Doctor Clarke, ambassador from England at the court of Rome, was commissioned to present the pope with a magnificently bound copy of the king's work. "The glory of England," said he, "is to be in the foremost rank among the nations in obedience to the papacy."[402] Happily Britain was ere long to know a glory of a very different kind. The ambassador added that his master, after having refuted Luther's errors with the pen, was ready to combat his adherents with the sword.[403] The pope, touched with this offer, gave him his foot, and then his cheek to kiss, and said to him: "I will do for your Master's book as much as the church has done for the works of St. Jerome and St. Augustine."
DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.
The enfeebled papacy had neither the power of intelligence, nor even of fanaticism. It still maintained its pretensions and its pomp, but it resembled the corpses of the mighty ones of the earth that lie in state, clad in their most magnificent robes: splendour above, death and corruption below. The thunder-bolts of a Hildebrand ceasing to produce their effect, Rome gratefully accepted the defence of laymen, such as Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More, without disdaining their judicial sentences and their scaffolds. "We must honour those noble champions," said the pope to his cardinals, "who show themselves prepared to cut off with the sword the rotten members of Jesus Christ.[404] What title shall we give to the virtuous king of England?"—Protector of the Roman church, suggested one; Apostolic king, said another; and finally, but not without some opposition, Henry VIII was proclaimed Defender of the Faith. At the same time the pope promised ten years' indulgence to all readers of the king's book. This was a lure after the fashion of the middle ages, and which never failed in its effect. The clergy compared its author to the wisest of kings; and the book, of which many thousand copies were printed, filled the Christian world (Cochlœus tells us) with admiration and delight.
Nothing could equal Henry's joy. "His majesty," said the vicar of Croydon, "would not exchange that name for all London and twenty miles round."[405] The king's fool, entering the room just as his master had received the bull, asked him the cause of his transports. "The pope has just named me Defender of the Faith!"—"Ho! ho! good Harry," replied the fool, "let you and me defend one another; but ... take my word for it ... let the faith alone to defend itself."[406] An entire modern system was found in those words. In the midst of the general intoxication, the fool was the only sensible person. But Henry could listen to nothing. Seated on an elevated throne, with the cardinal at his right hand, he caused the pope's letter to be read in public. The trumpets sounded: Wolsey said Mass; the king and his court took their seats around a sumptuous table, and the heralds at arms proclaimed: Henricus Dei gratia Rex Angliæ et Franciæ, Defensor Fidei et Dominus Hiberniæ!
Thus was the king of England more than ever united to the pope: whoever brings the Holy Scriptures into his kingdom shall there encounter that material sword, ferrum et materialem gladium, in which the papacy so much delighted.
CHAPTER VI.
Wolsey's Machinations to obtain the Tiara—He gains Charles V—Alliance between Henry and Charles—Wolsey offers to command the Troops—Treaty of Bruges—Henry believes himself King of France—Victories of Francis I—Death of Leo X.
WOLSEY DESIRES THE TIARA.