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418 later it suddenly appeared on the doors of the churches in Flanders.

Henry at first believed it to be a forgery. One forged brief had already been produced by the Imperialists in the course of their transactions, and he imagined that this was another; even his past experience of Clement had not prepared him for this last venture of effrontery; he wrote to Bennet, enclosing a copy, and requiring him to ascertain if it were really genuine.

The Pope could not deny his hand, though the exposure, and the strange irregular character of the brief itself, troubled him, and Bonner, who was again at the Papal Court, said that 'he was in manner ashamed, and in great perplexity what he might do therein.'

His conduct will be variously interpreted, and to attempt to analyze the motives of a double-minded man is always a hazardous experiment; but a comparison of date, the character of Clement himself, the circumstances in which he was placed, and the retrospective evidence from after events, points almost necessarily to but one