alarmed the monks and friars of every order; and he was conscious that the Preaching Friars were treating him with all the rancour of a privileged class. Catharine assailed him as the cause of all her miseries; nor was her woman's instinct wholly wrong. The great and rapid fall of Henry from the high estate he held in youth, was due in no small measure to the Cardinal's arts. Charles was denouncing his venality and treachery to the world. "I would not gratify his greed," the Emperor proclaimed, "nor send my army into Rome to make him Pope, which he entreated me to do, and in a spirit of revenge he has raised this storm." The Cardinal had no reply to make. His character was bad. Wolsey was one of those ecclesiastics, common in his day at Rome and Paris, who regarded personal virtue as a thing of no account. He took no pains to hide his shame. That he should keep a concubine was bad enough, but Wolsey had the impudence to thrust his children into prominent places in the Church. His son was Dean of Wells, his daughter Abbess of Salisbury. Yet this scandalous priest was punishing inferiors with extreme severity for vices which he nursed so carefully at home. Peers, prelates, commoners, and monks, were all in cry. Ballads and songs were coming out against him, and his only safety lay in Henry, who was now Anne's suitor, and might soon become her slave. He had to choose between appearing for the moment to adopt Anne Boleyn, and the loss of every post he held, as well as every chance of reaching Rome.

4. The world was strong within him, and he chose the baser part. Ceasing to speak of Renée, he turned his eyes towards Hever, and began to worship at the Kentish shrine. Converts are expected to be zealous, and no convert ever seemed more zealous than the Cardinal. He wrote to Clement, begging him to help his master and the Church. He sent Casale to the Roman court, with ample funds and orders how to spend them; also with copies of a breve and bull which Clement was to be induced to seal. The breve .appointed Wolsey judge; the bull allowed the King to marry when the Cardinal's sentence had been given. "My duty to your Holiness," he wrote, "compels me to let you understand that if you wish to keep the King and kingdom as your friends--if you desire to see the Papal chair restored, you must seal the breve; sending me a decretal commission, with the fullest powers and in the simplest words." Wolsey was anxious to procure the breve, though he had other uses for it than the King supposed. He was not risking war with Spain and Germany, and losing the Imperial votes, to put Anne Boleyn on a throne.

5. Wolsey was careful not to question the Pontiff's right to have granted the original bull. Wakfeld was ready with his tractate, proving that the divine law prohibited the marriage of a brother's wife, but Wolsey waived the point, so hotly argued in the English cloisters, as to whether a Pope could set aside the law of God. He merely claimed that the original bull might be reviewed. "The bull,"

he said, "was founded on certain false suggestions of fact; such as, first, that Henry had wished to marry Catharine, in order to promote a good understanding between Henry the Seventh and Fernando Cattolico: second, that he had knowingly consented to the publication of the bull. Neither

of these pretended facts was true." He dwelt on Henry's repudiation of his betrothal in Salisbury Court; and told the Pontiff that the King referred the deaths of all his male children to the wrath of Heaven. The name of Warham was to be inserted in the draft as one of the Pope's commissioners. Of course his views were known, and an appeal to him was nothing but a legal form. All parties were to treat the thing as one of form, and Clement was the first to call these forms unmeaning and absurd. Casale was to say how warmly every one in England, peer and commoner alike, desired the King to have a son, in order to prevent a fresh dynastic

war.

6. The bull to be submitted by Casale to the Pope was drawn in vague and general terms; somewhat like a general pardon, covering all sorts of canonical offences; so that nothing might arise in after-times to bring the instrument under doubt. No one inferred that the offences specified in this draft had been committed; any more than that a peer who begged a general pardon from the Crown, was guilty of the treasons, murders, heresies, rapes, and arsons, which were usually inserted in the list of crimes to be forgiven. Yet, under Henry's eye, some special disabilities affecting Anne were touched.

A contract having been drawn by Wolsey for a marriage of Anne Boleyn and James Butler, a question might arise in after days how far the lady had been promised to the Irish chief. Nothing had come of that design; yet who could say, when the imperial crown of England was at stake, how much might some day turn on that abortive scheme? Wolsey inserted in the text an article providing for the Irish suit.

BOOK THE TWENTIETH.

THE DIVORCE.

CHAPTER I.

Divorce forbidden.

1527.

I. THE Cardinal's plan for ruining Catharine, and replacing her by Renée, was to get her, while in ignorance of his purpose, to submit her case to him as papal legate. Sure that she would send for Fisher, he sounded that prelate, and having learned his views, forbade him to speak with Catharine on her cause. Fisher imagined he could get the Queen to take a milder course, but Wolsey was too much afraid of her to let him try. Fisher was told to go directly to the King, and take his orders how to act. 2. Alone and sick, without a friend to counsel her, deserted by the King, and menaced by the Cardinal, where could Catharine turn for help? To Spain. But how was she to let her nephew know the state of her affairs? Her genius for intrigue came into play. Among her servants was a Spaniard, Francisco Felipo, who was free of all her secrets. She arranged with Felipo in private that he was to come