Page:Divorce of Catherine of Aragon.djvu/86

 verbo Pontificis that he would never advocate it to Rome."

Engagements which he intended to keep or break according to the turns of the war between Francis and Charles did not press very heavily perhaps on Clement's conscience, but they were not extorted from him without many agonies. "He has granted the commission," Casalis wrote. "He is not unwilling to please the King and Wolsey, but fears the Spaniards more than ever he did. The Friar-General has forbidden him in the Emperor's name to grant the King's request. He fears for his life from the Imperialists if the Emperor knows of it. Before he would grant the brief he said, weeping, that it would be his utter ruin. The Venetians and Florentines desired his destruction. His sole hope of life was from the Emperor. He asked me to swear whether the King would desert him or not. Satisfied on this point, he granted the brief, saying that he placed himself in the King's arms, as he would be drawn into perpetual war with the Emperor. Wolsey might dispose of him and the Papacy as if he were Pope himself."

The Emperor had insisted, at Catherine's desire, that the cause should not be heard in England. The Pope had agreed that it should be heard in England. Consent had been wrung from him, but his consent had been given, and Campeggio was to go and make the best of it. His open commission was as ample as words could make it. He and Wolsey were to hear the cause and decide it. The secret "decretal" which he had wept over while he signed it declared, before the cause was heard, the sentence which was to be