, one of the
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| 243 | conditions of which was to be the marriage of the Princess Mary -- allotted
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| 244 | like a card in a game -- either to Francis or to one of his sons; another
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| 245 | condition being that the English crown should be settled upon her should
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| 246 | Henry die without a legitimate son. Sir John Russell was simultaneously
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| 247 | despatched to Rome with money to help the Pope in paying his troops and
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| 248 | garrisoning the city. The ducats and the &quot;kind words&quot; which accompanied them
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| 249 | &quot;created incredible joy,&quot; encouraged his Holiness to reject unjust
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| 250 | conditions which had been offered, and restored him, if for the moment only,
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| 251 | &quot;from death to life.&quot; If Russell described correctly what he saw in passing
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| 252 | through Italy, Clement had good cause for anxiety. &quot;The Swabians and
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| 253 | Spaniards,&quot; he wrote, &quot;had committed horrible atrocities. They had burnt
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| 254 | houses to the value of two hundred million ducats, with all the churches,
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| 255 | images, and priests that fell into their hands. They had compelled the
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| 256 | priests and monks to violate the nuns. Even where they were received without
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| 257 | opposition they had burned the place; they had not spared the boys, and they
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| 258 | had carried off the girls; and whenever they found the Sacrament of the
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| 259 | Church they had thrown it into a river or into the vilest place they could
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| 260 | find. If God did not punish such cruelty and wickedness, men would infer
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| 261 | that He did not trouble Himself about the affairs of this world.&quot;</p>
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| 262 | <p align="left">The news from Italy gave a fresh impulse to Wolsey's policy
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| 263 | and the Anglo-French Alliance, which was pushed forward in spite of popular
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| 264 | disapproval. The Emperor, unable to pay, and therefore unable to control,
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| 265 | his troops, became himself alarmed. He found himself pressed into a course
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| 266 | which was stimulating the German revolt against the Papacy, and he professed
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| 267 | himself anxious to end the war. Inigo de Mendoza, the Bishop of Burgos, was
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| 268 | despatched to Paris to negotiate for a general pacification. From Paris he
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| 269 | was to proceed to London to assure Henry of the Emperor's inalienable
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| 270 | friendship, and above all things to gain over Wolsey by the means which
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| 271 | experience had shown to be the nearest way to Wolsey's heart. The great
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| 272 | Cardinal was already Charles's pensionary, but the pension was several years
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| 273 | in arrear. Mendoza was to tell him not only that the arrears should be
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| 274 | immediately paid up, but that a second pension should be secured to him on
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| 275 | the revenues of Milan, and that the Emperor would make him a further grant
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| 276 | of 6,000 ducats annually out of the income of Spanish bishoprics. No means
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| 277 | was to be spared to divert the hostility of so dangerous an enemy.</p>
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| 278 | <p align="left">Wolsey was not to be so easily gained. He had formed large
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| 279 | schemes which he did not mean to part with, and in the matter of pensions
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| 280 | Francis I. was as liberal in promises as Charles. The Pope's prospects were
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| 281 | brightening. Besides the English money, he had improved his finances by
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| 282 | creating six new cardinals, and making 240,000 crowns out of the disposition
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| 283 | of these sacred offices. A French embassy, with the Bishop of Tarbes at its
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| 284 | head, came to England to complete the treaty with Henry in the Pope's
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| 285 | defence. Demands were to be made upon the Emperor; if those demands were
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| 286 | refused, war was to follow, and the cement of the alliance was to be the
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| 287 | marriage of Mary with a French prince. It is likely that other secret
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| 288 | projects were in view also of a similar kind. The marriage of Henry with
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| 289 | Catherine had been intended to secure the continuance of the alliance with
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| 290 | Spain. Royal ladies were the counters with which politicians played; and
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| 291 | probably enough there were thoughts of placing a French princess in
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| 292 | Catherine's place. However this may be, the legality of the King's marriage
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| 293 | with his nominal queen was suddenly and indirectly raised in the discussion
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| 294 | of the terms of the treaty, when the Bishop of Tarbes inquired whether it
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| 295 | was certain that Catherine's daughter was legitimate. </p>
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| 296 | <p align="left">Mr. Brewer, the careful and admirable editor of the &quot;Foreign
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| 297 | and Domestic Calendar of State Papers,&quot; doubts whether the Bishop did
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| 298 | anything of the kind. I cannot agree with Mr. Brewer. The Bishop of Tarbes
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| 299 | was among the best-known diplomatists in Europe. He was actively concerned
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| 300 | during subsequent years in the process of the divorce case in London, in
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| 301 | Paris, and at Rome. The expressions which he used on this occasion were
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| 302 | publicly appealed to by Henry in his addresses to the peers and to the
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| 303 | country, in the public pleas which he laid before the English prelates, in
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| 304 | the various repeated defences which he made for his conduct. It is
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| 305 | impossible that the Bishop should have been ignorant of the use which was
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| 306 | made of his name, and impossible equally to suppose that he would have
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| 307 | allowed his name to be used unfairly. The Bishop of Tarbes was
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| 308 | unquestionably the first person to bring the question publicly forward. It
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| 309 | is likely enough, however, that his introduction of so startling a topic had
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| 310 | been privately arranged between himself and Wolsey as a prelude to the
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| 311 | further steps which were immediately to follow. For the divorce had by this
|
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| 312 | time been finally resolved on as part of a general scheme for the alteration
|
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| 313 | of the balance of power. The domestic reasons for it were as weighty as ever
|
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| 314 | were alleged for similar separations. The Pope's hesitation, it might be
|
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| 315 | assumed, would now be overcome, since he had flung himself for support upon
|
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| 316 | England and France, and his relations with the Emperor could hardly be worse
|
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| 317 | than they were. </p>
|
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| 318 | <p align="left">The outer world, and even the persons principally concerned,
|
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| 319 | were taken entirely by surprise. For the two years during which it had been
|
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| 320 | under consideration the secret had been successfully preserved. Not a hint
|
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| 321 | had reached Catherine herself, and even when the match had been lighted by
|
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| 322 | the Bishop of Tarbes the full meaning of it does not seem to have occurred
|
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| 323 | to her. Mendoza, on his arrival in England, had found her disturbed; she was
|
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| 324 | irritated at the position which had been given to the Duke of Richmond; she
|
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| 325 | was angry, of course, at the French alliance; she complained that she was
|
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| 326 | kept in the dark about public affairs; she was exerting herself to the
|
---|
| 327 | utmost among the friends of the imperial connection to arrest Wolsey's
|
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| 328 | policy and maintain the ancient traditions; but of the divorce she had not
|
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| 329 | heard a word. It was to come upon her like a thunderstroke.</p>
|
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| 330 | <p align="left">Before the drama opens a brief description will not be out
|
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| 331 | of place of the two persons who were to play the principal parts on the
|
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| 332 | stage, as they were seen a year later by Ludovico Falieri, the Venetian
|
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| 333 | ambassador in England. Of Catherine his account is brief. </p>
|
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| 334 | <p align="left">&quot;The Queen is of low stature and rather stout; very good and
|
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| 335 | very religious; speaks Spanish, French, Flemish, and English; more beloved
|
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| 336 | by the Islanders than any queen that has ever reigned; about forty-five
|
---|
| 337 | years old, and has been in England thirty years. She has had two sons and
|
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| 338 | one daughter. Both the sons died in infancy. One daughter survives.&quot; </p>
|
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| 339 | <p align="left">On the King, Falieri is more elaborate. </p>
|
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| 340 | <p align="left">&quot;In the 8th Henry such beauty of mind and body is combined
|
---|
| 341 | as to surprise and astonish. Grand stature, suited to his exalted position,
|
---|
| 342 | showing the superiority of mind and character; a face like an angel's, so
|
---|
| 343 | fair it is; his head bald like CÊsar's, and he wears a beard, which is not
|
---|
| 344 | the English custom. He is accomplished in every manly exercise, sits his
|
---|
| 345 | horse well, tilts with his lance, throws the quoit, shoots with his bow
|
---|
| 346 | excellent well; he is a fine tennis player, and he practises all these gifts
|
---|
| 347 | with the greatest industry. Such a prince could not fail to have cultivated
|
---|
| 348 | also his character and his intellect. He has been a student from his
|
---|
| 349 | childhood; he knows literature, philosophy, and theology; speaks and writes
|
---|
| 350 | Spanish, French, and Italian, besides Latin and English. He is kind,
|
---|
| 351 | gracious, courteous, liberal, especially to men of learning, whom he is
|
---|
| 352 | always ready to help. He appears religious also, generally hears two masses
|
---|
| 353 | a day, and on holy days High Mass besides. He is very charitable, giving
|
---|
| 354 | away ten thousand gold ducats annually among orphans, widows, and cripples.&quot;</p>
|
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| 355 | <p align="left">Such was the King, such the Queen, whom fate and the
|
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| 356 | preposterous pretensions of the Papacy to dispense with the established
|
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| 357 | marriage laws had irregularly mated, and whose separation was to shake the
|
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| 358 | European world. Pope Clement complained in subsequent years that the burden
|
---|
| 359 | of decision should have been thrown in the first instance upon himself. If
|
---|
| 360 | the King had proceeded at the outset to try the question in the English
|
---|
| 361 | courts; if a judgment had been given unfavourable to the marriage, and had
|
---|
| 362 | he immediately acted upon it, Queen Catherine might have appealed to the
|
---|
| 363 | Holy See; but accomplished facts were solid things. Her case might have been
|
---|
| 364 | indefinitely protracted by legal technicalities till it died of itself. It
|
---|
| 365 | would have been a characteristic method of escape out of the difficulty, and
|
---|
| 366 | it was a view which Wolsey himself perhaps at first entertained. He knew
|
---|
| 367 | that the Pope was unwilling to take the first step.</p>
|
---|
| 368 | <p align="left">On the 17th of May, 1527, after a discussion of the Treaty
|
---|
| 369 | with France, he called a meeting of his Legatine court at York Place.
|
---|
| 370 | Archbishop Warham sate with him as assessor. The King attended, and the
|
---|
| 371 | Cardinal, having stated that a question had arisen on the lawfulness of his
|
---|
| 372 | marriage, enquired whether the King, for the sake of public morals and the
|
---|
| 373 | good of his own soul, would allow the objections to be examined into. The
|
---|
| 374 | King assented, and named a proctor. The Bull of Julius II. was introduced
|
---|
| 375 | and considered. Wolsey declared that in a case so intricate the canon
|
---|
| 376 | lawyers must be consulted, and he asked for the opinions of the assembled
|
---|
| 377 | bishops. The bishops, one only excepted, gave dubious answers. The aged
|
---|
| 378 | Bishop of Rochester, reputed the holiest and wisest of them, said decidedly
|
---|
| 379 | that the marriage was good, and the Bull which legalised it sufficient. </p>
|
---|
| 380 | <p align="left">These proceedings were not followed up, but the secrecy
|
---|
| 381 | which had hitherto been observed was no longer possible, and Catherine and
|
---|
| 382 | her friends learnt now for the first time the measure which was in
|
---|
| 383 | contemplation. Mendoza, writing on the day following the York Place meeting
|
---|
| 384 | to the Emperor, informed him, as a fact which he had learnt on reliable
|
---|
| 385 | authority, that Wolsey, for a final stroke of wickedness, was scheming to
|
---|
| 386 | divorce the Queen. She was so much alarmed that she did not venture herself
|
---|
| 387 | to speak of it, but it was certain that the lawyers and bishops had been
|
---|
| 388 | invited to sign a declaration that, being his brother's widow, she could not
|
---|
| 389 | be the wife of the King. The Pope, she was afraid, might be tempted to take
|
---|
| 390 | part against her, or the Cardinal himself might deliver judgment as Papal
|
---|
| 391 | Legate. Her one hope was in the Emperor. The cause of the action taken
|
---|
| 392 | against her was her fidelity to the Imperial interests. Nothing as yet had
|
---|
| 393 | been made formally public, and she begged that the whole matter might be
|
---|
| 394 | kept as private as possible.</p>
|
---|
| 395 | <p align="left">That the Pope would be willing, if he dared, to gratify
|
---|
| 396 | Henry at Charles's expense was only too likely. The German Lutherans and the
|
---|
| 397 | German Emperor were at the moment his most dangerous enemies. France and
|
---|
| 398 | England were the only Powers who seemed willing to assist him, and a week
|
---|
| 399 | before the meeting of Wolsey's court he had experienced in the most terrible
|
---|
| 400 | form what the imperial hostility might bring upon him. On the 7th of that
|
---|
| 401 | same month of May the army of the Duke of Bourbon had taken Rome by storm.
|
---|
| 402 | The city was given up to pillage. Reverend cardinals were dragged through
|
---|
| 403 | the streets on mules' backs, dishonoured and mutilated. Convents of nuns
|
---|
| 404 | were abandoned to the licentious soldiery. The horrors of the capture may
|
---|
| 405 | have been exaggerated, but it is quite certain that to holy things or holy
|
---|
| 406 | persons no respect was paid, and that the atrocities which in those days
|
---|
| 407 | were usually perpetrated in stormed towns were on this occasion eminently
|
---|
| 408 | conspicuous. The unfortunate Pope, shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo,
|
---|
| 409 | looked down from its battlements upon scenes so dreadful that it must have
|
---|
| 410 | appeared as if the Papacy and the Church itself had been overtaken by the
|
---|
| 411 | final judgment. We regard the Spaniards as a nation of bigots, we consider
|
---|
| 412 | it impossible that the countrymen of Charles and Philip could have been
|
---|
| 413 | animated by any such bitterness against the centre of Catholic Christendom.
|
---|
| 414 | Charles himself is not likely to have intended the humiliation of the Holy
|
---|
| 415 | See. But Clement had reason for his misgivings, and Wolsey's policy was not
|
---|
| 416 | without excuse. Lope de Soria was Charles's Minister at Genoa, and Lope de
|
---|
| 417 | Soria's opinions, freely uttered, may have been shared by many a Catholic
|
---|
| 418 | besides himself. On the 25th of May, a fortnight after the storm, he wrote
|
---|
| 419 | to his master the following noticeable letter: -- </p>
|
---|
| 420 | <p align="left">&quot;The sack of Rome must be regarded as a visitation from God,
|
---|
| 421 | who permits his servant the Emperor to teach his Vicar on earth and other
|
---|
| 422 | Christian princes that their wicked purposes shall be defeated, the unjust
|
---|
| 423 | wars which they have raised shall cease, peace be restored to Christendom,
|
---|
| 424 | the faith be exalted, and heresy extirpated. . . . Should the Emperor think
|
---|
| 425 | that the Church of God is not what it ought to be, and that the Pope's
|
---|
| 426 | temporal power emboldens him to promote war among Christian princes, I
|
---|
| 427 | cannot but remind your Majesty that it will not be a sin, but a meritorious
|
---|
| 428 | action, to reform the Church; so that the Pope's authority be confined
|
---|
| 429 | exclusively to his own spiritual affairs, and temporal affairs to be left to
|
---|
| 430 | CÊsar, since by right what is God's belongs to God, and what is CÊsar's to
|
---|
| 431 | CÊsar. I have been twenty-eight years in Italy, and I have observed that the
|
---|
| 432 | Popes have been the sole cause of all the wars and miseries during that
|
---|
| 433 | time. Your Imperial Majesty, as Supreme Lord on earth, is bound to apply a
|
---|
| 434 | remedy to that evil.&quot;</p>
|
---|
| 435 | <p align="left">Heretical English and Germans were not the only persons who
|
---|
| 436 | could recognise the fitness of the secular supremacy of princes over popes
|
---|
| 437 | and Churches. Such thoughts must have passed through the mind of Charles
|
---|
| 438 | himself, and of many more besides him. De Soria's words might have been
|
---|
| 439 | dictated by Luther or Thomas Cromwell. Had the Emperor at that moment placed
|
---|
| 440 | himself at the head of the Reformation, all later history would have been
|
---|
| 441 | different. One statesman at any rate had cause to fear that this might be
|
---|
| 442 | what was about to happen. Wolsey was the embodiment of everything most
|
---|
| 443 | objectionable and odious to the laity in the ecclesiastical administration
|
---|
| 444 | of Europe. To defend the Papacy and to embarrass Charles was the surest
|
---|
| 445 | method of protecting himself and his order. The divorce was an incident in
|
---|
| 446 | the situation, but not the least important. Catherine represented the
|
---|
| 447 | Imperialist interest in England. To put her away was to make the breach with
|
---|
| 448 | her countrymen and kindred irreparable. He took upon himself to assure the
|
---|
| 449 | King that after the last outrage the Pope would agree to anything that
|
---|
| 450 | France and England demanded of him, and would trust to his allies to bear
|
---|
| 451 | him harmless. That the divorce was a thing reasonable in itself to ask for,
|
---|
| 452 | and certain to be conceded by any pope who was free to act on his own
|
---|
| 453 | judgment, was assumed as a matter of course. Sir Gregory Casalis, the
|
---|
| 454 | English agent at Rome, was instructed to obtain access to Clement in St.
|
---|
| 455 | Angelo, to convey to him the indignation felt in England at his treatment,
|
---|
| 456 | and then to insist on the illegality of the King's relations with Catherine,
|
---|
| 457 | on the King's own scruples of conscience, and on the anxiety of his subjects
|
---|
| 458 | that there should be a male heir to the crown. The &quot;urgent cause&quot; such as
|
---|
| 459 | was necessary to be produced when exceptional actions were required of the
|
---|
| 460 | popes was the imminence or even certainty of civil war if no such heir was
|
---|
| 461 | born. </p>
|
---|
| 462 | <p align="left">Catherine meanwhile had again communiated with Mendoza. She
|
---|
| 463 | had spoken to her husband, and Henry, since further reticence was
|
---|
| 464 | impossible, had told her that they had been living in mortal sin, and that a
|
---|
| 465 | separation was necessary. A violent scene had followed, with natural tears
|
---|
| 466 | and reproaches. The King endeavoured to console her, but it was not a matter
|
---|
| 467 | where consolation could avail. Wolsey advised him to deal with her gently,
|
---|
| 468 | till it was seen what the Pope and the King of France would do in the
|
---|
| 469 | matter. Wolsey himself was to go immediately to Paris to see Francis, and
|
---|
| 470 | consult with him on the measures necessary to be taken in consequence of the
|
---|
| 471 | Pope's imprisonment. It was possible that Clement, finding himself helpless,
|
---|
| 472 | might become a puppet in the Emperor's hands. Under such circumstances he
|
---|
| 473 | could not be trusted by other countries with the spiritual authority
|
---|
| 474 | attaching to his office, and schemes were being formed for some interim
|
---|
| 475 | arrangement by which France and England were to constitute themselves into a
|
---|
| 476 | separate patriarchate, with Wolsey at its head as Archbishop of Rouen.
|
---|
| 477 | Mendoza says that this proposal had been actually made to Wolsey by the
|
---|
| 478 | French Ambassador. In Spain it was even believed to be contemplated as a
|
---|
| 479 | permanent modification of the ecclesiastical system. The Imperial
|
---|
| 480 | Councillors at Valladolid told the Venetian Minister that the Cardinal
|
---|
| 481 | intended to separate the Churches of England and France from that of Rome,
|
---|
| 482 | saying that as the Pope was a prisoner he was not to be obeyed, and that
|
---|
| 483 | even if the Emperor released him, he still would not be free unless his
|
---|
| 484 | fortresses and territory now in the Emperor's hands were restored to him.
|
---|
| 485 | Wolsey had reason for anxiety, for Catherine and Mendoza were writing to the
|
---|
| 486 | Emperor insisting that he should make the Pope revoke Wolsey's Legatine
|
---|
| 487 | powers. </p>
|
---|
| 488 | <p align="left">In spite of efforts to keep secret the intended divorce, it
|
---|
| 489 | soon became known thoughout England. The Queen was personally popular. The
|
---|
| 490 | nation generally detested France, and looked on the Emperor as their
|
---|
| 491 | hereditary friend. The reasons for the divorce might influence statesmen,
|
---|
| 492 | but did not touch the body of the people. They naturally took the side of an
|
---|
| 493 | injured wife, and if Mendoza can be believed (and there is no reason why he
|
---|
| 494 | should not be believed), the first impression was decidedly unfavourable to
|
---|
| 495 | a project which was regarded as part of the new policy. Mendoza made the
|
---|
| 496 | most of the opposition. He told the Emperor that if six or seven thousand
|
---|
| 497 | men were landed in Cornwall, forty thousand Englishmen would rise and join
|
---|
| 498 | them. He saw Wolsey -- he reasoned with him, and when he found reason
|
---|
| 499 | ineffectual, he named the bribe which the Emperor was willing to give.
|
---|
| 500 | Knowing what Francis was bidding, he baited his hook more liberally. He
|
---|
| 501 | spoke of the Papacy: &quot;how the chair was now in the Emperor's hands, and the
|
---|
| 502 | Emperor, if Wolsey deserved it, would no doubt promote his elevation.&quot; The
|
---|
| 503 | glittering temptation was unavailing. The papal chair had been Wolsey's
|
---|
| 504 | highest ambition, but he remained unmoved. He said that he had served the
|
---|
| 505 | Emperor in the past out of disinterested regard. He still trusted that the
|
---|
| 506 | Emperor would replace the Pope and restore the Church. Mendoza's answer was
|
---|
| 507 | not reassuring to an English statesman. He said that both the spiritual and
|
---|
| 508 | temporal powers were now centred in his master, and he advised Wolsey, if he
|
---|
| 509 | desired an arrangement, to extend his journey from France, go on to Spain,
|
---|
| 510 | and see the Emperor in person. It was precisely this centering which those
|
---|
| 511 | who had charge of English liberties had a right to resent. Divorce or no
|
---|
| 512 | divorce, they could not allow a power possessed of so much authority in the
|
---|
| 513 | rest of Christendom to be the servant of a single prince. The divorce was
|
---|
| 514 | but an illustration of the situation, and such a Papacy as Mendoza
|
---|
| 515 | contemplated would reduce England and all Catholic Europe into fiefs of the
|
---|
| 516 | Empire. </p>
|
---|
| 517 | </font>
|
---|
| 518 | <font face="Times New Roman" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
|
---|
| 519 | <hr>
|
---|
| 520 | <p align="left"><font size="2">From <i>The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon:
|
---|
| 521 | The Story as Told by the Imperial Ambassadors Resident at the Court of Henry
|
---|
| 522 | VIII</i> by J.A. Froude.&nbsp; Published in New York by C. Scribner's Sons,
|
---|
| 523 | 1891.</font></p>
|
---|
| 524 | </blockquote>
|
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| 525 | </blockquote>
|
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| 526 |
|
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| 527 | <p align="center"><font size="2">
|
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| 528 | <a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2ffroudetwo.html">to Chapter Two</a></font></p>
|
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| 529 | <p align="center"><a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fsecondary.html">
|
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| 530 | <font size="2">to Secondary Sources</font></a></p>
|
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| 531 | <p align="center">
|
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| 532 | <a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fmonarchs%2faragon.html"><font size="2">to
|
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| 533 | Katharine of Aragon website</font></a></p>
|
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| 534 | </font>
|
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| 535 | <blockquote>
|
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| 536 | <blockquote>
|
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| 537 | <font style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
|
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| 538 | <font face="Times New Roman">
|
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| 539 | </font><font style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
|
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| 540 | </font>
|
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| 541 | <p class="3text" align="left">&nbsp;</p>
|
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| 542 | </font>
|
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| 543 | </blockquote>
|
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| 544 | </blockquote>
|
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| 545 |
|
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| 546 |
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| 547 |
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| 548 | <!-- text below generated by server. PLEASE REMOVE --><!-- Counter/Statistics data collection code --><script language="JavaScript" src="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=0&amp;href=http:%2f%2fhostingprod.com%2fjs%5fsource%2fgeov2.js"></script><script language="javascript">geovisit();</script><noscript><img src="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=0&amp;el=direct&amp;href=http://visit.webhosting.yahoo.com/visit.gif?us1108082631" alt="setstats" border="0" width="1" height="1"></noscript>
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| 550 | </Content>
|
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| 551 | </Section>
|
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| 552 | </Archive>
|
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