Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/205

] downde to the king's dishonour or disprouffit." Henry, in like manner, made his will, and sent it to Wolsey, "that he might see the tried and harty mynd that he had with him above all men living."

All this piety, humility, and return to domestic kindness and decorum, led people to imagine that the king had determined to abandon the divorce and the favourite lady, but no sooner had the contagion disappeared, than he recalled Anne Boleyn to Court and ordered the nobles to attend her levées as if she were already queen. All the time that she had been absent, and he had been living so like a good husband with his own wife, and had been so zealous in his devotions, he had been corresponding with his mistress in the most passionate and love-sick terms. These letters yet remain. Wolsey had suffered a severe attack of the disorder, or gave out that he had, in July, that he might touch the repentant mind of Henry, or keep him quiet till the arrival of Campeggio; and Anne Boleyn, who, as if to imitate her royal lover, or to flatter the cardinal on the eve of his exercising a fraction of such vital consequence to her ambition, had begun to fawn on Wolsey, wrote to him the most sadly hypocritical letters.

Campeggio, who had most reluctantly undertaken the appointment of commissioner in this case, was all this time slowly, very slowly, progressing towards England. He was an eminent professor of the canon law, and an experienced statesman. He had been a married man, and had a family; but, on the death of his wife, in 1509, he had taken orders, was made cardinal in 1517, and had been employed by Leo and his successors in various arduous cases to their highest satisfaction. Campeggio was now suffering all the agonies of the gout, and was eager to transfer this business to some one else; but Clement was at his wits' end with the difficulties of his situation, and thought that not only the abilities of Campeggio, but his gout itself was a thing to be thankful for, as it might give him plausible grounds for delay.

The poor Pope was environed by perplexities. The Emperor Charles watched all the movements of the affair with the closest attention. He vowed to support and defend his aunt. His ambassador, Guigonez, steadily opposed every proposition of Henry's ambassador, Gardiner. Charles, on the one hand, as well as Henry on the other, threatened, if the Pope decided against him, to renounce his obedience to the Holy See. To make matters worse, the arms of France were on the decline in Italy, those of the emperor in the ascendant. When Clement ventured to sign the decretal bull, there was a very different promise of affairs. Lautrec, the French general, was traversing Italy with a victorious army. He drove the Imperialists to the very walls of Naples, and had every prospect of securing that city by the goodwill of the inhabitants. But his successes were rendered abortive by the folly of Francis, who was spending his time amongst his mistresses, and neglected to send his valiant army either money or reinforcements. A contagious disease broke out in the French camp while vainly waiting for these; and Lautrec, the English commissary, Sir Robert Jerningham, and the greater part of the men perished, the enfeebled remnant being made prisoners of war. To have run in the face of this victorious emperor, with all Italy now prostrate at his feet, would have been madness in the Pope, and his only resource betwixt the two troublesome kings was all possible delay. Clement, indeed, was seriously disposed to make peace with Charles, but secretly: in which case it was quite out of the question that he would decide against Catherine.

Campeggio arrived in London at last, on the 7th of October, but in such a state of exhaustion, from the violent and long attacks of the gout, that he was carried in a litter to his lodgings, and remained for some time confined to his bed. Henry, with his characteristic hypocrisy, on the approach of the legate, again sent away his mistress, and recalled his obliging wife, with whom he appeared to be living on the most affectionate terms. They had the same bed and board, and went regularly through the same devotions. The arrival of the legate raised the courage of the people, who were unanimous in the favour of the queen, and though Wolsey made every exertion to silence and restrain them, they loudly declared that, let the king marry whom he pleased, they would acknowledge no successor in prejudice to Mary.

It was a fortnight before the legate was ready to see the king. On the 22nd of October he made his visit, and was, of course, most graciously received by Henry and the cardinal, but they could extract from him no opinion as to the probable result of the inquiry which was at hand. Henry and Wolsey exerted all their arts to win over the great man. The king paid him constant visits; all to mollify and draw him out, heaped all sorts of flatteries upon him, and made him the most brilliant promises. He had already made him Bishop of Salisbury, and presented him with a splendid palace in Rome; and he now offered to confer on him the rich bishopric of Durham, and knighted his son Ridolfo, by whom he was accompanied. But nothing moved the impenetrable ecclesiastic; for if favour's were heaped on him here, terrors awaited him at Rome, if he betrayed the trust of his master, the Pope. He replied to all solicitations that he had every disposition to serve the king, so far as his conscience would permit him. To produce a favourable bias in the opinions of the inexorable man, the judgments of eminent divines and doctors of the canon law on the king's case were laid before him, which he read, but still locked his own ideas in his own breast.

On the 27th of October Campeggio waited on the queen in private, and afterwards accompanied by Wolsey and four other prelates. Clement had strongly impressed it on the legate to try first to reconcile the king and queen; if that were found impossible, to prevail on Catherine to enter a convent; and if that were unavailing, to conduct the trial with all due form, but to take care to come to no conclusion—at all events, before he had consulted him. Campeggio soon saw that no reconcilement on the part of Henry was possible; he, therefore, as earnestly advised the queen to retire to a convent, stating to her the objections to the validity of her marriage. Catherine was calm, but firm. She said that for herself she took no thought, but that she would never consent to compromise the rights of her daughter by voluntarily admitting the pleas against her marriage. She demanded the aid of able counsel to defend her cause, chosen by herself from amongst the subjects of her nephew. This, to a certain