[83] In a letter to his ambassador, the Bishop of Badajoz, the Emperor mentions 'les propos, que luy (au cardinal) avons tenu a Bruges touchants la papalité.' Monumenta Habsburgica ii. 1. 501.
[84] Wolsey mentions in his letter to the King 'the conference and communications, which he (the Emperor) had with your grace in that behalf.' In Burnet iii. Records p. 11.
[85] Du Bellay au Grandmaistre 17 October 1529, in Le Grand, Histoire du divorce iii. 374: 'Que il avait toujours en tems de paix et de guerre intelligence secrette a Madame, de la quelle la dicte guerre durant, il avoit eu des grants presens, qui furent cause, que Suffolc estant a Montdidier il ne le secourut d'argent comme il devoit dont advint que il ne print Paris.'
[86] The Instructions to Tunstall and Wingfield (30 March 1525), hitherto known only from the extract in Fiddes, are now printed in the State Papers vi. 333. Compare my German History, Bk. IV. ch. 2, but the statement there made needs revision in accordance with the newly-found documents.
CHAPTER III.
ORIGIN OF THE DIVORCE QUESTION.
Perhaps it is not a matter of such very great weight whether the Emperor did his best for Wolsey in the conclave, or Wolsey his best for the Emperor in the campaign of 1523. That the result did not correspond to the expectations on either side was quite enough to bring about an estrangement. What could the Emperor do with an English minister who was not in a condition to support warlike enterprises properly? what could the English do with an ally who appropriated to himself exclusively the advantages of the victory they had won? Henry VIII, while trying to win the French crown, had only weakened it, and thereby given the house of Burgundy a preponderance in European affairs, by which all other powers, and himself as well, felt themselves threatened.
After the battle of Pavia a feeling prevailed throughout the world that the rule of Spain and Burgundy would be intolerable, if France were no longer independent. The ministers of the Pope in Rome first came to a consciousness of this: as the best means of restoring the balance, they looked to the dissolution of the alliance between Henry VIII and Charles V. The Pope's Datary, Giberti, made approaches to the English Court, though still with timid caution, in order in the first place only to propose a reconciliation between England and France.[87]
To his joy he remarked that Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey were more inclined to this plan than he had expected. If not before yet certainly since his alienation from the Emperor, the cardinal had entered into secret negociations with the mother of the King of France: the last proposals to the Emperor had been only an attempt to turn the success of his arms to the advantage of England also: when he rejected them, the cardinal entered into the French connexion with increased zeal. Before the end of the summer of 1523 peace between England and France was effected with the sympathising co-operation of Rome.