Page:Divorce of Catherine of Aragon.djvu/250

 for the delivery of sentence before the Pope should leave Rome. The Pope continued to insist on knowing the Emperor's intentions.

A Spanish lawyer, Rodrigo Davalos, had been sent to Rome to dissuade the Pope from the Nice interview, and to quicken the action of the Rota.

"Queen Catherine's suit," he said, "had been carried on as if it were that of the poorest woman in the world. Since Cifuentes and he had been there the process had been pushed on, but the Advocates and Proctors had not received a real. Their hands required anointing to make them stick to their business. The Cardinals were at sixes and sevens, and refused to pull together, do what Davalos would."

Davalos, being a skilful manipulator and going the right way to work, pressed the process forward in the Rota without telling the Pope what he was doing, since Clement would have stopped it had he not been kept in ignorance. But, "God helping, no excuse was left." The forms were all concluded, and nothing remained but to pass the long-talked-of sentence. The Pope was so "importuned" by the French and English Ambassadors to suspend it till after the meeting at Nice that Davalos could not say whether he would get it, after all; but he told the Pope that further hesitation would be regarded by the Emperor as an outrage, and would raise suspicion through the whole world. The Pope promised, but where goodwill was wanting trifles were obstacles. Davalos confessed that he had no faith in his promise. He feared the Pope must have issued some secret brief, which stood in his way.