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empt from notorious and disgraceful profli-out by the bishop of Tarbes, the French gacy. The antagonists of her memory load ambassador in London, that the young prinher with the inconsistent charges of yield- cess might be illegitimate, being the issue ing to the king's licentious passions, and of of a marriage of doubtful validity.* If we having affected austere purity to reduce believe this fact, it affords some ground for him to the necessity of marriage; but the a conjecture, that a suggestion, which must peculiar character of Henry rendered him have been shunned as offensive, if it had often a scrupulous observer of rules without not been known to be acceptable, was promuch regard to their principles. The forms cured from the ambassador by Henry or by of law stood higher in his eye than the sub- Wolsey. But such an anecdote, reported stance of justice: this peculiarity affords by no impartial writer, without any account the best key to his proceedings relating to of the preceding or consequent facts, is the divorce of which he was desirous. A hardly admissible, except as a proof of the legal divorce, however cruel, and even sub-suspicion of the experienced negotiator, stantially unjust, satisfied his coarse and that doubts of the validity of the king's marshallow morality. Catharine was then in riage would not be regarded at court as an her forty-sixth year; Anne Boleyn, as has unpardonable offence. The king now treatbeen already said, was in her twenty-sec-ed his scruples as at least specious enough ond; Henry was in his thirty-eighth. Sir to make a favorable impression on a pope Godfrey Boleyn, lord mayor of London in to whom he had just rendered the most mc1458, married the daughter of lord Hast-mentous services.

ings, by whom he had one son, the husband He might, indeed, reasonably expect any of lady Margaret Butler, co-heiress of the favor from Rome which that court could earl of Ormond; and the issue of this al- justly bestow. To the armaments and neliance was Sir Thomas Boleyn, created gotiations of Henry, Clement VII. owed lord Rochfort, who served the king with his release from prison; but the pope had distinction in some diplomatic missions, and felt the power of the emperor, and dreaded especially in the important embassy to Paris. a resentment which could not fail to be The light which shone from Anne Bo- awakened by the degradation of an Austrian leyn's eyes might have awakened or revived princess. Clement, an Italian priest of the Henry's doubts of the legitimacy of his long sixteenth century, was more strongly influ union with the faithful and blameless Cath-enced by fear of the future than by gratiarine. His licentious passions, by a singu- tude for the past. Henry VIII. was distant, lar operation, recalled his mind to his theo- Charles V. was at his gates; the benefit logical studies, and especially to the question from English interposition was never likely relating to the papal power of dispensing to be repeated, the injury and outrage might with the Levitical law, which must have easily be again inflicted by the master of been the subject of conversation at the Naples and of Lombardy. The wary pontime of his unusual, if not unprecedented, tiff, however, spared no pains to gratify one espousal of his brother's widow. Scruples, great prince without displeasing another; at which he had once cursorily glanced as or, at worst, to postpone his determination themes of discussion, now borrowed life so long, that time or accident might relieve and warmth from his passions. In the course him from the painful necessity of pronouncof examining the question, his assent was ing it. Perhaps these considerations might likely at last to be allured into the service be excusable in a pontiff, who was also a of desire. The question was, in itself, ea- feeble temporal sovereign; but they were sily disputable; it was one on which honest as worldly as the motives ascribed to Henry and skilful men differed; and it presented, were blended with the suggestion of the to say the least, ample scope for self-delu- senses. The one, under pretences of resion. His nature was more depraved than ligion, consulted his own interest; while lawless (if that word may be so used); and the other abused the same venerable name it is possible that his passion might have to cover the gratification of his passion. If yielded to other obstacles, if he had not at any degree of sincerity belonged to the relength persuaded himself that by the means ligious professions of either (and it is not of a divorce his gratification might be recon- improbable that some portion did mingle ciled with the letter of the law. His con- with stronger motives), the excuse was as duct has the marks of that union of confi- admissible in the case of Henry as in that dence and formality often observed in men of Clement. whose immorality receives treacherous aid from a mistaken conscience.

It was about this period, that on occasion of a project for the marriage of the princess Mary Tudor, now in her eleventh year, to Francis I., a hint is said to have been thrown

The French embassy, of whom Grammont bishop of Tarbes was one, appears to have arrived in England in March, 1527. In May, Henry gave a magnificent enter

* Cavendish, Life of Wolsey.

tainment at Greenwich, at which Anne Rochester acted with the like hazardous inwas his partner in the dance. In July of tegrity. No name is preserved of any other the same year, Knight, then a secretary of divine or lawyer, who gave the same state, was dispatched to Rome to obtain the pledge of courageous honesty. The peodivorce; and, on the first of August, Wol-ple, ignorant of law, but moved by generous sey informed Henry, in a dispatch from feeling, saw nothing in the transaction but France addressed to that prince, that his the sacrifice of an innocent woman to the project of seeking a divorce from Catharine passions of a dissolute monarch, which was was already rumored at Madrid. Whether in truth its most important and essential Anne Boleyn made any visits to England character.

while her residence was in Paris; whether On the arrival of Cassalis, an Italian her final return to England took place on agent from Henry at Rome, in September, the death of Claude, queen of France, in 1527, to sue or to sound Clement on the 1522, or on that of Margaret, duchess of divorce, he found that pontiff in a situation Alençon, to whose household she is said by not favorable to the success of the applisome to have been transferred, after the cation. He had surrendered, on the 7th two remaining years of that princess's life; of June, to the imperialists, on condition of or, finally, whether she was detained in paying a hundred thousand ducats of gold France till the return of her father from in two months; and, being unable to make his last embassy to Paris in 1527; are ques- the payment, was so closely watched in his tions of fact on which our knowledge is rigorous imprisonment which ensued, that hitherto incomplete. he durst not give a public audience to

During the early part of these transac- Knight, who was sent as an extraordinary tions, the situation of Wolsey induced him ambassador, nor venture to communicate to play a perilous game. On the one with him, but secretly through cardinal hand, he is said to have disengaged Anne Pisani. After the pope made his escape from Percy, and appears through his agent to Orvieto, in December, access to him Pace to have secretly procured aid to the was somewhat more free. English emisking's suit from the venal pen of Wake-saries, well furnished with money, repaired field, Hebrew professor at Oxford, who had to Italy; among whom was Stephen Garbefore declared for the validity of the mar- diner, who afterwards reached a place in riage with Catharine.* But, on the other English history more conspicuous than hand, he was really desirous of wedding honorable. Various expedients were sughis master to a French princess, to forward gested to deliver the pope from his painful his own designs on the papacy, and to cover responsibility. Hopes were entertained of by the popularity of a valuable and illus- prevailing on the queen to retire into a trious alliance the odium which he must monastery, but she generously rejected all have foreseen to be a consequence of a projects which involved in them a susjustly obnoxious divorce. It is probable, picion of the illegitimacy of her daughter. also, that Wolsey was apprehensive of the Clement yielded so far to the English minpower which the Boleyns and their con- isters at Viterbo as to grant a commission nexions would acquire by the elevation of to legates to hear and determine the vatheir young and beautiful relation. He lidity of the marriage, and a pollicitation threw himself, we are told, on his knees (or written and solemn promise) not to rebefore the king, and earnestly entreated call the commission, or to do any act which him to desist from a purpose unworthy of should annul the judgment or prevent the his birth. It need scarcely be added, that progress of the trial. Gardiner and Fox the minister who made up by pliancy to an found the pope lodged in an old and ruinimpetuous master for his insufferable arro- ous monastery, with his antechamber altogance towards herds of dependants, made gether unfurnished, and a bed which, with haste to atone for the indiscreet zeal with the hanging, did not amount to more than which, on this single occasion, he presumed the value of twenty nobles, which were to oppose the royal desires. He redoubled equivalent to five pounds of that age. In his activity and apparent zeal to promote the executing these documents, he earnestly marriage with Anne Boleyn, so as to draw and pathetically implored the king not to from that lady a letter to him overflowing put them in execution till the evacuation with gratitude. of Italy by the German and Spanish armies should restore him to real liberty.

Sir Thomas More, the most illustrious Englishman of his time, not being con- A very brief statement of the points in vinced by the king's reasons, declined the dispute may find a fit place here. The adsupport of his divorce. Fisher bishop of vocates of Henry observed that, by the law Knight to Henry, 13th Sept. 1527, in lord Herbert. § Herbert.

* Knight's Erasm. App. 25-29. The date is 1527. Kennett, ii. 100. † Cavendish, Life of Wolsey.

of Moses, a man was forbidden to marry through marriage as they are generally and the wife of his deceased brother* a pro-justly held to be in the relation of blood, yet hibition to which, being of divine authority, they promote the same most momentous purthe dispensing power could not extend; but pose in some degree, however inferior. The it was contended on his part, also, that even law forbidding marriage between brother if this were not granted or proved, the bull and sister, owned to be indispensable, might of Julius II. was, at all events, void, be- by no very strained analogy be stretched to cause it was obtained under the false pre- that of a man to his brother's widow, a view tences (recited in the bull as its ground) of the subject which borrows a delusive spethat the marriage was sought by the par- ciousness from the employment of very simities for the sake of peace between Eng-lar words to express relations, which have land and Spain, though such peace then but a slight resemblance to each other. It actually subsisted; and, also, that such dis- might be added, that the sovereigns of all pensation was sought at the desire of both Christian countries had in effect transplantparties, although Henry, being then only ed the prohibitions into their respective codes, twelve years of age, was not competent to and sanctioned them by long usage and freexpress any wish on the subject, which quent recognition. It was a natural though ought to be regarded as a valid ground of not a necessary consequence, that the highthe proceeding. But undoubtedly the de- est authority of the church might dispense sire of consolidating and securing peace with a regulation to which the church had might well be comprehended in the words probably first subjected its members. This of the bull; and it is equally obvious, that reasonable construction would have been the desires of a boy might be faithfully fatal to Henry's pretensions; but, on the conveyed, or sufficiently represented, by other hand, it would be a presumptuous atthose of his father and sovereign. Another tempt to give a new sense, and a more preliminary objection was urged against limited authority, to the Levitical law. Henry, that the nuptials of Arthur and It was not, however, either by legal or Catharine were never consummated, in theological argument that the passions of other words, that there was no marriage the monarch were to be controlled, or the in fact, and, consequently, that the espousal fears of the pontiff were to be removed. of Catharine by Henry was perfectly law- Francis I., the most decisive opponent of ful, even if it were not protected by a valid the emperor, befriended Henry, and seconddispensation from the pope; but the evi- ed his suit at Rome. A French army under dence of the completion of the nuptials Lautrec threatened to reduce Naples. As was considerably stronger than is usual in long as success promised to attend that the case of a childless matron. commander, Clement adopted the measures The advocates of the king did not ques- already mentioned favorable to the projects tion the dispensing power farther than in of the English monarch. But it was not even its application to a divine, and generally then without the hesitation and well-disbinding, prohibition. The court of Rome guised reservations with which he thought did not dare distinctly to lay claim to such it necessary to tread' warily amidst the a power in the case of prohibitions acknow- shock of combatants equally potent and ledged to be of divine authority, which no merciless. In June, 1529, however, he condecree of the Catholic church had ever cluded a treaty of alliancet with the empesanctioned: but they were loth to renounce ror, in which, among warm professions of it, from a desire not to narrow a great pre- friendship, and some cessions or guarantees rogative of the popedom. Neither did of territory, it was stipulated that Charles they choose to rest their cause upon its should restore the house of Medici, the most rational foundation, lest they might pope's family, to their former station at be charged with rashly lowering the obvi- Florence, which they had governed by overous and literal sense of a divine law. ruling influence; and that Clement, after For, surely, the law in Leviticus may be being received with all due homage and understood as divine, and yet prescribed reverence by Charles, should, when that only to the Jewish people. It seems, in- monarch came to Italy, solemnize his corodeed, to be a part of their purely national nation, which was necessary to complete code; yet there would be no inconsistency the dignity of the emperor of the Romans, in holding, that the Catholic church had for want of which all his successors desigby long usage, and by its written canons, nated themselves, not as emperors, but as extended to Christians the Mosaic prohi- emperors elect. The temper as well as bitions. Though such prohibitions are un- † Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, iv., part ii. p. 1.

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doubtedly not so necessary to the domestic The marriage of Alexander de Medici to Margaret morality of youth in the case of connexion of Austria, the emperor's natural daughter, was a badge of the friendship between his holiness and his * Leviticus, xviii. 16. ib. xx. 21. Deuteronomy, imperial majesty. Treaty, art. iv. Corps Diplom suprà, 3.

xxv. 5.

terms of this alliance denotes that close and the Italian universities of Ferrara, Paconnexion which, in parties of very unequal dua, and Pavia, concurring with Bologna strength, naturally degenerates into the de- and Paris, the two most famous schools of pendence of the weaker ally. Clement ac- civil and canon law on the Continent, decordingly now resolved to provide for the creed that the marriage with Catharine repose of his age by a submission to the was so mere a nullity as to be incurable emperor, the only potentate who could even by a papal dispensation. The doctors shield him from all other foes. Hencefor- of Bolognaf deviated somewhat in their ward we must consider Clement as having language from the calmness of a recluse taken his final part against the degradation and studious character; for they pronounced of the queen of England, an Austrian prin- the marriage to be not only horrible and cess. But though his fluctuations really detestable to a Christian, but utterly abomceased during the short remainder of his inable among infidels; that the most holy life, it was still desirable to amuse so power- father, to whom were intrusted the keys ful a prince by ingenious delays and plau- of heaven, and who could do almost all sible formalities. other acts, could not release a man from a Already impatient of forensic artifices, prohibition fenced round by all laws human Henry had been advised to adopt a very and divine. Bologna, a recent and imperspecious expedient for obtaining the object fect acquisition of the holy see, which had of his desires, which, if it did not alarm the surrendered only twenty years before to court of Rome into concession, might al- Julius II. on conditions, which, if fairly exmost render its sanction needless. The ecuted, left the external administration in bold proceedings of the council of Constance the hands of the people, affected, perhaps, in deposing and electing popes (to say no- while the pope was a prisoner, to display thing of their decrees) had deeply rooted somewhat wantonly the remains of ancient and widely spread the belief, that whatever independence. Still the university of that might be the power of popes when there city, and the two universities of the Venewas no council, the Catholic church assem- tian states, were placed in circumstances bled in a general council had an authority favorable to impartiality. All the universiparamount to that of the supreme pontiff; ties of France can hardly be suspected of but a general council could not be now as- dreading so much the displeasure of Francis sembled without the consent of the empe- for unfavorable answers to his ally, as to ror, who would certainly withstand every have disgraced themselves by falsehood. project for facilitating the divorce. In this That money was plentifully distributed perplexity a species of irregular appeal to seems to be certain; but that the apparent the church in its dispersed state appeared consent of all the learned Catholics, who to be the best substitute for a favorable gave an opinion relating to this affair, was council or pope. Questions were, there- chiefly purchased by the distribution of fore, framed by Henry's command, addressed bribes, is an assertion improbable in itself, to the universities of Europe, to obtain their and which would redound more to the disopinion on the validity of the king's mar-honor of the established church than most riage with his brother's widow. These of the charges made against her by the learned bodies, at the head of whom were hottest zealots of reformation. theologians, canonists, and jurists, did seem, Some of the universities are said by the indeed, to be the virtual representatives of Catholics to have been obtained by packed the church in its state of compulsory inac-meetings, some by minorities usurping the tivity, since they were certainly the men character of majorities. These are the too who would exercise the greatest share of frequent faults of public bodies, and the conmoral influence over the determinations of stant imputation thrown on their decisions a general council. The cases submitted to by defeated parties; and they are too genetheir judgment were clear, and the points ral to deserve much attention until new and in dispute were fairly stated;* the questions more successful attempts shall be made to were, whether marriage with a brother's support specific charges by reasonable proof. widow was prohibited by the divine law, The doubt, be it remembered, entirely re and if it were, whether a papal dispensation lates to the share which undue practices could release the parties from its obligation.

The most moderate of them answered, that † Rymer, xiv. 393; and the disclaimer of influence such a marriage could not be attempted by force or fear. Ib. 395. by the Bolognese doctors on without a breach of the divine law, even with a dispensation or permission from the supreme pontiff. The French universities of Orleans, Angers, Bourges, and Toulouse,

* Rymer, xiv. 290, &c. 1529.

oath. An acute writer of the present age has referred his readers for proof to Rymer, xiv. 393. 397., which to me, seems to prove nothing but the anxiety of the doctors to conceal their decree from the pope's gov ernor of Bologna, who must have been adverse to it. This sort of secrecy brings no discredit on the instrument, which purports to be the act of all the doctors of theology in the university. "Omnes doctores theJologi convenimus." Rymer, ut suprà.

had in influencing the English and foreign ties and virtues, but which was, in fact, the universities. Those transactions of better unsuitable reward of diplomatic activity for times which have affected the interests of a very ambiguous purpose.

statesmen, or the passions of princes, have The history of public events in this and not been untainted by the like evil motives the two following reigns, will, better than and impure means. The English universi- any general description, display the 'excelties were thought at first to be unfriendly lent qualities of his nature, and the undenito the king's cause, and came over to him able faults of his conduct.

slowly, not from undue influence alone, but At Viterbo, on the 8th of June, 1528,f probably also by a fellow-feeling with the was issued a commission to cardinals Wolpeople, who, after having listened only to sey and Campeggio, conjointly, or to either pity for an illustrious lady, gradually allow-separately, to hear and determine the matried their generous zeal to be damped by monial suit, and to do all acts that are necestime. The German Protestants refused to sary for the execution of their sentence. purchase the good-will of Henry by sanc- On the arrival of Campeggio, in October, tioning the divorce.* No answer was made 1528, he made an attempt to smooth the by the Catholic universities of Germany, way, by persuading Catharine to embrace because they were under the domineering a religious life, as he had endeavored prepower of the emperor, whose universities viously to dissuade Henry from farther purin Italy and Spain were also totally silent. suing the divorce. Both these attempts That monarch must have prevented the were unsuccessful. Catharine once more English agents from access to professors; spurned the unmotherly proposal. The popor he must have commanded these last to ular feeling, which was favorable to her, make no answer to the questions on which obliged her husband to remove Anne Boleyn they would otherwise have been consulted. for a while from court, and to assure a great In either case the undue influence used by council of peers, prelates, and judges, whom Charles seems to be as certain in Catholic he convoked on Sunday the 8th of NovemGermany, in Lombardy, Naples, and the ber, in the great hall of his palace of BrideSpanish Peninsula, as that of Henry in Eng- well, that he was moved in his late proland, or of his ally Francis in France. ceedings, solely by a desire to know whether Dr. Thomas Cranmer, a divine of note at his marriage was void, and consequently Cambridge, who, though born in the dark whether his daughter Mary was the rightperiod of 1483, began to cultivate the more ful heir of the crown; whether, "he begot polite and humane literature introduced by her on his brother's wife, which is against Erasmus into northern Europe, early caught God's law. Think you, my lords," added some sparks of that generous zeal for liberty he, " that these words touch not my body of writing, which the humanists (so the fol- and soul. For this only cause, I protest be-lowers of that great scholar were called) fore God, and on the word of a prince, I were accused of carrying to excess. His have asked counsel of the greatest clerks preference of the new learning did not arise in Christendom, and sent for the legate as from ignorance of the old: he was eminent a man indifferent between the parties." both as a theologian and canonist; and was The countenances of the hearers formed a regarded as one of the ornaments of the strangely diversified sight; some sighed university. His nature was amiable, and and were silent, some showed tenderness his conduct hitherto spotless. He suggested to the king's scruples: the queen's most the appeal to the universities in a conversa- sagacious friends were sorry that the mattion with Fox and Gardiner, the king's con- ter was now so far published as to cut off fidential counsellors and subservient agents. retreat or reconciliation. These perplexiIt was relished and adopted: Cranmer was ties afforded a plausible pretext to Camsent on missions, originating in that ques- peggio to desire time for new instructions tion, to France and Italy; and it appears from Rome, in order to obtain delay, of from his private marriage with the niece which he knew the pope to be desirous. of Osiander, a Protestant divine of Nurem- The dangerous illness of the pope in the burg, that during his more important mission spring of 1529 retarded the answer, and is to Germany, he on some points approached, said to have once more turned the ambition if he did not overpass, the threshold of Lu- of Wolsey towards the tiara, now more than theranism. On the death of Warham on ever inaccessible to him.

the 30th of March, 1533, he was raised to Among other expedients for prolonging the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury; a the suit before the legate's court, Campegstation for which he was fitted by his abili- gio suggested one drawn from the storehouse of Roman chicane. The courts of

"All Lutherans be utterly against your highness Rome having a long vacation, from July to in this cause." Croke from Venice, July 1, 1530. Burnet's Hist. Reform. Appendix to Rec. of book ii. number 33.

Rymer, xiv. 295.

+ Hall, 754.

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