Charles himself felt that such a position could not be maintained. Henry was evidently not frightened. There was no sign that the English people were turning against him. If a bull of excommunication was issued, Charles himself would be called on to execute it, and it was necessary to be sure of his ground.
Ortiz raged on. “I told his Holiness,” he wrote, “that if he did not excommunicate the King I would stand up at the day of judgment and accuse him before God.”[188] Charles was obliged to tell Ortiz that he must be more moderate. A further difficulty had risen in Rome itself. If the cause was tried at Rome, was it to be tried before the Cardinals in consistory or before the court of the Rota? The Cardinals were men of the world. Micer Mai’s opinion was that from the Rota only a judgment could be with certainty expected in the Queen’s favour.[189] “The winds are against us,” he wrote to Secretary Covos; “what is done one day is undone the next. The Cardinals will not stir, but quietly pocket the ducats which come from the Emperor, and the larger sums which come from the English, who are lavish in spending. The Pope will not break with France. He says he has so many ties with the Kings of France and England that he must pretend goodwill to the latter for fear they both break off from the Church, as they have threatened to do.”[190]
CHAPTER XII.
Henry advised to marry without waiting for sentence—Meeting of Henry and Francis—Anne Boleyn present at the interview—Value of Anne to the French Court—Pressure on the Pope by the Agents of the Emperor—Complaints of Catherine—Engagements of Francis—Action of Clement—The King conditionally excommunicated—Demand for final sentence—Cranmer appointed Archbishop of Canterbury—Marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn—Supposed connivance of the Pope—The Nuncio attends Parliament—The Act of Appeals—The Emperor entreated to intervene—Chapuys and the King.
The Pope had promised Ortiz that nothing should be said of the intended excommunication till the brief was complete. He betrayed the secret to the English Agents, by whom it was conveyed to Henry. The French Ambassador had advised the King to hesitate no longer, but to marry and end the controversy. The Pope himself had several times in private expressed the same wish. But Henry, in love though he is supposed to have been, determined to see Francis in person before he took a step which could not be recalled. He desired to know distinctly how far France was prepared to go along with him in defying the Papal censures. An interview between the two Kings at such a crisis would also show the world that their alliance was a practical fact, and that if the Emperor declared war in execution of the censures he would have France for an enemy as well as England.
The intended meeting was announced at the end of August, and, strange to say, there was still a belief prevailing that a marriage would come of it between the King and a French princess, and that Anne would be disappointed after all. “If it be so,” wrote Chapuys, “the Lady Anne is under a singular delusion, for she writes to her friends that at this interview all that she has been so long wishing for will be accomplished.” One thing was clear, both to the Imperial Ambassador and the Nuncio, that the Pope by his long trifling had brought himself into a situation where he must either have to consent to a judgment against Catherine or encounter as best he could the combination of two of the most powerful Princes in Christendom. The least that he could do was to issue an inhibition against the King’s marriage either with Anne or with the Frenchwoman.
The Pope’s danger was real enough, but Anne Boleyn had nothing to fear for herself. She was to form part of the cortége. She was to go, and to be received at the French court as Henry’s bride-elect, and she was created Marchioness of Pembroke for the occasion. Queen Catherine believed that the marriage would be completed at the interview with a publicity which would make Francis an accomplice. The Emperor was incredulous. Reluctantly he had been driven to the conclusion that Henry was really in earnest, and he still thought it impossible that such an outrage as a marriage could be seriously contemplated while the divorce was still undecided.[191] Yet contemplated it evidently was. Politically the effect would have been important, and it is not certain that Francis would not have encouraged a step which would be taken as an open insult by Charles. The objection, so Chapuys heard, came from the lady herself, who desired to be married in state with the usual formalities in London.[192] Invited to the interview, however, she certainly was by Francis. The French Queen sent her a present of jewels. The Sieur de Langey came with special compliments from the King to request her attendance. She had been a useful instrument in dividing Henry from the Emperor, and his master, De Langey said, desired to thank her for the inestimable services which she had rendered, and was daily rendering him. He wished to keep her devoted to his interests. Wolsey himself had not been more valuable to him. He had not to pay her a pension of 25,000 crowns, as he had done to the Cardinal. Therefore he meant to pay her in flattery and in forwarding the divorce at Rome.[193]
In vain Catherine poured out to Clement her wailing cries for sentence—sentence without a moment’s delay. Less than ever could the Pope be brought to move. He must wait and see what came of the meeting of the Kings; and whether the Emperor got the better of the Turks. It was the harder to bear because she had persuaded herself, and had persuaded Ortiz, that, if the King was once excommunicated, the whole of England would rise against him for his contumacious disobedience.[194]