[135] i. e. the Bulla or Papal seal. The passage marked with * * contains three words which I could not decipher.
[136] Doctor Stephen Gardiner, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, at this time in great estimation with Wolsey. In letters and other documents of this period he is often called Doctor Stevens. Mr. Grainger in the third vol. of Bishop Burnet’s Hist. of the Reformation, p. 385, Appendix, intimates that this was a colloquial vulgarism; “vulgarly, as Stephen Gardiner was Mr. Stevyns, in Wolsey’s Letter.” But it is questionable, I think, whether this is the true account of that name. The bishop himself, in his Declaration of his Articles against George Joye, A. D. 1546, fol. 3. b. of the 4to edition, thus speaks of it, “a booke, wherein he wrote, how Doctor Stevens (by whiche name I was then called) had deceyved him.”
In Doctor Barnes’ account of his examination before the bishops at Westminster, he calls Gardiner “Doctor Stephen then secretary.”
[137] The reader may consult Burnet’s Hist. of the Reformation, Vol. iii. p. 46-48. The bishop affirms positively that the king did not appear personally, but by proxy; and that the queen withdrew after reading a protest against the competency of her judges. “And from this it is clear (says the bishop), that the speeches that the historians have made for them are all plain falsities.” It is easy to contradict the confident affirmation of the historian upon the authority of a document published by himself in his Records, i. 78. It is a letter from the king to his agents, where he says: "At which time both we and the queen appeared in person, and they minding to proceed further in the cause, the queen would no longer make her abode to hear what the judges would fully descern, but incontinently departed out of the court; wherefore she was thrice preconnisate, and called eftsoons to return and appear; which she refusing to do, was denounced by the judges contumax, and a citation decerned for her appearance on Friday." Which is corroborated also by Fox’s Acts, p. 958. Indeed the testimony for the personal appearance of the king before the cardinals is surprisingly powerful; even though we do not go beyond Cavendish, and the other ordinary historians. But in addition to these, Dr. Wordsworth has produced the authority of William Thomas, Clerk of the Council in the reign of King Edward VI, a well informed writer; who, in a professed Apology for Henry VIII, extant in MS. in the Lambeth and some other libraries, speaking of this affair affirms, “that the Cardinal (Campeggio) caused the king as a private party in person to appear before him, and the Lady Katharine both.” P. 31.
[138] Hall has given a different report of this speech of the queen’s, which he says was made in French, and translated by him, as well as he could, from notes taken by Cardinal Campeggio’s secretary. In his version she accuses Wolsey with being the first mover of her troubles, and reproaches him, in bitter terms, of pride and voluptuousness: such harsh language could hardly deserve the praise ‘modeste tamen eam locutum fuisse,’ given by Campeggio.
[139] See Neve’s Animadversions on Phillips’s Life of Cardinal Pole, p. 62.
[140] Nothing of this kind is to be found in the journal of this embassy, or in the letters of the bishop and his companions, which have been preserved, and many of which have been published by Le Grand, Histoire du Divorce de Henri VIII.
[141] “In a Manuscript Life of Sir Thomas More, written not many years after Longland’s death, this account is given. ‘I have heard Dr. Draycot, that was his (Longland’s) chaplain and chancellor, say, that he once told the bishop what rumour ran upon him in that matter; and desired to know of him the very truth. Who answered, that in very deed he did not break the matter after that sort, as is said: but the king brake the matter to him first; and never left urging him until he had won him to give his consent. Of which his doings he did forethink himself, and repented afterward.’ MSS. Coll. Eman. Cantab.” Baker’s Notes on Burnet’s Hist. of the Reformation: in Burnet, Vol. iii. p. 400, Appendix. The same Life is among the MSS. in the Lambeth Library, No. 827, (see fol. 12), and, I have reason to think, was composed about the year 1556, and by Nicolas Harpsfield. From these concurrent testimonies it should appear, that the charge which has been often urged against Wolsey, that it was through his intrigues that Longland first suggested his scruples to the king, is unfounded. W.
Wolsey was at the time loudly proclaimed as the instigator of the divorce, and though he denied it upon some occasions, he admitted it on others; but Cardinal Pole asserts that it was first suggested by certain divines whom Anne Boleyn sent to him for that purpose. It is remarkable that he says this when writing to the king, and would surely not have ventured to say so if he had not had good grounds for the assertion.
[142] July, 1529.