The king, divining the nature of his reflections, experienced a degree of humiliation that made him inexpressibly miserable.
“What say these despatches?” he asked, endeavoring to assume composure. “What does More think of me?” he said to himself—“he so grave, so pious, so dignified! He despises me!… That silly girl!”
“They give an account of the emperor’s reception of the Earl of Wiltshire,” answered More. “I will read it aloud, if your majesty wishes.”
“No, no,” said the king, whom the name of Wiltshire confused still more; “give them to me. I am perfectly familiar with the cipher.” He did not intend that More should yet be apprised of the base intrigues he had ordered to be practised at Rome to assist the father of his mistress in obtaining the divorce.
Having taken the letters, he found the emperor had treated his ambassador with the utmost contempt, remarking to Wiltshire that he was an interested party, since he was father of the queen’s rival, and he would have to inform Henry VIII. that the emperor was not a merchant to sell the honor of his aunt for three hundred thousand crowns, even if he proposed to abandon her cause, but, on the contrary, he should defend it to the last extremity; and after saying this, the emperor had deliberately turned his back on the ambassador and forbidden him to be again admitted to his presence.
Henry grew red and white alternately.
“I am, then, the laughing-stock of Europe,” he murmured through his firmly-set teeth.
Numerous other explanations followed, in which the Earl of Wiltshire gave an exact and circumstantial account of the offer he had made to the Holy Father of the treatise composed by Cromwell on the subject of the divorce, saying that he had brought the author with him, who was prepared to sustain the opinions advanced against all opposition. He ended by informing the king that, in spite of his utmost efforts, he had not been able to prevent the pope from according the emperor a brief forbidding Henry to celebrate another marriage before the queen’s case had been entirely decided, and enjoining him to treat her in the meantime as his legitimate wife.
Wiltshire sent with his letter an especial copy of that document, adding that he feared the information the Holy Father had received of the violence exercised by the English universities toward those doctors who had voted against the divorce, together with the money and promises distributed among those of France, especially the University of Paris, to obtain favorable decisions, had not contributed toward influencing him.
The king read and re-read several times all these statements, and was entirely overwhelmed with indignation and disappointment.