Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/245

1534.] Meanwhile, at Rome a change had taken place which for the moment seemed to promise that the storm after all might pass away. The conclave had elected as a successor to Clement a man who, of all the Italian ecclesiastics, was the most likely to recompose the quarrels in the Church; and who, if the genius or the destiny of the Papacy had not been too strong for any individual will, would perhaps have succeeded in restoring peace to Christendom. In the debates upon the divorce the Cardinal Farnese had been steadily upon Henry's side. He had maintained from the' first the general justice of the King's demands. After the final sentence was passed, he had urged, though vainly, the reconsideration of that fatal step; and though slow and cautious, although he was a person who, as Sir Gregory Cassalis described him, 'would accomplish little, but would make few mistakes,' he had allowed his opinion upon this, as on other matters connected with the English quarrel, to be generally known. He was elected therefore by French influence as the person most likely to meet the difficulties of Europe in a catholic and conciliating spirit. He had announced his intention, immediately on Clement's death, of calling a general council