Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/543

 The Popes and the Councils 507 The intention of divers of the cardinals was that when they might see a better hour and time they would return again to their election, because this pope was not profitable for them, nor also for the Church, for he was a furnish man and melancholious, so that when he saw himself in prosperity and in puissance of the papality, and that divers Christian kings were joined to him and wrote to him and did put them under his obedience, he waxed proud and -headstrong, and would have taken from the cardinals divers of their rights and old customs, the which greatly displeased them. And so they spake together and imagined how he was not well worthy to govern the world ; wherefore they purposed to choose another pope, sage and discreet, by whom the Church should be well governed. . . . [Accordingly when they left Rome for the summer] all of one accord assembled together and their voices rested on Sir Robert of Geneva, son to the earl of Geneva. He was first bishop of Therouanne and later of Cambrai, and was called cardinal of Geneva. At his election were most of the car- dinals, and he was called Clement [VII]. . . . And when the French king who as then reigned was cer- tified thereof, he had great marvel, and sent for his brother and for all the nobles and prelates of his realm and for the rector and master doctors of the university of Paris, to know of them which election, whether the first or the second, he should hold unto. This matter was not shortly determined, for divers clerks varied, but finally all the prelates of France inclined to Clement, and so did the king's brethren and the most part of the university of Paris ; and so the king was informed by all the great clerks of his realm; and so he obeyed the pope Clement and held him for the true pope, and made a special commandment throughout his realm that every man should take and repute Clement for pope and that every man should obey him as God on earth. The king of Spain was of the same opinion and so was the earl of Savoy, the duke of Milan, and the queen of Naples. The believing thus of the French king upon Clement greatly strengthened his cause, for the realm of France was The cardinals desert Urban and choose a new pope, Clement VII. Decisive action of the French king in declaring for Clement