Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

A.D. 1533.

CH. 7. of his conference with the pope, had consented to allow these dangerous questions to sink into a May 28. secondary place, and had relinquished his intention, if he had ever seriously entertained it, of becoming an active party in the English quarrel.

Delay of the interview be

tween the pope and Francis.

The true purposes of that interview.

The long talked-of interview was still delayed. First it was to have taken place in the winter, then in the spring; June was the date last fixed for it, and now Bennet had to inform the king that it would not take place before September; and that, from the terms of a communication which had just passed between the parties who were to meet, the subjects discussed at the conference would not be those which he had been led to expect. Francis, in answer to a question from the pope, had specified three things which he proposed particularly to 'intreat.' The first concerned the defence of Christendom against the Turks, the second concerned the general council, and the third concerned 'the extinction of the Lutheran sect.'* These were the points which the Most Christian King was anxious to discuss with the pope. For the latter good object especially, 'he would devise and treat for the provision of an army.' In the King of England's cause, he trusted 'some means might be found whereby it might be compounded;'+ but if persuasion failed, there was no fear lest he should have recourse to any other method.

It was this which had given back to the pope

* Bennet to Henry: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 462.

+ Ibid.

his courage. It was this which Bennet had now to report to Henry. The French alliance, it was too likely, would prove a broken reed, and pierce the hand that leant upon it.

Cн. 7.

A.D. 1533.

isolation of

England.

Henry knew the danger; but danger was not Probable a very terrible thing either to him or to his people. If he had conquered his own reluctance to risk a schism in the church, he was not likely to yield to the fear of isolation; and if there was something to alarm in the aspect of affairs, there was also much to encourage. His parliament was united and resolute. His queen was pregnant. The Nun of Kent had assigned him but a month to live after his marriage; six months had passed, and he was alive and well; the supernatural powers had not declared against him; and while safe with respect to enmity from above, the earthly powers he could afford to defy. When he finally divorced Queen Catherine, he must have foreseen his present position at least as a pos- Policy of sibility, and if not prepared for so swift an apostasy in Francis, and if not yet wholly believing it, we may satisfy ourselves he had never absolutely trusted a prince of metal so questionable.

The Duke of Norfolk was waiting at the French court, with a magnificent embassy, to represent the English king at the interview. The arrival of the pope had been expected in May. It was now delayed till September; and if Clement came after all, it would be for objects in which England had but small concern. It was better for England that there should be no meeting at all, than a meeting to devise schemes for the

Francis.

A.D. 1533.
June.

CH. 7. massacre of Lutherans. Henry therefore wrote to the Duke, telling him generally what he had heard from Rome; he mentioned the three topics which he understood were to form the matter of discussion; but he skilfully affected to regard them as having originated with the imperialists, and not with the French king. In a long paper of instructions, in which earnestness and irony were strangely blended, he directed the ambassador to treat his good brother as if he were still exclusively devoted to the interests of England; and to urge upon him, on the ground of this fresh delay, that the interview should not take place at all.*

The king's instruc

tions to the say

Duke of

Norfolk to

point the

'Our pleasure is,' he wrote, 'that ye shall that we be not a little moved in our

heart to see our good brother and us, being such 'disap- princes of Christendom, to be so handled with the interview.' pope, so much to our dishonour, and to the pope's and the emperor's advancement; seeming to be at the pope's commandment to come or tarry as he or his cardinals shall appoint; and to depend upon his pleasure when to meet-that is to say, when he list or never. If our good brother and we were either suitors to make request, the obtaining whereof we did much set by, or had any particular matter of advantage to entreat with him, these proceedings might be the better tolerated; but our good brother having no particular matter of his own, and being

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

that

*Letter undated, but written about the middle of June: State

Papers, vol. vii. p. 474.

A.D. 1533.

The Three

proposed

wholly to

tage of the

[no] more glory nor surety could happen to the CH. 7. emperour than to obtain the effect of the three articles moved by the pope and his cardinals, we June. think it not convenient to attend the pleasure of Articles' the pope, to go or to abyde. We could have for discusbeen content to have received and taken at the sion will be pope's hand, jointly with our good brother, the advanpleasure and friendship in our great cause; [but] Imperion the other part, we cannot esteem the pope's part so high, as to have our good brother an attendant suitor therefore . . . desiring him, therefore, in anywise to disappoint for his part the said interview; and if he have already granted thereto-upon some new good occasion, which he now undoubtedly hath-to depart from the

same.

[ocr errors]

alists.

found by

that the

For we, ye may say, having the justness of He has our cause for us, with such an entire and whole experience consent of our nobility and commons of our friendship realm and subjects, and being all matters passed, of the pope and in such terms as they now be, do not find to England. such lack and want of that the pope might do, with us or against us, as he would for the obtaining thereof be contented to have a French king our so perfect a friend, to be not only a mediator but a suitor therein, and a suitor attendant to have audience upon liking and after the advice of such cardinals as repute it among pastymes to play and dally with kings and princes; whose honour, ye may say, is above all things, and more dear to us in the person of our good brother, than is any piece of our cause at the pope's hands. And therefore, if there be none other thing but

A.D. 1533.

CH. 7. our cause, and the other causes whereof we be advertised, our advice, counsel, special desire also and request is, [that our good brother shall] break off the interview, unless the pope will make suit to him; and [unless] our said good brother hath such causes of his own as may particularly tend to his own benefit, honour, and profit-wherein he shall do great and singular pleasure unto us; King Henry giving to understand to the pope, that we know ourpope and selves and him both, and look to be esteemed accordingly!'

knows the

himself also.

Intended appeal to a general

council.

Should it appear that on receipt of this communication, Francis was still resolved to persevere, and that he had other objects in view to which Henry had not been made privy, the ambassadors were then to remind him of the remaining obligations into which he had entered; and to ascertain to what degree his assistance might be calculated upon, should the pope pronounce Henry deposed, and the emperor attempt to enforce the sentence.

After forwarding these instructions, the king's next step was to anticipate the pope by an appeal which would neutralize his judgment should he venture upon it; and which offered a fresh opportunity of restoring the peace of Christendom, if there was true anxiety to preserve that peace. The hinge of the great question, in the form which at last it assumed, was the validity or invalidity of the dispensation by which Henry had married his brother's widow. Being a matter which touched the limit of the pope's power, the pope was himself unable to

« AnteriorContinuar »