The task of examining the Treatise upon the divorce was assigned to Sir Thomas More, but the learned jurist felt the danger of such a trust, and consulted several bishops; the greater number hesitated: all referred to the Pope the decision of so great an affair. A scruple analogous to that which had so suddenly arisen in the mind of the king had preoccupied many people at the time of the marriage. The bull of the Pope had satisfied all minds, and it was thought hard to find the question resuscitated after so many years of agreement. It was absolutely necessary to take the matter before Clement VII.
The emperor had foreseen the blow, and had prepared to avert it. Considering the projected divorce as an insult to his family, he had been careful, before negotiating with the Pope, besieged by the imperialists in the castle of St. Angelo, to forewarn him against the intentions of the King of England, and to make mention of them in conversation. Clement VII., however, had escaped, and from his refuge at Orvieto, he awaited the approach of the French army under the orders of Lautrec. Instead of the soldiers that he expected, he was attacked by the agents of King Henry, who demanded authorization for the Cardinal Legate in England to decide the question of the divorce, with the assistance of a second legate, sent from Rome. The Pope was greatly embarrassed; the army upon which he counted was partly maintained by English gold. He signed the authorization, thus letting the weight of the decision fall again upon Wolsey. The matter of the bull of Julius II. was referred to a commission which was competent to revoke it if the dispensation had been obtained by means of false representations. Out of consideration for the Princess Mary, she was to be legitimated in case of the divorce of her mother. Such was the result of the negotiations which were prolonged, with various alternations, from the end of the year 1527 to the beginning of the year 1528.
This decision, which fully satisfied Henry VIII. greatly troubled the cardinal; he demanded that Cardinal Campeggio should be sent to him from Rome to share the dreaded responsibility which was imposed upon him; he gently suggested to the king the doubts and difficulties which several bishops had expressed to him. The king flew into a passion, forgetting in his fury the long services of his minister. Wolsey tremblingly yielded, and caused the Pope to be implored to sign the decretal bull which was to approve his decision by anticipation. The Pope signed, at the same time charging Cardinal Campeggio to keep the bull secret and to produce it only in case of absolute necessity.
An epidemic, known as the sweating sickness, which caused the death of many persons, and even placed Anne Boleyn in danger, arrested, for a while, the progress of affairs; terrified by this visitation, the king became reconciled with Queen Catherine, zealously resumed all the practices of religion, and appeared to forget Anne Boleyn, who was in the country, suffering from illness. But with the danger the good resolutions of Henry disappeared, and the great noblemen of the court received an order to present themselves at the levee of the favorite as at that of the queen. Cardinal Campeggio had just arrived in England, and it was expected that the legates would at once convoke the commission. But affairs in Italy once more changed aspect; the emperor was again assuming the ascendant in that country, and the Italian legate was too crafty to set the Pope at variance with a conqueror, who might perhaps shortly be imposing laws. Lautrec, who for a while had appeared victorious, was besieged by the imperialists within his camp, near Naples, where he died on the 15th of August, from grief as much as from sickness. The unhappy remains of his army were compelled to capitulate, and the Pope opened up secret negotiations with the emperor. Campeggio continued to procrastinate; it was necessary to gain time at any price. For a moment the Pope had been thought to be dying, and Wolsey had appeared to be very near the height of his ambition; but Clement recovered his health, and the King of France himself was negotiating with the emperor. Henry VIII. despatched, under the great seal, the formal order to the two legates to assemble their commission, and to proceed to the inquiry into the divorce. The court met in the great Hall of the Black Friars, on the 13th of May, 1529.
The king and queen had been summoned; when his name was called, Henry replied without hesitating, "Present," Catherine, accompanied by four bishops, instructed to plead her cause, did not respond to the summons; but she arose, and, crossing the hall, threw herself at the feet of the king, imploring him in most touching terms, with affecting dignity and sweetness, to have pity on her, to remember the duties which she had rendered him, and not to inflict upon her a dishonor which she did not deserve. She rose amidst the involuntary emotion of all present, and left the hall whilst the king was protesting his attachment to her, and attributing all these persecutions to the scruples of his conscience. "It was not," he said, "my lord cardinal who had suggested the idea of the divorce, as the queen asserted; but the Bishop of Lincoln, his confessor, and several other prelates, had enjoined him to address himself to the Pope."
Catherine had refused to be present henceforth at the sittings; the inquiry therefore proceeded without her. The advocates of the king, who alone spoke, proved, or pretended to prove, all the facts which they had advanced; they, concluded by pronouncing the invalidity of the marriage. The king urged Wolsey, and Wolsey pressed Campeggio to deliver the judgment; but the affairs of the Pope had been arranged; he had concluded, on the 29th of June, an advantageous treaty with the emperor, and no longer feared the anger of the king. Again, on the 23rd of July, when the advocates of the king demanded a definitive reply, "I have not come here," said Campeggio, "to satisfy a man from fear or from hope of a reward, be he king or potentate. I am old, sick, and infirm, and every day I expect death. Of what avail would it be therefore, to me to place my soul in danger of perdition for the favour of a prince? In the doubt and difficulties which shroud this affair, wherein the defendant will not plead her cause, I defer the decision until we shall have had the advice of the Pope and other experienced persons of his council. I adjourn the tribunal until the month of October."
As he finished speaking, the Duke of Suffolk, brother-in-law of King Henry, struck his fist upon the table, exclaiming, "Never has a cardinal done any good for England." Wolsey took this reproach upon himself, and, turning towards Suffolk, he reminded him angrily of the services he had rendered him. "Without me," he said, "cardinal as I am, you would not at this hour possess a head upon your shoulders, or a tongue to insult us with. We are here only as deputies charged to examine an important matter, and we cannot proceed without the decision of our supreme chief. Be calm, my lord, remember what you owe me, and what I thought never to reveal to living man for your dishonor and my glory."