"The proctor told her the Pope delayed sentence for fear of the Emperor. The two kings, when they heard this, despatched the cardinals to quicken his movements; and the demand for the tenths is thought to have been invented to frighten him.
"They are afraid that the Emperor may force his Holiness into giving sentence before the cardinals arrive. Jeronymo has been therefore sent forward by post to give him notice of their approach, and to require him to make no decision till they have spoken with him."—The Pilgrim, p. 89.
[392] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.
[393] Revelations of Eliz. Barton: Rolls House MS.
[394] State Papers, vol. vii. pp. 435, 468.
[395] Letter from ——, containing an account of an interview with his Holiness: Rolls House MS.
[396] This proposal was originally the king's (see chapter 2), but it had been dropped because one of the conditions of it had been Catherine's "entrance into religion." The pope, however, had not lost sight of the alternative, as one of which, in case of extremity, he might avail himself; and, in 1530, in a short interval of relaxation, he had definitely offered the king a dispensation to have two wives, at the instigation, curiously, of the imperialists. The following letter was written on that occasion to the king by Sir Gregory Cassalis:—
Serenissime et potentissime domine rex, domine mi supreme humillimâ commendatione premissâ, salutem et felicitatem. Superioribus diebus Pontifex secreto, veluti rem quam magni faceret, mihi proposuit conditionem hujusmodi; concedi posse vestræ majestati, ut duas uxores habeat; cui dixi nolle me provinciam suscipere eâ de re scribendi, ob eam causam quod ignorarem an inde vestræ conscientiæ satisfieri posset quam vestra majestas imprimis exonerare cupit. Cur autem sic responderem, illud in causâ fuit, quod ex certo loco, unde quæ Cæsariani moliantur aucupari soleo exploratum certumque habebam Cæsarianos illud ipsum quærere et procurare. Quem vero ad finem id quærant pro certo exprimere non ausim. Id certe totum vestræ prudentiæ considerandum relinquo. Et quamvis dixerim Pontifici, nihil me de eo scripturum, nolui tamen majestati vestræ hoc reticere; quæ sciat omni me industriâ laborâsse in iis quæ nobis mandat exequendis et cum Anconitano qui me familiariter uti solet, omnia sum conatus. De omnibus autem me ad communes literas rejicio. Optime valeat vestra majestas.—Romæ die xviii. Septembris, 1530.
Clarissimi vestrai Majestatis, Humillimus servus,
GREGORIUS CASSALIS,