It spurious, and set about procuring evidence | strongest security for the honour and the to prove it. Yet for many months Wolsey legal position of a Spanish Princess: yet it remained in doubt whether the paper which did not exist in the archives of Spain. frustrated the great undertaking of his life constituted the most extreme exertion of was false or genuine. The reasons for sus- the Pope's prerogative known till then yet pecting forgery were stronger than he sup- Rome preserved no record of its existence. posed. In April, 1529, Charles was in doubt as to the value of the Brief. He was willing to submit it to the Pope. His mind would not, he said, be at rest until he knew whether it had been found in the Roman Registers. His doubts were soon satisfied. The Registers were subjected to the scrutiny of Spanish and English agents. They found no trace of the Brief. Errors were detected in the text. A vital flaw was detected in the date. Charles never sent it to Rome for judgment; it was no longer necessary. The Brief had served to delay action in the Legate's Court until the Pope was reconciled with Spain. The Brief was unheard of until the need for it became apparent. It was unknown to Charles V. when, on the 31st of, July, 1527, he suggested that the Pope should supply the defects of the Bull. It was uncertain whether Clement would consent, when, towards the end of the year, the Brief made his consent unnecessary. Its existence was unexplained. It was said to have been obtained about the time of the marriage, in 1509; but it was dated 1503. It was obtained by Ferdinand; yet Ferdinand did not possess a copy. It was sent to England; but it was admitted that it had left England before the marriage for which it was required. Ferdinand did not want it, for, on his theory, it was quite unnecessary. If he had asked for it, the Brief would have been addressed to him, and a copy would have been treasured up in Spain. It was addressed to Henry VII. But Henry did not want it; for he was more than content with the original Bull, which he never intended to use, and could never wish to amplify. Wolsey knew that delay was ruin. To strengthen himself at Rome he despatched four new ambassadors. He offered to surround the Pope with a guard of two thousand-or even of twelve thousand-men ; and he resorted to expedients which showed that he was desperate. He would resign his Commission and leave judgment to the Pope, with a pledge that judgment would be favourable. He inquired whether, if Henry should take monastic vows to induce the Queen to enter a nunnery, he could be dispensed from them and allowed to marry. Lastly, he desired to know whether the King might have two wives. These pro The Brief was discovered among the papers of the Ambassador De Puebla, who had left England before the marriage, and who was now dead. A list of all his papers relating to the marriage is still extant, and the Brief is not among them.posals were soon dropped, and exerted no Two men were living who could have given influence on the event; but they show the valuable testimony. De Puebla's heir, Fer- condition of Henry's mind, and the extremnandez, had possession of his papers. He ity to which, at the end of 1528, Wolsey was reputed an honest man, and it was de- was reduced. By the first he surrendered sirable to have him examined. It appeared, his original position, and actually invited however, that he had just been sent to one that which he afterwards described as the of the few places in Europe which were be- cause of an inevitable rupture with Rome. yond the reach of Henry and the jurisdic- The scheme to inveigle the Queen into a tion of Charles-to the dominions of the convent by simulated vows might possibly Earl of Desmond. Accolti, the Cardinal be entertained without horror; for it was who in the name of Julius had drawn up supposed to be no sin to take an oath inthe dispensation a quarter of a century ear- tending to be dispensed from it. Francis I lier, was now the most zealous opponent of swore to observe the Treaty of Madrid, and the Divorce in the Court of Rome. He bound himself, moreover, on his knightly could have settled the doubt whether a sec- honour. On the same day he had already ond dispensation had, in fact, been given. declared before a notary that he was reAccolti remained impenetrably silent. Though addressed to Henry VII., the Brief was unknown in England. It formed the He said also that his mind was not quiet until he knew whether the brief was found in the Registry at Rome.-Ghinucci and Lee to Wolsey, April 5, 1529. Brewer, 5423. Has done all he could to discover in the register books a copy of the Brief, but in vain. Has found instead two other briefs alluding to the affair.'-Mai to Charles, March 23, 1529. Gayangos, 659. solved to break the oath he was about to | papal fortresses, and by their control of the take; and his perjury was generally ap- sea, commanded the sources from which plauded. Cranmer, on becoming Archbishop, Rome drew its supplies. The situation was closely followed his example. If the desire one to which the French and English proof liberty excused Francis in deceiving test against an election held under Spanish Charles, Henry might plead that he, too, influence continued applicable. Wolsey had a justifiable purpose in deceiving Cath- urged his friends to leave Rome, to hold arine. The right to dispense from vows the conclave in some city of refuge, and was not disputed. there to make him Pope. One half of the college shrank from the prospect of a Spanish Conclave, and made ready to depart as soon as the Pope should be dead. The imperial agents met the threatening schism with excellent judgment. They released the hostages; they gave up the fortresses, which, indeed, they could have retaken in a week; and they sent to the Tiber vessels laden with grain. They soon received their reward. Clement, in making his farewell to the Cardinals, exhorted them, if he died, to recall Campeggio. He declared that, should he recover, he would visit the Emperor beyond the Mediterranean. He assured the French agent that the fee simple of France would not bribe him now to desert the Spaniards. When at the end of two months he resumed the management of affairs, the reconciliation was accomplished. Charles was supreme in the court of Rome, by the vivid memory of his irresistible power, and by the immediate sense of the priceless value of his friendship. The Cardinals had not forgotten the awful time of the siege and the sack of the city. In February they were still hostile to the Emperor. In March the Austrian agents at Rome write that they have 448,000 ducats to dispose of; and the resistance of the hostile Cardinals melted away rapidly. It would appear that the proposal of big amy, which was now made for the second time, never reached the Pope. The idea that the trouble might be healed in that way arose spontaneously in many quarters. The Secretary of Erasmus, writing from his house, made the suggestion that, inasmuch as polygamy was common in the Old Testament, and was nowhere forbidden in the New, Henry might take a new wife without dismissing the first. To Luther and Melancthon this solution appeared most easy and desirable. They had fought hard to preserve monogamy among their own followers, and had prevailed upon the Landgrave Philip of Hesse to abstain from bigamy. But they found themselves unable to make the prohibition absolute. In Henry's case they thought the marriage originally wrong, but they objected still more to the Divorce. Luther advised that the King should take a second wife rather than put away the first; and Melancthon thought that the double marriage would be good, and that the Pope would dispense for it. The Landgrave, having discovered this correspondence, renewed his demand, and the Reformers were compelled to sanction his crime. The agony of shame with which they yielded their consent suggests a doubt whether their advice to Henry might not have been prompted by an idea of embarrassing the Catholics. Twelve months earlier Clement had informed the English agents that one of the cardinals, doubtless Cajetan, had told him that it was in his power to grant a dispensation such as Melancthon recommended. But he was afterwards advised that it could not be done. Wolsey's proposal was in feality borrowed from the theories put forward in the Queen's behalf, asserting an unlimited power of dispensing. These extraordinary measures for resisting the Spanish Brief were interrupted, in January, 1529, by the dangerous illness of Clement. Once more the early ambition of Wolsey revived; and he caused the Cardinals to be overwhelmed with offers of troops, of money, of political and spiritual benefits. The hand of the spoiler and the oppressor had not departed from the territory of the Church. The Spaniards still detained three Cardinals as hostages, still occupied the Clement now regarded Wolsey as a sort of antipope, and as a personal enemy who was seeking to bring instant ruin upon him by employing a writing wrung from his good nature by false promises. The situation of the year before was reversed. He had relied on England to rescue him from the clutches of the Imperialists. The Emperor was now his protector against the machinations of Wolsey. Gardiner, when he saw him in March, became aware that all his pleas were vain. The English had lost as much ground in point of reason and justice, as of influence. Contrasted with their extravagant demands, the petitions of the Emperor were moderate and just. Wolsey now required that the Brief should be delivered up to him; that sentence should be given, if the original was not sent to England; that the Pope, of his absolute authority, and without inquiry, should declare it a forgery. He ordered Gardiner to pretend that the paper containing the promises of the Pope had suffered damage, and to procure his signature to a new copy, to be drawn up in stronger terms, by representing that it was unchanged. The Emperor Charles V., and Catharine herself, in letters conveyed secretly to the hands of the Pope, insisted with unquestionable truth, that a tribunal on which this man sat as judge could not be deemed impartial. They demanded that the cause should be decided at Rome, where Wolsey himself had so lately proposed to carry it. Clement doubted no longer what he ought to do. One course was both safe and just. He did not indeed believe in the Spanish dispensation but he refused to condemn it on an ex parte argument, if every Spaniard had vanished out of Italy. He would rather abdicate, he would rather die, than do what Wolsey asked of him. He made no further attempt to resist the appeals of the Spaniards. But he was oppressed, at intervals, with a definite expectation of losing the allegiance of England. His only expedient was delay. Clement was unconvinced by Campeggio's testimony to the innocence of Anne Boleyn. The King, whose passion had endured for three years, might become inconstant; or Catharine might be persuaded, as the King had ceased to live with her, to consent that the favourite should occupy her place. Her health was breaking, and he would have given the riches of Christendom that she should be in her grave. In April the envoys of the two branches of the House of Austria formally called on him to revoke the powers of the Legates, and to bring the cause before the judgment seat of Rome. Gardiner thought that it would have been madness to resist. Clement consented. On the 9th of May he despatched a nuncio to Barcelona, with full and final powers to conclude a treaty with the Emperor. Until it should be ratified, and the imperial alliance firmly secured, he wished to postpone the inevitable shock which Henry's disappointment would inflict on their long friendship. An agreement was made between Clement and Casale, that the Commission should not be cancelled, but that the Legates should not proceed to execute it. When it became certain, in the beginning of May, that there was no more hope from Rome, Wolsey's fall could not be distant. His obstinate determination, in spite of the general feeling both in Rome and in England, that there should be no divorce without papal sanction, had ended by making the divorce impossible, had brought upon the country the affront of seeing the King's cause removed to a hostile tribunal, and had afforded the Emperor a conspicuous triumph over the influence of England in a matter chiefly of English concern. At the moment when he was defeated by Spain, he was descrted by France. The dissolution of the League, and the ruin of his armies compelled Francis to give up the struggle for supremacy with Charles, and to submit to a dishonourable peace. Wolsey had traded on their rivalry. It was the obvious and superficial secret of his policy to sell the help of England to each, as necessity induced one to outbid the other. Neither of the Powers had an interest to maintain the statesman who had alternately betrayed them, and they made peace at his expense. Francis accused him of having intrigued on his own account with Rome. His treacherous reports, sent home by Suffolk, and aided by the certainty that Wolsey had misled the King, strengthened the constant asseveration of his enemies that he did not sincerely promote the Divorce. In truth he bad striven for it with incessant care. But Du Bellay, Mendoza, and Campeggio had long perceived that his zeal was stimulated only by the desire to save himself; and he had implored Henry on his knees to give up his will. When it was announced that the Commission would be revoked, and that France was suing for a separate peace, his power was gone. He besought the King to allow him to attend the Congress at Cambray. The two men who were thought worthy to succeed him, More and Tunstall, were sent in his stead; and an indictment was prepared against him. It was impossible to doubt that the revocation would be fatal to Henry's wishes. That which Clement dared not allow his Legates to do in England, he would not do himself at Rome, when the Emperor had disarmed all his enemies, and was coming in triumph to visit his Italian conquests and to assume the imperial crown. At first Henry talked of appealing from Clement to the true Vicar of Christ, to be raised up in his place. But he was soon made to understand that the potentate who was feared, having power to coerce and to degrade, was the Emperor. He resolved to dissemble his anger. Intercepted letters exposed the Pope's intentions, and taught that nothing would be gained by waiting until Clement felt himself stronger. Something might, however, be gained by prompt and strenuous action. Henry resolved to take advantage of the delay in revoking the Commission to force on an immediate decision, and summoned Gardiner in all haste to conduct the case. The Imperialists had consented that the revocation should be postponed in consequence of the pledge obtained by Clement that nothing should meanwhile be done in England. When it was found that the pledge was broken, and that Henry employed the respite to urge on the trial, every voice in Rome called on the Pope to satisfy the just claims of Spain. The English agents confessed that no choice was left him, and bore witness to his good will. Clement protested to them in pathetic terms that the Emperor had him utterly in his power. He made one effort more to get the Imperialists to assent to further delay, but they repulsed him with indignation. They believed that he was seeking an opportunity to deceive them. Even in the following year Charles half expected that Clement would pass over to the English side. Campeggio had been instructed to create delay by telling Henry that, if he must give judgment, he must give it against him. He replied by asking what he should do in the not improbable event of the judgment being in Henry's favour. Clement's final orders were to proceed with the trial to the last stage preceding sentence, and then to adjourn for the purpose of consulting Rome. Campeggio combined both methods. On the 22nd of July Clement's irrevocable determination was known in London. The pleadings were completed. The parties awaited judgment. Campeggio suddenly adjourned the Court for the vacation, announcing that he must consult the Pope. He strove to comfort Henry by assuring him that the interruption was to his advantage, as the sentence would have been for the Queen. When the vessel in which the Legate sailed from Dover was boarded by the custom-house officers, he believed that his last hour had come, and called for his comfessor. The officers treated him with respect, but they examined his luggage, in the hope either of recovering the secret Bull, or of finding evidence that he had been paid by Catharine. Campeggio returned to Rome with the renown of a successful mission. Men were not blind to the effects which were to follow. But they followed too remotely to disturb the present joy at an immense deliverance. It was observed for the first time after years of anxiety and depression, that Clement VII. held up his head and walked erect. We have not allowed ourselves space to follow Mr. Brewer's vivid and powerful narrative over another year to the death of Wolsey, with which the volume ends. Before we conclude it is necessary that we should advert to one topic on which we have been unable to accept him for our guide. Touching the great question of the origin of the Divorce, Mr. Brewer wavers between three explanations:-King Henry's scruples grew up in the recesses of his own conscience. They were awakened by his inclination for Anne Boleyn. They were suggested by her friends. Mr. Brewer who adopts the first of these solutions at page 222, prefers the second at page 258, and, forty pages farther, is ready to accept the third. The idea that the Divorce was instigated by divines of Anne Boleyn's faction was put forward by Pole, apparently with a view to connect Cranmer and the Lutheran influence with the beginning of the troubles. It is supported by no evidence; and it is in the highest degree improbable that the Boleyns conceived a design which could not have been accomplished without violently subverting the whole system of European politics. The theory which represents the scruple arising involuntarily, almost unconsciously, in the King's mind, is confirmed, no doubt, by his own public declarations; but it is difficult to reconcile with the coarse and candid admission which he made privately of the causes which estranged him from the Queen. Before the Court, at Blackfriars, he spoke only of scruples; in secret he urged motives of a less spiritual kind. It is quite natural that personal repulsion may have paved the way for scruples. It is much less likely that the idea of separation can have come first, and the unconquerable aversion followed. In the hypothesis that the whole business took its rise in the King's passion for Anne Boleyn, there is not the same inherent improbability. It leaves much unexplained, and suggests many difficulties; but it depends mainly on a question of chronology. If it should ever be possible to trace the idea of marrying Anne Boleyn farther back than we can trace the idea of repudiating Catharine of Aragon, the case would be proved. But with the materials now available the priority is decidedly with the Divorce. The latest date to which we can possibly assign the first step towards the dissolution of the marriage is the summer of 1526. We have shown that we are unable to put the proposal to Anne earlier than 1527. There is an interval therefore during which the scheme of divorce is pursued, and is fully accounted for, whilst no trace of a rival can be detected. We are unable to accept either of Mr. Brewer's alternative solutions. There is a fourth explanation to which he shows no mercy. He absolutely rejects the idea that Wolsey was the author of the Di- | overwhelming against Wolsey. We will say Longland never denied that Wolsey was the author of the King's doubts. It is true that Longland, a persecutor of Lutherans, and an eager and overbearing promoter of the Divorce, when he saw England drifting towards Lutheranism, in consequence, indirectly, of what he had helped to do, regretted his share in the transaction, and denied that he was primarily responsible. His Chancellor, Draycott, conveyed his denial to the historian Harpsfield, who records it in his Life of Sir Thomas More. But Harpsfield himself was not convinced. In the following year he wrote that Wolsey, first by himselfe, or by John Langlond, bishopp of Lincolne, and the King's confessor, putt this scruple and doubte into his head.' Even if Longland's denial exonerates himself it does not exonerate Wolsey, whom he indicates when he speaks of others, that weare the cheife setters forth of the divorce betweene the Kinge and the Queene Catharine.' The tradition of the English Catholics inclined strongly to assign to Wolsey the origin of their misfortunes. If they had any bias it would naturally have been to represent the Reformation in England as springing from an unclean passion. Pole, who was a great authority amongst them, had given the example of this controversial use of Anne Boleyn. But they departed from the example he had set, and preferred an explanation which could serve no polemical purpose. Pole himself once indicated the belief that Wolsey was the author of the King's design. It is firmly maintained by his archdeacon, Nicholas Harpsfield, who was a friend of the Warhams, who had lived with Roper, Rastall, Buonvisi, and the family of More, and in whom were concentrated the best Catholic traditions of that age. Sir Richard Shelley wrote a history of the Divorce, which is still extant. He was the son of the well-known judge, and was employed both by Mary and Elizabeth in No serious import belongs to the testi- important embassies. He was the English mony of Henry and Wolsey, given in open Prior of St. John, and after 1559, swam in court, to silence just objections to Wolsey's the full tide of the Catholic reaction. presence there. It was necessary that he When the news of the Northern Rising should be represented as impartial to justify reached Rome, Shelley was one of those his appearance on the judgment seat. It whom the Pope consulted before issuing his would certainly seem that Cavendish meant Bull against the Queen. He attributes all to say what Mr. Brewer imputes to him, that the blame to Wolsey. If any man was Wolsey dissuaded Henry from the begin- more deeply involved than Shelley in the ning. But in reality he says no more than struggle against Elizabeth, it was Nicholas he would be justified in saying by the fact Sanders. Writing history for political that Wolsey did, at various times, dissuade effect, he had no scruple about inventing a him; which is all that Wolsey himself has scene or a fact that served his purpose; and said. Nobody, however, knows better than he had read the works of Rastall and HilMr. Brewer that Cavendish is the author of iard, which we possess only in fragments. much of the confusion that has, until the The evidence which was before him must appearance of his work, obscured the history have implicated Wolsey with a force that of the Divorce. We cannot allow decisive was irresistible. Richard Hall, a man who authority to one ambiguous sentence in an seems to have given proof of sincerity, as anthor who, though doubtless sincere, is he was a Protestant under Mary, and a both partial and inaccurate. Catholic under Elizabeth, wrote a life of Fisher, about the year 1580. He had his The weight of contemporary testimony is t |