Thus Cromwell and he recommenced their secret meetings. A country-house was selected for the purpose, where their interviews would be unobserved. Chapuys had recommended that Henry should assist in calling a General Council. Cromwell undertook that Henry would consent, provided the Council was not held in Italy, or in the Pope’s or the Emperor’s dominions, and provided that the divorce should not be among the questions submitted to it. The Emperor, he said, had done enough for his honour, and might now leave the matter to the King’s conscience. With respect to the Queen and Princess, the King had already written to Sir John Wallop, who was to lay his letters before the Spanish Ambassador in Paris. The King had said that, although the Emperor, in forsaking a loyal friend for the sake of a woman, had not acted well with him, yet he was willing to forget and forgive. If the Emperor would advise the ladies to submit to the judgment of the Universities of Europe, which had been sanctioned by the English estates of the realm, and was as good as a decree of a Council, they would have nothing to complain of.[324] Chapuys observed that such a letter ought to have been shown to himself before it was sent; but that was of no moment. The King of France, Cromwell went on, would bring the Turk, and the Devil, too, into Christendom to recover Milan; the King and the Emperor ought to draw together to hold France in check; and yet, to give Chapuys a hint that he knew what he had been doing, he said he had heard, though he did not believe it, that the Emperor and the King of the Romans had thought of invading England, in a belief that they would make an easy conquest of it. They would find the enterprise more costly than they expected, and, even if they did conquer England, they could not keep it. Chapuys, wishing to learn how much had been discovered, asked what Cromwell meant. Cromwell told him the exact truth. The scheme had been to stop the trade between England and Flanders. A rebellion was expected to follow, which, Cromwell admitted, was not unlikely; and then, in great detail and with a quiet air of certainty, he referred to the solicitations continually made to the Emperor to send across an army.
Leaving Chapuys to wonder at his sources of information, so accurate, Cromwell spoke of an approaching conference at Calais, which was to be held at the request of the French King. He did not think anything would come of it. He had himself declined to be present, but one of the proposals to be made would be an offer of the Duke of Angoulême for the young Princess Elizabeth. The Council, he said, had meantime been reviewing the old treaty for the marriage of the Emperor to the Princess Mary, and the King had spoken in the warmest terms of the Emperor. Perhaps as a substitute for the French connection, and provided the divorce was not called in question again, he thought that the Princess Elizabeth might be betrothed to Philip, and a marriage could be found out of the realm for the Princess Mary with the Emperor’s consent and approbation. The King, in this case, would give her the greatest and richest dower that was ever given to any Queen or Empress.[325]
Chapuys observed that the divorce must be disposed of before fresh marriages could be thought of. Cromwell wished him to speak himself to the King. Chapuys politely declined to take so delicate a negotiation out of Cromwell’s hands. For himself, he had not yet abandoned hope of a different issue. Lord Darcy was still eager as ever, and wished to communicate directly with the Emperor. From Ireland, too, the news were less discouraging. The insurrection had burnt down, but was still unsubdued. Lord Thomas found one of his difficulties to lie in the incompleteness of the Papal censures. The formal Bull of Deposition was still unpublished. The young chief had written to the Pope to say that, but for this deficiency, he would have driven the English out of the island, and to beg that it might be immediately supplied. He had himself, too, perhaps, been in fault. The murder of an archbishop who had not been directly excommunicated was an irregularity and possibly a crime. He prayed that the Pope would send him absolution. Paul as he read the letter showed much pleasure. He excused his hesitation as having risen from a hope that the King of England would repent. For the future he said he would do his duty; and at once sent Lord Thomas the required pardon for an act which had been really meritorious.[326]
The absolution may have benefited Lord Thomas’s soul. It did not save him from the gallows.
Again Cromwell and Chapuys met. Again the discussion returned to the insoluble problem. The Spanish Council of State had half recommended that the divorce should be passed over, as it had been at Cambray. Chapuys laboured to entangle Henry in an engagement that it should be submitted to the intended General Council. The argument took the usual form. Cromwell said that the King could not revoke what he had done, without disgrace. Chapuys answered that it was the only way to avoid disgrace, and the most honourable course which he could adopt. The King ought not to be satisfied in such a matter with the laws and constitutions of his own country. If he would yield on this single point, the taking away the property of the clergy might in some degree be confirmed. The ground alleged for it being the defence of the realm, there would be less occasion for such measures in future; the Emperor would allow the King to make his submission in any form that he might choose, and everything should be made as smooth as Henry could desire.
Cromwell, according to Chapuys, admitted the soundness of the argument, but he said that it was neither in his power, nor in any man’s power, to persuade the King, who would hazard all rather than yield. Even the present Pope, he said, had, when Cardinal, written an autograph letter to the King, telling him that he had a right to ask for a divorce, and that Clement had done him great wrong.
The less reason then, Chapuys neatly observed, for refusing to lay the matter before a General Council.
The Ambassador went through his work dutifully, though expecting nothing from it, and his reports of what passed with the English Ministers ended generally with a recommendation of what he thought the wiser course. Lord Hussey, he said, had sent to him to say that he could remain no longer in a country where all ranks and classes were being driven into heresy; and would, therefore, cross the Channel to see the Emperor in person, to urge his own opinion and learn the Emperor’s decision from his own lips. If the answer was unfavourable he would tell his friends, that they might not be deceived in their expectations. They would then act for themselves.[327]
It is likely that Chapuys had been instructed to reserve the concessions which Charles was prepared to make till it was certain that, without them, the treaty would fail. France meanwhile was outbidding the Emperor, and the King was using, without disguise, the offers of each Power to alarm the other. Cromwell at the next meeting told Chapuys that Francis was ready to support the divorce unreservedly if Henry would assist him in taking Milan. The French, he said, should have a sharp answer, could confidence be felt in the Emperor’s overtures. A sharp struggle was going on in the Council between the French and Imperial factions. Himself sincerely anxious for the success of the negotiation in which he was engaged, Cromwell said he had fallen into worse disgrace with Anne Boleyn than he had ever been. Anne had never liked him. She had told him recently “she would like to see his head off his shoulders.”[328] She was equally angry with the Duke of Norfolk, who had been too frank in the terms in which he had spoken of her. If she discovered his interviews with Chapuys she would do them both some ill turn.
The King himself agreed with Cromwell in preferring the Emperor to Francis, but he would not part company with France till he was assured that Charles no longer meant his harm. Charles, it will be remembered, had himself written to Henry, and the letter had by this time arrived. Chapuys feared that, if he presented it at a public audience, the Court would conclude that the Emperor was reconciled, and had abandoned the Queen and Princess, so he applied for a private reception. The King granted it, read the letter, spoke graciously of the expedition against the Turks, and then significantly of his own armaments and the new fortifications at Dover and Calais. He believed (as Chapuys had heard from the Princess Mary) that, if he could tide over the present summer, the winter would then protect him, and that in another year he would be strong enough to fear no one. Seeing that he said nothing of the treaty, Chapuys began upon it, and said that the Emperor was anxious to come to terms with him, so far as honour and conscience would allow. Henry showed not the least eagerness. He replied with entire frankness that France was going to war for Milan. Large offers had been made to him, which, so far, he had not accepted; but he might be induced to listen, unless he could be better assured of the Emperor’s intention.[329]