The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

It is hard to discover what part Wolsey had as yet taken in the matter, or whether as in other cases Henry had till now been acting alone, though the Cardinal himself tells us that on Catharine's first discovery of the intrigue she attributed the proposal of divorce to "my procurement and setting forth." But from this point his intervention is clear. As legate he took cognizance of all matrimonial causes, and in May, 1527, a collusive action was brought in his court against Henry for cohabiting with his brother's wife. The King appeared by proctor; but the suit was suddenly dropped. Secret as were the proceedings, they had now reached Catharine's ear; and as she refused to admit the facts on which Henry rested his case her appeal would have carried the matter to the tribunal of the Pope, and Clement's decision could hardly be a favorable one.

The Pope was now in fact a prisoner in the Emperor's hands. At the very moment of the suit Rome was stormed and sacked by the army of the Duke of Bourbon. "If the Pope's holiness fortune either to be slain or taken," Wolsey wrote to the King when the news of this event reached England, "it shall not a little hinder your grace's affairs." But it was needful for the Cardinal to find some expedient to carry out the King's will, for the group around Anne were using her skilfully for their purposes. A great party had now gathered to her support. Her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, an able and ambitious man, counted on her rise to set him at the head of the council board; the brilliant group of young courtiers to which her brother belonged saw in her success their own elevation; and the Duke of Suffolk with the bulk of the nobles hoped through her means to bring about the ruin of the statesman before whom they trembled.

What most served their plans was the growth of Henry's passion. "If it please you," the King wrote at this time to Anne Boleyn, "to do the office of a true, loyal mistress, and give yourself body and heart to me, who have been and mean to be your loyal servant, I promise you not only the name but that I shall make you my sole mistress, remove all others from my affection, and serve you only." What stirred Henry's wrath most was Catharine's "stiff and obstinate" refusal to bow to his will. Wolsey's advice that "your Grace should handle her both gently and doulcely" only goaded Henry's impatience. He lent an ear to the rivals who charged his minister with slackness in the cause, and danger drove the Cardinal to a bolder and yet more unscrupulous device.

The entire subjection of Italy to the Emperor was drawing closer the French alliance, and a new treaty had been concluded in April. But this had hardly been signed when the sack of Rome and the danger of the Pope called for bolder measures. Wolsey was despatched on a solemn embassy to Francis to promise an English subsidy on the despatch of a French army across the Alps. But he aimed at turning the Pope's situation to the profit of the divorce. Clement was virtually a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo; and as it was impossible for him to fulfil freely the function of a Pope, Wolsey proposed, in conjunction with Francis, to call a meeting of the college of cardinals at Avignon which should exercise the papal powers till Clement's liberation. As Wolsey was to preside over this assembly, it would be easy to win from it a favorable answer to Henry's request.

But Clement had no mind to surrender his power, and secret orders from the Pope prevented the Italian cardinals from attending such an assembly. Nor was Wolsey more fortunate in another plan for bringing about the same end by inducing Clement to delegate to him his full powers westward of the Alps. Henry's trust in him was fast waning before these failures and the steady pressure of his rivals at court, and the coldness of the King on his return in September was an omen of his minister's fall. Henry was in fact resolved to take his own course; and while Wolsey sought from the Pope a commission enabling him to try the case in his legatine court and pronounce the marriage null and void by sentence of law, Henry had determined at the suggestion of the Boleyns and apparently of Thomas Cranmer, a Cambridge scholar who was serving as their chaplain, to seek, without Wolsey's knowledge, from Clement either his approval of a divorce or, if a divorce could not be obtained, a dispensation to remarry without any divorce at all.

For some months his envoys could find no admission to the Pope; and though in December Clement succeeded in escaping to Orvieto and drew some courage from the entry of the French army into Italy, his temper was still too timid to venture on any decided course. He refused the dispensation altogether. Wolsey's proposal for leaving the matter to a legatine court found better favor; but when the commission reached England it was found to be "of no effect or authority." What Henry wanted was not merely a divorce but the express sanction of the Pope to his divorce, and this Clement steadily evaded. A fresh embassy, with Wolsey's favorite and secretary, Stephen Gardiner, at its head, reached Orvieto in March, 1528, to find, in spite of Gardiner's threats, hardly better success; but Clement at last consented to a legatine commission for the trial of the case in England. In this commission Cardinal Campeggio, who was looked upon as a partisan of the English King, was joined with Wolsey.