The position of parties in the State also influenced it. Wolsey who had diminished the consequence of the great lords, and kept them down, and offended them by his pride, was heartily hated by them. Adorned though he was with the most brilliant honours of the Church, yet for the great men of the realm he was nothing but an upstart: they had never quite given up the hope of living to see his fall. But if he brought the French marriage to pass, as he designed, he would have won lasting support and have become stronger than ever. Besides the great men took the Burgundian side, not that they wished to make the Emperor lord of the world, but on the other hand they did not want a war with him: merchants and farmers saw that a war with the Netherlands, where they sold their wool, would be an injury to all. When Wolsey flattered the Pope with the hope of an attack on the Netherlands, he was, the Bishop of Bayonne assures us, the only man in the country who thought of it. He felt keenly the universal antipathy which he had awakened, and spoke of the efforts and devices he would have need of, to maintain himself.
It was therefore just what the nobles wanted, that Wolsey fell out with the King in a matter of such engrossing nature, and that they found another means of access to him.
The Boleyns were not of noble origin, but had been for some time connected with the leading families. Geoffrey the founder of the house had raised himself by success in business and good conduct to the dignity of Lord Mayor of London. His son William married the daughter of the only Irish peer who had a seat and vote in the English Parliament, Sir Thomas Ormond de Rochefort, Earl of Wiltshire. His titles passed through his daughter to his grandsons, of whom one, Thomas Boleyn, was created Viscount Rochefort, and married the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk; his daughter was Anne Boleyn: she took high rank and an especially distinguished position in English society because her uncle, Thomas Duke of Norfolk, was Henry VIII's chief lay minister (he held the place of High Treasurer) and was at the same time the leading man of the nobility. He had the reputation of being versed in business, cultivated, and shrewd; he was Wolsey's natural opponent. That the King showed an inclination to his niece, against the cardinal's views, was for him and his friends a great point gained.[97] It was soon seen that Anne's influence had obtained the recall of an opponent of Wolsey, who had insulted him and was banished from the Court.[98] It was of the greatest importance for home affairs, that the King was inclined to make Anne Boleyn his wife. The English kings in general did not think marriages in their own rank essential. Henry's own grandfather, Edward IV, had married a lady of by no means distinguished origin. It was seen beforehand that, if this happened, Wolsey could not maintain himself, and authority would again fall into the hands of the chief families. Even the cardinal's old friend, the Earl of Suffolk, now joined this combination: the whole of the nobility sided with it.
But besides this the chief foreign affairs took a turn which made it impossible to carry out Wolsey's political ideas. In the summer of 1528 the attacks of the allies on Naples were repulsed, and their armies annihilated. In the spring of 1529 the Emperor got the upper hand in Lombardy also. How utterly then did the oft-proposed plan, of depriving him of the supreme dignity, sink into nothingness: he was stronger than ever in Italy. The Pope was fortunate in not having joined the allies more closely; the relations of the States of the Church with Tuscany made a union with the Emperor necessary; he had a horror of a new quarrel with him. And as the Emperor now took up the interests of his mother's sister in the most earnest manner, and protested against proceeding by a Commission granted for England, the Pope could not possibly let the affair go on unchecked. When the English ambassadors pressed him, he exclaimed to them (for apart from this he would gladly have shown more favour to the King) that he felt himself as it were between anvil and hammer. Divers proposals were made, one more extraordinary than the other, if only the King would give up his demand;[99] but this was no longer possible. The two cardinals, Campeggi and Wolsey, had to begin judicial proceedings: King and Queen appeared before the Court, Articles were put forward, witnesses heard: the Correspondence shows that the King and Anne Boleyn expected with much confidence a speedy and favourable decision.[100] Wolsey too did not yet abandon this hope. It was thought at the time that he did not do all he might have done for it, that in fact he no longer favoured it, seeing as he did that it would turn out to the advantage of his rivals.[101] But it was in truth his fate, that the consequences of the design which originated with him recoiled on his own head. If it succeeded, it must be disadvantageous to him: if it failed, he was lost. The exhortations he addressed to the French Court, to exert yet once more its whole influence with the Papal Court for this matter, sound like a cry of distress in extreme peril. He had only undertaken it to unite France and England; the thing was reasonable and practicable, the Pope would not wish by refusing it to offend both crowns at once; he would value it more highly than if he himself were raised to the Papacy. But he had now to find that King Francis, as well as Pope Clement, was seeking a separate peace with the Emperor. Wolsey had given Henry the strongest assurances on this point, that such a thing would never happen, France would never separate herself from him. But yet this now happened, and how could any influence from that quarter on the Roman Court be still expected in favour of England, in a matter which was so highly offensive to the Emperor! The legates received from Rome distinct instructions to proceed slowly, and in no case to pronounce a decision.[102] While King Henry and those around him were eagerly expecting it, the cardinals (using the holidays of the Roman Rota as a pretence) announced the suspension of their proceedings.
It appeared in an instant into what a violent ebullition of wrath, which unsettled every thing, the King fell in consequence; it seemed as if all his past way of governing had been a mistake. In contradiction to many of the older traditions of English history he had hitherto ruled chiefly through ecclesiastics to the disgust of the lay lords: now he betook himself to the latter, to complain of the proceedings of the two cardinals. These were still in the hall where they had sat, when Suffolk and some other lords appeared, and bade them bring the matter to an end without delay, even if it were by a peremptory decree, that might be issued on the next day, on which the holidays would not have begun. But the prorogation was in fact only the form under which the cardinals fulfilled their orders from Rome; they could not possibly recall it. Suffolk broke out into the exclamation that cardinals and legates had never brought good to England. The two spiritual lords looked at each other with amazement. Had they any feeling that his words contained a declaration of war on the part of the lay element in the State against ecclesiastical and foreign influences in general? Wolsey, at any rate, could not shut his eyes to the significance of such a war. He often said that what Henry VIII took in hand he could not be brought to give up by any representations; he had sometimes tried it, he had fallen at his feet, but it had been always in vain.
Henry contained himself yet a while, as hopes had been given him that the proceedings might be resumed. But when a Breve came, by which Clement VII recalled his Commission and evoked the question of the divorce to Rome, he saw clearly that the influence of the Emperor in the Pope's Council had quite gained the upper hand over his own on this point. He was resolved not to submit to it. Had he not, before the mayor and aldermen of London, declared with a certain solemnity his resolution to carry through the divorce for the good of the land? his passion and his ambition had joined hands for this purpose before the eyes of the country. To prevent the need of recoiling, he formed a plan of incalculable importance, the plan of separating his nation and his kingdom from the spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman See.
NOTES:
[87] 'Giberto al Vescovo di Bajusa. 3 Luglio. Ci sono avisi d'Ingliterra de' 14 del passalo che mostrano gli animi di la e massimamente Eboracense non dico inclinati ma accesi di desiderio di concordia con Francia'.... Lettere di principi I. 168.
[88] 'Le dit Cardinal sera conducteur, moderateur et gouverneur de toutes les entreprises.' The Regent's Instructions in Brinon, Captivité de François I. 57.
[89] Riccardus Scellejus de prima causa divortii (Bibliotheca Magliabecch. at Florence). 'Catharina ita stomachata est, ut de Vulseji potentia minuenda cogitationem susciperet, quod ille cum sensisset, qui ab astrologo suo accepisset, sibi a muliere exitium imminere, de regina de gradu dejicienda consilium inivit.'