When the execution of Fisher and More was reported at Rome, especially that of the former, who was invested with the dignity of cardinal, every one discovered the most violent rage against the king; and numerous libels were published by the wits and orators of Italy, comparing him to Caligula, Nero, Domitian, and all the most unrelenting tyrants of antiquity. Clement VII. had died about six months after he pronounced sentence against the king; and Paul III., of the name of Farnese, had succeeded to the papal throne. This pontiff, who while cardinal, had always favored Henry’s cause, had hoped that personal animosities being buried with his predecessor, might not be impossible to form an agreement with England: and the king himself was so desirous of accommodating matters, that in a negotiation which he entered into with Francis a little before this time, he required that that monarch should conciliate a friendship between him and the court of Rome. But Henry was accustomed to prescribe, not to receive terms; and even while he was negotiating for peace, his usual violence often carried him to commit offences which rendered the quarrel totally incurable. The execution of Fisher was regarded by Paul as so capital an injury, that he immediately passed censures against the king, citing him and all his adherents to appear in Rome within ninety days, in order to answer for their crimes: if they failed, he excommunicated them; deprived the king of his crown; laid the kingdom under an interdict; declared his issue by Anne Boleyn illegitimate; dissolved all leagues which any Catholic princes had made with him; gave his kingdom to any invader; commanded the nobility to take arms against him; freed his subjects from all oaths of allegiance; cut off their commerce with foreign states; and declared it lawful for any one to seize them, to make slaves of their persons, and to convert their effects to his own use.[*] But though these censures were passed, they were not at that time openly denounced; the pope delayed the publication till he should find an agreement with England entirely desperate; and till the emperor, who was at that time hard pressed by the Turks and the Protestant princes in Germany, should be in a condition to carry the sentence into execution.
The king knew that he might expect any injury which it should be in Charles’s power to inflict; and he therefore made it the chief object of his policy to incapacitate that monarch from wreaking his resentment upon him.[**]
* Sanders, p. 148.
** Herbert, p. 350, 351.
He renewed his friendship with Francis, and opened negotiations for marrying his infant daughter, Elizabeth, with the duke of Angoulême, third son of Francis. These two monarchs also made advances to the princes of the Protestant league in Germany, ever jealous of the emperor’s ambition; and Henry, besides remitting them some money, sent Fox, bishop of Hereford, as Francis did Bellay, lord of Langley, to treat with them. But during the first fervors of the reformation, an agreement in theological tenets was held, as well as a union of interests, to be essential to a good correspondence among states; and though both Francis and Henry flattered the German princes with hopes of their embracing the confession of Augsbourg, it was looked upon as a bad symptom of their sincerity, that they exercised such extreme rigor against all preachers of the reformation in their respective dominions.[*] Henry carried the feint so far, that, while he thought himself the first theologian in the world, he yet invited over Melaricthon, Bucer, Sturmius, Draco, and other German divines, that they might confer with him, and instruct him in the foundation of their tenets. These theologians were now of great importance in the world; and no poet or philosopher, even in ancient Greece, where they were treated with most respect, had ever reached equal applause and admiration with those wretched composers of metaphysical polemics. The German princes told the king, that they could not spare their divines; and as Henry had no hopes of agreement with such zealous disputants, and knew that in Germany the followers of Luther would not associate with the disciples of Zuinglius, because, though they agreed in every thing else, they differed in some minute particulars with regard to the eucharist, he was the more indifferent on account of this refusal. He could also foresee, that even while the league of Smalcalde did not act in concert with him, they would always be carried by their interests to oppose the emperor: and the hatred between Francis and that monarch was so inveterate, that he deemed himself sure of a sincere ally in one or other of these potentates.
* Sleidan, lib. 10.
1536.
During these negotiations, an incident happened in England, which promised a more amicable conclusion of those disputes, and seemed even to open the way for a reconciliation between Henry and Charles. Queen Catharine was seized with a lingering illness, which at last brought her to her grave; she died at Kimbolton, in the county of Huntingdon, in the fiftieth year of her age. A little before she expired, she wrote a very tender letter to the king, in which she gave him the appellation of “her most dear lord, king, and husband.” She told him that as the hour of her death was now approaching, she laid hold of this last opportunity to inculcate on him the importance of his religious duty, and the comparative emptiness of all human grandeur and enjoyment; that though his fondness towards these perishable advantages had thrown her into many calamities, as well as created to himself much trouble, she yet forgave him all past injuries, and hoped that his pardon would be ratified in Heaven; and that she had no other request to make, than to recommend to him his daughter, the sole pledge of their loves; and to crave his protection for her maids and servants. She concluded with these words: “I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things.”[*] The king was touched, even to the shedding of tears, by this last tender proof of Catharine’s affection; but Queen Anne is said to have expressed her joy for the death of a rival beyond what decency or humanity could permit.[**]
The emperor thought that, as the demise of his aunt had removed all foundation of personal animosity between him and Henry, it might not now be impossible to detach him from the alliance of France, and to renew his own confederacy with England, from which he had formerly reaped so much advantage. He sent Henry proposals for a return to ancient amity, upon these conditions:[***] that he should be reconciled to the see of Rome, that he should assist him in his war with the Turk, and that he should take part with him against Francis, who now threatened the duchy of Milan. The king replied, that he was willing to be on good terms with the emperor, provided that prince would acknowledge that the former breach of friendship came entirely from himself: as to the conditions proposed, the proceedings against the bishop of Rome were so just, and so fully ratified by the parliament of England, that they could not now be revoked; when Christian princes should have settled peace among themselves, he would not fail to exert that vigor which became him, against the enemies of the faith; and after amity with the emperor was once fully restored, he should then be in a situation, as a common friend both to him and Francis, either to mediate an agreement between them, or to assist the injured party.
* Herbert, p. 403.
** Burnet, vol. i. p. 192
*** Du Bellai, liv. v. Herbert. Burnet, vol. iii. in Coll.
No· 60.
What rendered Henry more indifferent to the advances made by the emperor was, both his experience of the usual duplicity and insincerity of that monarch, and the intelligence which he received of the present transactions in Europe. Francis Sforza, duke of Milan, had died without issue; and the emperor maintained that the duchy, being a fief of the empire, was devolved to him, as head of the Germanic body: not to give umbrage, however, to the states of Italy, he professed his intention of bestowing that principality on some prince who should be obnoxious to no party, and he even made offer of it to the duke of Angoulême, third son of Francis. The French monarch, who pretended that his own right to Milan was now revived upon Sforza’s death, was content to substitute his second son, the duke of Orleans, in his place; and the emperor pretended to close with this proposal. But his sole intention in that liberal concession was to gain time till he should put himself in a warlike posture, and be able to carry an invasion into Francis’s dominions. The ancient enmity between these, princes broke out anew in bravadoes, and in personal insults on each other, ill becoming persons of their rank, and still less suitable to men of such unquestioned bravery. Charles soon after invaded Provence in person, with an army of fifty thousand men; but met with no success. His army perished with sickness, fatigue, famine, and other disasters; and he was obliged to raise the siege of Marseilles, and retire into Italy with the broken remains of his forces. An army of imperialists, near thirty thousand strong, which invaded France on the side of the Netherlands, and laid siege to Peronne, made no greater progress, but retired upon the approach of a French army. And Henry had thus the satisfaction to find, both that his ally Francis was likely to support himself without foreign assistance, and that his own tranquillity was fully insured by these violent wars and animosities on the continent.