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 had talked of going over to France in May to complete matters. The king also, who had separate interviews with the ambassadors, expressed a desire to pay Francis a visit himself. The French objected that this would delay the war against the emperor, and said that he might trust everything to Wolsey; but Henry said he had things to tell Francis of which Wolsey knew nothing. It is clear that he had begun to entertain the thought of divorcing Catherine which it was afterwards alleged that Wolsey had put into his head—a statement quite as untrue as the political figment that the bishop of Tarbes had suggested it by insinuating a doubt of the Princess Mary's legitimacy. Wolsey must have learned the king's ideas on this subject—or rather a part of them—shortly after this; and he certainly did not like them, although, for prudential reasons, he did his best to advance the king's wishes. In May he got the king to appear privately before him and Archbishop Warham, and called on him to prove that his marriage was lawful. The proceedings led to no result; but on 22 June the king told Catherine (bidding her, however, keep the matter secret) that they must separate, as he had been informed by divines that they were living in mortal sin. The badness of the king's cause was made still more apparent to Wolsey when he learned immediately afterwards that Catherine at the time of her marriage to Henry had been a virgin widow. The king saw that he was perplexed by this discovery; but Wolsey was anxious to assure him that he did not consider it fatal to his case, as they had been married in facie ecclesiæ and the dispensation did not meet the case.

Wolsey now set out for France with the name of the king's lieutenant and in state no less than regal. The pretext for the close alliance was the pope's liberation from captivity, and at Canterbury he ordered a special litany for the Pope Clement to be sung by the monks of Christchurch. On his way he endeavoured to quiet rumours about the queen's divorce by shamefully jesuitical statements made in confidence to Archbishop Warham and Bishop Fisher. On 16 Aug. he concluded a number of treaties with Francis at Amiens. His mission would have united England and France in the disowning of papal authority while the pope was under the emperor's control, and his last act in France was to get four cardinals, three French and one Italian, to join him in a protest to that effect. But one thing he had expected to do which he could not do; for he certainly left England in the persuasion that the king was willing, after his divorce, to marry, not the Duchess of Alençon, as later writers said (for she had already found a second husband in January), but Renée, daughter of Louis XII of France. He was forbidden, however, to broach this proposal, and he became painfully aware that the king's ultimate object was one that he had concealed from him and was endeavouring to obtain in his absence by the mission of William Knight (1476–1547) [q. v.] to Rome. He returned to England in September, and Anne Boleyn insisted on being present at his first interview with the king.

It was the friends of Anne Boleyn who had most counselled his going to France, that they might get the king's ear in his absence. Their attempt to manage without him, however, was a great mistake, even in her interest; for Knight with great difficulty, and not till the pope had escaped to Orvieto, obtained bulls, which turned out to be useless for the king's purpose after all, the demand for them only revealing to the papal advisers what that purpose was. But Wolsey, to whom the cause was again committed, now tried the desperate policy of endeavouring to get the pope to give away his authority, without appeal, to himself and another legate to be sent to England, and Gardiner and Foxe were despatched to Italy with this view in February 1528. Their instructions were to procure from the pope a decretal commission to define the law by which the judges should be guided and a dispensation for the new marriage. The latter (although it was really a greater stretch of papal power than the old dispensation to marry Catherine) was passed without difficulty; but the other decretal Gardiner failed to obtain, even after long days spent in arguing with the pope and cardinals; and Foxe at last departed for England with a mere general commission, which they hoped would do, but which Wolsey found to be inadequate. Again he urged Gardiner to press the pope for a decretal commission, not only for public reasons, but personally for Wolsey's sake; and in the end Clement, though with great reluctance, agreed to send one by Campeggio, the legate who was to be despatched as Wolsey's colleague. But the document was only to be shown to the king and Wolsey and then destroyed, Campeggio being strictly enjoined not to let it go out of his hands, for Wolsey himself had said it need not be used in the process, as he only wanted it to strengthen his authority with the king. Clement also was got to give a dangerous promise that he would not inter-