Page 48 of 131

These ambiguous circumstances in the behavior of the pope and the legate, kept the court of England in suspense, and determined the king to wait with patience the issue of such uncertain councils.

1529.

Fortune, meanwhile, seemed to promise him a more sure and expeditious way of extricating himself from his present difficulties. Clement was seized with a dangerous illness; and the intrigues, for electing his successor, began already to take place among the cardinals. Wolsey, in particular, supported by the interest of England and of France, entertained hopes of mounting the throne of St. Peter;[****] and it appears, that if a vacancy had then happened, there was a probability of his reaching that summit of his ambition. But the pope recovered, though after several relapses; and he returned to the same train of false and deceitful politics, by which he had hitherto amused the court of England. Be still flattered Henry with professions of the most cordial attachment, and promised him a sudden and favorable issue to his process: he still continued his secret negotiations with Charles, and persevered in the resolution of sacrificing all his promises, and all the interests of the Romish religion, to the elevation of his family. Campeggio, who was perfectly acquainted with his views and intentions, protracted the decision by the most artful delays; and gave Clement full leisure to adjust all the terms of his treaty with the emperor.

* Herbert, p 225.

** Burnet, p. 58.

*** Rymer, vol xiv. p. 270. Strype, vol.i. p. 110, 111. App.
No 28

**** Burnet, vol. i. p. 63.

The emperor, acquainted with the king’s extreme earnestness in this affair, was determined that he should obtain success by no other means than by an application to him and by deserting his alliance with Francis, which had hitherto supported, against the superior force of Spain, the tottering state of the French monarchy. He willingly hearkened, therefore, to the applications of Catharine, his aunt; and promising her his utmost protection, exhorted her never to yield to the malice and persecutions of her enemies. The queen herself was naturally of a firm and resolute temper; and was engaged by every motive to persevere in protesting against the injustice to which she thought herself exposed. The imputation of incest, which was thrown upon her marriage with Henry, struck her with the highest indignation: the illegitimacy of her daughter, which seemed a necessary consequence, gave her the most just concern: the reluctance of yielding to a rival, who, she believed, had supplanted her in the king’s affections, was a very natural motive. Actuated by all these considerations, she never ceased soliciting her nephew’s assistance, and earnestly entreating an evocation of the cause to Rome, where alone, she thought, she could expect justice. And the emperor, in all his negotiations with the pope, made the recall of the commission which Campeggio and Wolsey exercised in England a fundamental article.[*]

* Herbert, p. 225. Burnet, vol i. p. 69.

The two legates, meanwhile, opened their court at London, and cited the king and queen to appear before it. They both presented themselves; and the king answered to his name, when called: but the queen, instead of answering to hers rose from her seat, and throwing herself at the king’s feet, made a very pathetic harangue, which her virtue, her dignity, and her misfortunes rendered the more affecting. She told him, that she was a stranger in his dominions, without protection, without council, without assistance; exposed to all the injustice which her enemies were pleased to impose upon her: that she had quitted her native country without other resource than her connections with him and his family, and had expected that, instead of suffering thence any violence or iniquity, she was assured in them of a safeguard against every misfortune: that she had been his wife during twenty years, and would here appeal to himself, whether her affectionate submission to his will had not merited better treatment, than to be thus, after so long a time, thrown from him with so much indignity: that she was conscious—he himself was assured—that her virgin honor was yet unstained when he received her into his bed and that her connections with his brother had been carried no further than the ceremony of marriage: that their parents, the kings of England and Spain, were esteemed the wisest princes of their time, and had undoubtedly acted by the best advice, when they formed the agreement for that marriage, which was now represented as so criminal and unnatural: and that she acquiesced in their judgment, and would not submit her cause to be tried by a court, whose dependence on her enemies was too visible, ever to allow her any hopes of obtaining from them an equitable or impartial decision.[*] Having spoken these words, she rose, and making the king a low reverence, she departed from the court, and never would again appear in it.

After her departure, the king did her the justice to acknowledge, that she had ever been a dutiful and affectionate wife, and that the whole tenor of her behavior had been conformable to the strictest rules of probity and honor. He only insisted on his own scruples with regard to the lawfulness of their marriage; and he explained the origin, the progress, and the foundation of those doubts, by which he had been so long and so violently agitated. He acquitted Cardinal Wolsey from having any hand in encouraging his scruples; and he craved a sentence of the court agreeable to the justice of his cause.

The legates, after citing the queen anew, declared her contumacious, notwithstanding her appeal to Rome; and then proceeded to the examination of the cause. The first point which came before them was, the proof of Prince Arthur’s consummation of his marriage with Catharine; and it must be confessed, that no stronger arguments could reasonably be expected of such a fact after so long an interval. The age of the prince, who had passed his fifteenth year, the good state of his health, the long time that he had cohabited with his consort, many of his expressions to that very purpose; all these circumstances form a violent presumption in favor of the king’s assertion.[**] Henry himself, after his brother’s death was not allowed for some time to bear the title of prince of Wales, in expectation of her pregnancy: the Spanish ambassador, in order the better to insure possession of her jointure, had sent over to Spain proofs of the consummation of her marriage:[***] Julius’s bull itself was founded on the supposition that Arthur had perhaps had knowledge of the princess: in the very treaty, fixing Henry’s marriage, the consummation of the former marriage with Prince Arthur is acknowledged on both sides.[****]

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 73. Hall. Stowe, p. 543.

** Herbert.

*** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 85.

**** Rymer, vol. xiii. p. 81.

These particulars were all laid before the court; accompanied with many reasonings concerning the extent of the pope’s authority, and against his power of granting a dispensation to marry within the prohibited degrees. Campeggio heard these doctrines with great impatience; and notwithstanding his resolution to protract the cause, he was often tempted to interrupt and silence the king’s counsel, when they insisted on such disagreeable topics. The trial was spun out till the twenty-third of July; and Campeggio chiefly took on him the part of conducting it. Wolsey, though the elder cardinal, permitted him to act as president of the court; because it was thought, that a trial managed by an Italian cardinal would carry the appearance of greater candor and impartiality, than if the king’s own minister and favorite had presided in it. The business now seemed to be drawing near to a period; and the king was every day in expectation of a sentence in his favor; when, to his great surprise, Campeggio, on a sudden, without any warning, and upon very frivolous pretences,[*] prorogued the court till the first of October. The evocation, which came a few days after from Rome, put an end to all the hopes of success which the king had so long and so anxiously cherished.[**]