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    <Metadata name="Content">Secondary Sources: The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, by JA Froude: Chapter One</Metadata>
    <Metadata name="Page_topic">Secondary Sources: The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, by JA Froude: Chapter One</Metadata>
    <Metadata name="Author">Marilee Mongello</Metadata>
    <Metadata name="Title">Secondary Sources: The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, by JA Froude: Chapter One</Metadata>
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    &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;7&quot;&gt;The Divorce of&lt;br&gt;Catherine of Aragon&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;
    &lt;font size=&quot;5&quot;&gt;by 
    JA Froude, 1891&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;
    &lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;_httpdocimg_/aragon-new1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;miniature portrait of Katharine of Aragon by Lucas Horenbout&quot; width=&quot;325&quot; height=&quot;321&quot;&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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    &lt;font face=&quot;Times New Roman&quot;&gt;
    &lt;div align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;
      &lt;b&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;4&quot;&gt;CHAPTER ONE&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
    &lt;blockquote&gt;
      &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;4&quot;&gt;Prospects of a disputed succession to the 
      crown -- Various claimants -Catherine incapable of having further children 
      -- Irregularity of her marriage with the King -- Papal dispensations -- 
      First mention of the divorce -- Situation of the Papacy -- Charles V. -- 
      Policy of Wolsey -- Anglo-French alliance -- Imperial troops in Italy -- 
      Appeal of the Pope -- Mission of Inigo de Mendoza -- The Bishop of Tarbes 
      -Legitimacy of the Princess Mary called in question -- Secret meeting of 
      the Legates' court -- Alarms of Catherine -- Sack of Rome by the Duke of 
      Bourbon -- Proposed reform of the Papacy -- The divorce promoted by Wolsey 
      -- Unpopular in England -- Attempts of the Emperor to gain Wolsey.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/blockquote&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;IN the year 1526 the political prospects of England became 
    seriously clouded. A disputed succession had led in the previous century to 
    a desperate civil war. In that year it became known in private circles that 
    if Henry VIII. was to die the realm would again be left without a certain 
    heir, and that the strife of the Roses might be renewed on an even more 
    distracting scale. The sons who had been born to Queen Catherine had died in 
    childbirth or had died immediately after it. The passionate hope of the 
    country that she might still produce a male child who would survive had been 
    constantly disappointed, and now could be entertained no longer. She was 
    eight years older than her husband. She had &amp;quot;certain diseases&amp;quot; which made it 
    impossible that she should be again pregnant, and Henry had for two years 
    ceased to cohabit with her. He had two children still living -- the Princess 
    Mary, Catherine's daughter, then a girl of eleven, and an illegitimate son 
    born in 1519, the mother being a daughter of Sir John Blount, and married 
    afterwards to Sir Gilbert Talboys. By presumptive law the Princess was the 
    next heir; but no woman had ever sat on the throne of England alone and in 
    her own right, and it was doubtful whether the nation would submit to a 
    female sovereign. The boy, though excluded by his birth from the prospect of 
    the crown, was yet brought up with exceptional care, called a prince by his 
    tutors, and probably regarded by his father as a possible successor should 
    his sister go the way of her brothers. In 1525, after the King had 
    deliberately withdrawn from Catherine, he was created Duke of Richmond -- a 
    title of peculiar significance, since it had been borne by his grandfather, 
    Henry VII. -- and he was granted precedence over the rest of the peerage. 
    Illegitimacy was a serious, but, it might be thought, was not an absolute, 
    bar. The Conqueror had been himself a bastard. The Church, by its habits of 
    granting dispensations for irregular marriages or of dissolving them on 
    pleas of affinity or consanguinity or other pretext, had confused the 
    distinction between legitimate and illegitimate. A Church Court had 
    illegitimatised the children of Edward IV. and Elizabeth Grey, on the ground 
    of one of Edward's previous connections; yet no one regarded the princes 
    murdered in the Tower as having been illegitimate in reality; and to prevent 
    disputes and for an adequate object, the Duke of Richmond, had he grown to 
    manhood, might, in the absence of other claims, have been recognised by 
    Parliament. But the Duke was still a child, and might die as Henry's other 
    sons had died; and other claims there were which, in the face of the bar 
    sinister, could not fail to be asserted. James V. of Scotland was next in 
    blood, being the son of Henry's eldest sister, Margaret. There were the 
    Greys, inheriting from the second sister, Mary. Outside the royal house 
    there were the still popular representatives of the White Rose, the Marquis 
    of Exeter, who was Edward IV.'s grandson; the Countess of Salisbury, 
    daughter of Edward's brother the Duke of Clarence, and sister of the 
    murdered Earl of Warwick; and Henry's life was the only obstacle between the 
    collision of these opposing pretensions. James, it was quite certain, would 
    not be allowed to succeed without a struggle. National rivalry forbade it. 
    Yet it was no less certain that he would try, and would probably be backed 
    by France. There was but one escape from convulsions which might easily be 
    the ruin of the realm. The King was in the flower of his age, and might 
    naturally look for a Prince of Wales to come after him if he was married to 
    a woman capable of bearing one. It is neither unnatural nor, under the 
    circumstances, a matter to be censured if he and others began to reflect 
    upon the peculiar character of his connection with Catherine of Aragon. It 
    is not sufficiently remembered that the marriage of a widow with her 
    husband's brother was then, as it is now, forbidden by the laws of all 
    civilised countries. Such a marriage at the present day would be held &lt;i&gt;
    ipso facto&lt;/i&gt; invalid and not a marriage at all. An irregular power was 
    then held to rest with the successors of St. Peter to dispense, under 
    certain conditions, with the inhibitory rules. The popes are now understood 
    to have never rightly possessed such an authority, and therefore, according 
    to modern law and sentiment, Henry and Catherine never were husband and wife 
    at all. At the time it was uncertain whether the dispensing power extended 
    so far as to sanction such a union, and when the discussion rose upon it the 
    Roman canonists were themselves divided. Those who maintained the widest 
    view of thepapal faculty yet agreed that such a dispensation could only be 
    granted for urgent cause, such as to prevent foreign wars or internal 
    seditions, and no such cause was alleged to have existed when Ferdinand and 
    Henry VII. arranged the marriage between their children. The dispensation 
    had been granted by Pope Julius with reluctance, had been acted upon after 
    considerable hesitation, and was of doubtful validity, since the necessary 
    conditions were absent. The marriages of kings were determined with little 
    reference to the personal affection of the parties. Between Henry and 
    Catherine there was probably as much and as little personal attachment as 
    there usually is in such cases. He respected and perhaps admired her 
    character; but she was not beautiful, she was not attractive, while she was 
    as proud and intractable as her mother Isabella. Their union had been 
    settled by the two fathers to cement the alliance between England and Spain. 
    Such connections rest on a different foundation from those which are 
    voluntarily entered into between private persons. What is made up for 
    political reasons may pardonably be dissolved when other reasons of a 
    similar kind require it; and when it became clear that Catherine could never 
    bear another child, that the penalty threatened in the Levitical law against 
    marriages of this precise kind had been literally enforced in the death of 
    the male offspring, and that civil war was imminent in consequence upon the 
    King's death, Henry may have doubted in good faith whether she had ever been 
    his wife at all -- whether, in fact, the marriage was not of the character 
    which everyone would now allow to attach to similar unions. Had there been a 
    Prince of Wales, the question would never have arisen, and Henry, like other 
    kings, would have borne his fate. But there was no prince, and the question 
    had risen, and there was no reason why it should not. There was no trace at 
    the outset of an attachment to another woman. If there had been, there would 
    be little to condemn; but Anne Boleyn, when it was first mooted, was no more 
    to the King than any other lady of the court. He required a wife who could 
    produce a son to secure the succession. The powers which had allowed an 
    irregular marriage could equally dissolve it, and the King felt that he had 
    a right to demand a familiar concession which other sovereigns had often 
    applied for in one form or another, and rarely in vain. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Thus as early as 1526 certainly, and probably as much as a 
    year before, Cardinal Wolsey had been feeling his way at Rome for a 
    separation between Henry and Catherine. On September 7 in that year the 
    Bishop of Bath, who was English Ambassador at Paris, informed the Cardinal 
    of the arrival there of a confidential agent of Pope Clement VII. The agent 
    had spoken to the Bishop on this especial subject, and had informed him that 
    there would be difficulties about it. The &amp;quot;blessed divorce&amp;quot; -- &lt;i&gt;benedictum 
    divorcium&lt;/i&gt; the Bishop calls it -- had been already under consideration at 
    Rome. The difficulties were not specified, but the political features of the 
    time obliged Clement to be circumspect, and it was these that were probably 
    referred to. Francis I. had been defeated and taken prisoner by the 
    Imperialists at Pavia. He had been carried to Spain, and had been released 
    at Henry's intercession, under severe conditions, to which he had 
    reluctantly consented, and his sons had been left at Madrid as hostages for 
    the due fulfilment of them. The victorious army, half Spanish, half German, 
    remained under the Duke of Bourbon to complete the conquest of Italy; and 
    Charles V., with his already vast dominions and a treasury which the world 
    believed to be inexhaustibly supplied from the gold mines of the New World, 
    seemed advancing to universal empire. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;France in the preceding centuries had been the hereditary 
    enemy of England; Spain and Burgundy her hereditary friends. The marriage of 
    Catherine of Aragon had been a special feature of the established alliance. 
    She was given first to Prince Arthur, and then to Henry, as link in the 
    confederacy which was to hold in check French ambition. Times were changing. 
    Charles V. had been elected emperor, largely through English influence; but 
    Charles was threatening to be a more serious danger to Europe than France 
    had been. The Italian princes were too weak to resist the conqueror of Pavia. 
    Italy once conquered, the Papacy would become a dependency of the empire, 
    and, with Charles's German subjects in open revolt against it, the Church 
    would lose its authority, and the organisation of the Catholic world would 
    fall into hopeless decrepitude. So thought Wolsey, the most sharp-sighted of 
    English ministers. He believed that the maintenance of the Papacy was the 
    best defence of order and liberty. The only remedy which he could see was a 
    change of partners. England held the balance between the great rival powers. 
    If the English alliance could be transferred from the Empire to France, the 
    Emperor could be held in check, and his supposed ambition neutralised. 
    Wolsey was utterly mistaken; but the mistake was not an unnatural one. 
    Charles, busy with his Italian wars, had treated the Lutheran schism with 
    suspicious forbearance. Notwithstanding his Indian ingots his finances were 
    disordered. Bourbon's lansquenets had been left to pay themselves by 
    plunder. They had sacked monasteries, pillaged cathedral plate, and ravished 
    nuns with irreverent ferocity. The estates of the Church had been as little 
    spared by them as Lombardy; and to Clement VII. the invasion was another 
    inroad of barbarians, and Bourbon a second Attila. What Bourbon's master 
    meant by it, and what he might intend to do, was as uncertain to Clement as 
    perhaps it was to Charles himself. In the prostrate, degraded, and desperate 
    condition into which the Church was falling, any resolution was possible. To 
    the clearest eyes in Europe the Papacy seemed tottering to its fall, and 
    Charles's hand, if he chose to raise it, might precipitate the catastrophe. 
    To ask a pope at such a time to give mortal offence to the Spanish nation by 
    agreeing to the divorce of Catherine of Aragon was to ask him to sign his 
    death-warrant. No wonder, therefore, that he found difficulties. Yet it was 
    to France and England that Clement had to look for help in his extremities. 
    The divorce perhaps had as yet been no more than a suggestion, a part of a 
    policy which was still in its infancy. It could wait at any rate for a more 
    convenient season. Meantime he sent his secretary, Sanga, to Paris to beg 
    aid; and to Henry personally he made a passionate appeal, imploring him not 
    to desert the Apostolic See in its hour of extreme need. He apologised for 
    his importunacy, but he said he hoped that history would not have to record 
    that Italy had been devastated in the time of Clement VII. to the dishonour 
    of the King and of Wolsey. If France and England failed him, he would 
    himself be ruined. The Emperor would be universal monarch. They would open 
    their eyes at last, but they would open them too late. So piteous was the 
    entreaty that Henry when he read the Pope's letter burst into tears. Clement 
    had not been idle. He had brought his own small army into the field to 
    oppose Bourbon; he joined the Italian League, and prepared to defend 
    himself. He was called the father of Christendom, yet he was at open war 
    with the most Catholic king. But Wolsey reasonably considered that unless 
    the Western powers interfered the end would come. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;If England was to act, she could act only in alliance with 
    France. The change of policy was ill understood, and was not popular among 
    Henry's subjects. The divorce as yet had not been spoken of. No breath of 
    such a purpose had gone abroad. But English sentiment was imperial, and 
    could endure with equanimity even the afflictions of a pope. The King was 
    more papal than his people; he allowed Wolsey to guide him, and negotiations 
    were set on foot at once for a special treaty with France, one of the 
    conditions of which was to be the marriage of the Princess Mary -- allotted 
    like a card in a game -- either to Francis or to one of his sons; another 
    condition being that the English crown should be settled upon her should 
    Henry die without a legitimate son. Sir John Russell was simultaneously 
    despatched to Rome with money to help the Pope in paying his troops and 
    garrisoning the city. The ducats and the &amp;quot;kind words&amp;quot; which accompanied them 
    &amp;quot;created incredible joy,&amp;quot; encouraged his Holiness to reject unjust 
    conditions which had been offered, and restored him, if for the moment only, 
    &amp;quot;from death to life.&amp;quot; If Russell described correctly what he saw in passing 
    through Italy, Clement had good cause for anxiety. &amp;quot;The Swabians and 
    Spaniards,&amp;quot; he wrote, &amp;quot;had committed horrible atrocities. They had burnt 
    houses to the value of two hundred million ducats, with all the churches, 
    images, and priests that fell into their hands. They had compelled the 
    priests and monks to violate the nuns. Even where they were received without 
    opposition they had burned the place; they had not spared the boys, and they 
    had carried off the girls; and whenever they found the Sacrament of the 
    Church they had thrown it into a river or into the vilest place they could 
    find. If God did not punish such cruelty and wickedness, men would infer 
    that He did not trouble Himself about the affairs of this world.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;The news from Italy gave a fresh impulse to Wolsey's policy 
    and the Anglo-French Alliance, which was pushed forward in spite of popular 
    disapproval. The Emperor, unable to pay, and therefore unable to control, 
    his troops, became himself alarmed. He found himself pressed into a course 
    which was stimulating the German revolt against the Papacy, and he professed 
    himself anxious to end the war. Inigo de Mendoza, the Bishop of Burgos, was 
    despatched to Paris to negotiate for a general pacification. From Paris he 
    was to proceed to London to assure Henry of the Emperor's inalienable 
    friendship, and above all things to gain over Wolsey by the means which 
    experience had shown to be the nearest way to Wolsey's heart. The great 
    Cardinal was already Charles's pensionary, but the pension was several years 
    in arrear. Mendoza was to tell him not only that the arrears should be 
    immediately paid up, but that a second pension should be secured to him on 
    the revenues of Milan, and that the Emperor would make him a further grant 
    of 6,000 ducats annually out of the income of Spanish bishoprics. No means 
    was to be spared to divert the hostility of so dangerous an enemy.&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Wolsey was not to be so easily gained. He had formed large 
    schemes which he did not mean to part with, and in the matter of pensions 
    Francis I. was as liberal in promises as Charles. The Pope's prospects were 
    brightening. Besides the English money, he had improved his finances by 
    creating six new cardinals, and making 240,000 crowns out of the disposition 
    of these sacred offices. A French embassy, with the Bishop of Tarbes at its 
    head, came to England to complete the treaty with Henry in the Pope's 
    defence. Demands were to be made upon the Emperor; if those demands were 
    refused, war was to follow, and the cement of the alliance was to be the 
    marriage of Mary with a French prince. It is likely that other secret 
    projects were in view also of a similar kind. The marriage of Henry with 
    Catherine had been intended to secure the continuance of the alliance with 
    Spain. Royal ladies were the counters with which politicians played; and 
    probably enough there were thoughts of placing a French princess in 
    Catherine's place. However this may be, the legality of the King's marriage 
    with his nominal queen was suddenly and indirectly raised in the discussion 
    of the terms of the treaty, when the Bishop of Tarbes inquired whether it 
    was certain that Catherine's daughter was legitimate. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Mr. Brewer, the careful and admirable editor of the &amp;quot;Foreign 
    and Domestic Calendar of State Papers,&amp;quot; doubts whether the Bishop did 
    anything of the kind. I cannot agree with Mr. Brewer. The Bishop of Tarbes 
    was among the best-known diplomatists in Europe. He was actively concerned 
    during subsequent years in the process of the divorce case in London, in 
    Paris, and at Rome. The expressions which he used on this occasion were 
    publicly appealed to by Henry in his addresses to the peers and to the 
    country, in the public pleas which he laid before the English prelates, in 
    the various repeated defences which he made for his conduct. It is 
    impossible that the Bishop should have been ignorant of the use which was 
    made of his name, and impossible equally to suppose that he would have 
    allowed his name to be used unfairly. The Bishop of Tarbes was 
    unquestionably the first person to bring the question publicly forward. It 
    is likely enough, however, that his introduction of so startling a topic had 
    been privately arranged between himself and Wolsey as a prelude to the 
    further steps which were immediately to follow. For the divorce had by this 
    time been finally resolved on as part of a general scheme for the alteration 
    of the balance of power. The domestic reasons for it were as weighty as ever 
    were alleged for similar separations. The Pope's hesitation, it might be 
    assumed, would now be overcome, since he had flung himself for support upon 
    England and France, and his relations with the Emperor could hardly be worse 
    than they were. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;The outer world, and even the persons principally concerned, 
    were taken entirely by surprise. For the two years during which it had been 
    under consideration the secret had been successfully preserved. Not a hint 
    had reached Catherine herself, and even when the match had been lighted by 
    the Bishop of Tarbes the full meaning of it does not seem to have occurred 
    to her. Mendoza, on his arrival in England, had found her disturbed; she was 
    irritated at the position which had been given to the Duke of Richmond; she 
    was angry, of course, at the French alliance; she complained that she was 
    kept in the dark about public affairs; she was exerting herself to the 
    utmost among the friends of the imperial connection to arrest Wolsey's 
    policy and maintain the ancient traditions; but of the divorce she had not 
    heard a word. It was to come upon her like a thunderstroke.&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Before the drama opens a brief description will not be out 
    of place of the two persons who were to play the principal parts on the 
    stage, as they were seen a year later by Ludovico Falieri, the Venetian 
    ambassador in England. Of Catherine his account is brief. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;The Queen is of low stature and rather stout; very good and 
    very religious; speaks Spanish, French, Flemish, and English; more beloved 
    by the Islanders than any queen that has ever reigned; about forty-five 
    years old, and has been in England thirty years. She has had two sons and 
    one daughter. Both the sons died in infancy. One daughter survives.&amp;quot; &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;On the King, Falieri is more elaborate. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;In the 8th Henry such beauty of mind and body is combined 
    as to surprise and astonish. Grand stature, suited to his exalted position, 
    showing the superiority of mind and character; a face like an angel's, so 
    fair it is; his head bald like CÊsar's, and he wears a beard, which is not 
    the English custom. He is accomplished in every manly exercise, sits his 
    horse well, tilts with his lance, throws the quoit, shoots with his bow 
    excellent well; he is a fine tennis player, and he practises all these gifts 
    with the greatest industry. Such a prince could not fail to have cultivated 
    also his character and his intellect. He has been a student from his 
    childhood; he knows literature, philosophy, and theology; speaks and writes 
    Spanish, French, and Italian, besides Latin and English. He is kind, 
    gracious, courteous, liberal, especially to men of learning, whom he is 
    always ready to help. He appears religious also, generally hears two masses 
    a day, and on holy days High Mass besides. He is very charitable, giving 
    away ten thousand gold ducats annually among orphans, widows, and cripples.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Such was the King, such the Queen, whom fate and the 
    preposterous pretensions of the Papacy to dispense with the established 
    marriage laws had irregularly mated, and whose separation was to shake the 
    European world. Pope Clement complained in subsequent years that the burden 
    of decision should have been thrown in the first instance upon himself. If 
    the King had proceeded at the outset to try the question in the English 
    courts; if a judgment had been given unfavourable to the marriage, and had 
    he immediately acted upon it, Queen Catherine might have appealed to the 
    Holy See; but accomplished facts were solid things. Her case might have been 
    indefinitely protracted by legal technicalities till it died of itself. It 
    would have been a characteristic method of escape out of the difficulty, and 
    it was a view which Wolsey himself perhaps at first entertained. He knew 
    that the Pope was unwilling to take the first step.&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;On the 17th of May, 1527, after a discussion of the Treaty 
    with France, he called a meeting of his Legatine court at York Place. 
    Archbishop Warham sate with him as assessor. The King attended, and the 
    Cardinal, having stated that a question had arisen on the lawfulness of his 
    marriage, enquired whether the King, for the sake of public morals and the 
    good of his own soul, would allow the objections to be examined into. The 
    King assented, and named a proctor. The Bull of Julius II. was introduced 
    and considered. Wolsey declared that in a case so intricate the canon 
    lawyers must be consulted, and he asked for the opinions of the assembled 
    bishops. The bishops, one only excepted, gave dubious answers. The aged 
    Bishop of Rochester, reputed the holiest and wisest of them, said decidedly 
    that the marriage was good, and the Bull which legalised it sufficient. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;These proceedings were not followed up, but the secrecy 
    which had hitherto been observed was no longer possible, and Catherine and 
    her friends learnt now for the first time the measure which was in 
    contemplation. Mendoza, writing on the day following the York Place meeting 
    to the Emperor, informed him, as a fact which he had learnt on reliable 
    authority, that Wolsey, for a final stroke of wickedness, was scheming to 
    divorce the Queen. She was so much alarmed that she did not venture herself 
    to speak of it, but it was certain that the lawyers and bishops had been 
    invited to sign a declaration that, being his brother's widow, she could not 
    be the wife of the King. The Pope, she was afraid, might be tempted to take 
    part against her, or the Cardinal himself might deliver judgment as Papal 
    Legate. Her one hope was in the Emperor. The cause of the action taken 
    against her was her fidelity to the Imperial interests. Nothing as yet had 
    been made formally public, and she begged that the whole matter might be 
    kept as private as possible.&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;That the Pope would be willing, if he dared, to gratify 
    Henry at Charles's expense was only too likely. The German Lutherans and the 
    German Emperor were at the moment his most dangerous enemies. France and 
    England were the only Powers who seemed willing to assist him, and a week 
    before the meeting of Wolsey's court he had experienced in the most terrible 
    form what the imperial hostility might bring upon him. On the 7th of that 
    same month of May the army of the Duke of Bourbon had taken Rome by storm. 
    The city was given up to pillage. Reverend cardinals were dragged through 
    the streets on mules' backs, dishonoured and mutilated. Convents of nuns 
    were abandoned to the licentious soldiery. The horrors of the capture may 
    have been exaggerated, but it is quite certain that to holy things or holy 
    persons no respect was paid, and that the atrocities which in those days 
    were usually perpetrated in stormed towns were on this occasion eminently 
    conspicuous. The unfortunate Pope, shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo, 
    looked down from its battlements upon scenes so dreadful that it must have 
    appeared as if the Papacy and the Church itself had been overtaken by the 
    final judgment. We regard the Spaniards as a nation of bigots, we consider 
    it impossible that the countrymen of Charles and Philip could have been 
    animated by any such bitterness against the centre of Catholic Christendom. 
    Charles himself is not likely to have intended the humiliation of the Holy 
    See. But Clement had reason for his misgivings, and Wolsey's policy was not 
    without excuse. Lope de Soria was Charles's Minister at Genoa, and Lope de 
    Soria's opinions, freely uttered, may have been shared by many a Catholic 
    besides himself. On the 25th of May, a fortnight after the storm, he wrote 
    to his master the following noticeable letter: -- &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;The sack of Rome must be regarded as a visitation from God, 
    who permits his servant the Emperor to teach his Vicar on earth and other 
    Christian princes that their wicked purposes shall be defeated, the unjust 
    wars which they have raised shall cease, peace be restored to Christendom, 
    the faith be exalted, and heresy extirpated. . . . Should the Emperor think 
    that the Church of God is not what it ought to be, and that the Pope's 
    temporal power emboldens him to promote war among Christian princes, I 
    cannot but remind your Majesty that it will not be a sin, but a meritorious 
    action, to reform the Church; so that the Pope's authority be confined 
    exclusively to his own spiritual affairs, and temporal affairs to be left to 
    CÊsar, since by right what is God's belongs to God, and what is CÊsar's to 
    CÊsar. I have been twenty-eight years in Italy, and I have observed that the 
    Popes have been the sole cause of all the wars and miseries during that 
    time. Your Imperial Majesty, as Supreme Lord on earth, is bound to apply a 
    remedy to that evil.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Heretical English and Germans were not the only persons who 
    could recognise the fitness of the secular supremacy of princes over popes 
    and Churches. Such thoughts must have passed through the mind of Charles 
    himself, and of many more besides him. De Soria's words might have been 
    dictated by Luther or Thomas Cromwell. Had the Emperor at that moment placed 
    himself at the head of the Reformation, all later history would have been 
    different. One statesman at any rate had cause to fear that this might be 
    what was about to happen. Wolsey was the embodiment of everything most 
    objectionable and odious to the laity in the ecclesiastical administration 
    of Europe. To defend the Papacy and to embarrass Charles was the surest 
    method of protecting himself and his order. The divorce was an incident in 
    the situation, but not the least important. Catherine represented the 
    Imperialist interest in England. To put her away was to make the breach with 
    her countrymen and kindred irreparable. He took upon himself to assure the 
    King that after the last outrage the Pope would agree to anything that 
    France and England demanded of him, and would trust to his allies to bear 
    him harmless. That the divorce was a thing reasonable in itself to ask for, 
    and certain to be conceded by any pope who was free to act on his own 
    judgment, was assumed as a matter of course. Sir Gregory Casalis, the 
    English agent at Rome, was instructed to obtain access to Clement in St. 
    Angelo, to convey to him the indignation felt in England at his treatment, 
    and then to insist on the illegality of the King's relations with Catherine, 
    on the King's own scruples of conscience, and on the anxiety of his subjects 
    that there should be a male heir to the crown. The &amp;quot;urgent cause&amp;quot; such as 
    was necessary to be produced when exceptional actions were required of the 
    popes was the imminence or even certainty of civil war if no such heir was 
    born. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Catherine meanwhile had again communiated with Mendoza. She 
    had spoken to her husband, and Henry, since further reticence was 
    impossible, had told her that they had been living in mortal sin, and that a 
    separation was necessary. A violent scene had followed, with natural tears 
    and reproaches. The King endeavoured to console her, but it was not a matter 
    where consolation could avail. Wolsey advised him to deal with her gently, 
    till it was seen what the Pope and the King of France would do in the 
    matter. Wolsey himself was to go immediately to Paris to see Francis, and 
    consult with him on the measures necessary to be taken in consequence of the 
    Pope's imprisonment. It was possible that Clement, finding himself helpless, 
    might become a puppet in the Emperor's hands. Under such circumstances he 
    could not be trusted by other countries with the spiritual authority 
    attaching to his office, and schemes were being formed for some interim 
    arrangement by which France and England were to constitute themselves into a 
    separate patriarchate, with Wolsey at its head as Archbishop of Rouen. 
    Mendoza says that this proposal had been actually made to Wolsey by the 
    French Ambassador. In Spain it was even believed to be contemplated as a 
    permanent modification of the ecclesiastical system. The Imperial 
    Councillors at Valladolid told the Venetian Minister that the Cardinal 
    intended to separate the Churches of England and France from that of Rome, 
    saying that as the Pope was a prisoner he was not to be obeyed, and that 
    even if the Emperor released him, he still would not be free unless his 
    fortresses and territory now in the Emperor's hands were restored to him. 
    Wolsey had reason for anxiety, for Catherine and Mendoza were writing to the 
    Emperor insisting that he should make the Pope revoke Wolsey's Legatine 
    powers. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;In spite of efforts to keep secret the intended divorce, it 
    soon became known thoughout England. The Queen was personally popular. The 
    nation generally detested France, and looked on the Emperor as their 
    hereditary friend. The reasons for the divorce might influence statesmen, 
    but did not touch the body of the people. They naturally took the side of an 
    injured wife, and if Mendoza can be believed (and there is no reason why he 
    should not be believed), the first impression was decidedly unfavourable to 
    a project which was regarded as part of the new policy. Mendoza made the 
    most of the opposition. He told the Emperor that if six or seven thousand 
    men were landed in Cornwall, forty thousand Englishmen would rise and join 
    them. He saw Wolsey -- he reasoned with him, and when he found reason 
    ineffectual, he named the bribe which the Emperor was willing to give. 
    Knowing what Francis was bidding, he baited his hook more liberally. He 
    spoke of the Papacy: &amp;quot;how the chair was now in the Emperor's hands, and the 
    Emperor, if Wolsey deserved it, would no doubt promote his elevation.&amp;quot; The 
    glittering temptation was unavailing. The papal chair had been Wolsey's 
    highest ambition, but he remained unmoved. He said that he had served the 
    Emperor in the past out of disinterested regard. He still trusted that the 
    Emperor would replace the Pope and restore the Church. Mendoza's answer was 
    not reassuring to an English statesman. He said that both the spiritual and 
    temporal powers were now centred in his master, and he advised Wolsey, if he 
    desired an arrangement, to extend his journey from France, go on to Spain, 
    and see the Emperor in person. It was precisely this centering which those 
    who had charge of English liberties had a right to resent. Divorce or no 
    divorce, they could not allow a power possessed of so much authority in the 
    rest of Christendom to be the servant of a single prince. The divorce was 
    but an illustration of the situation, and such a Papacy as Mendoza 
    contemplated would reduce England and all Catholic Europe into fiefs of the 
    Empire. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;
    &lt;font face=&quot;Times New Roman&quot; style=&quot;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif&quot;&gt;
    &lt;hr&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;From &lt;i&gt;The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon: 
    The Story as Told by the Imperial Ambassadors Resident at the Court of Henry 
    VIII&lt;/i&gt; by J.A. Froude.&amp;nbsp; Published in New York by C. Scribner's Sons, 
    1891.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  &lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;_httpextlink_&amp;amp;rl=1&amp;amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2ffroudetwo.html&quot;&gt;to Chapter Two&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;_httpextlink_&amp;amp;rl=1&amp;amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fsecondary.html&quot;&gt;
&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;to Secondary Sources&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;_httpextlink_&amp;amp;rl=1&amp;amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fmonarchs%2faragon.html&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;to 
Katharine of Aragon website&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;blockquote&gt;
    &lt;font style=&quot;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif&quot;&gt;
    &lt;font face=&quot;Times New Roman&quot;&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;&lt;font style=&quot;FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif&quot;&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;
    &lt;p class=&quot;3text&quot; align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;
  &lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;



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