Note (back) — Chapter X

In the closing days of July, 1529, a courier came posting from Rome with despatches announcing the alliance of Clement and Charles, and the revocation to the Papal Court of the suit between Henry VIII. and the Emperor's aunt. Henry replied with no idle threats or empty reproaches, but his retort was none the less effective. On the 9th of August[703] writs were issued from Chancery summoning that Parliament which met on the 3rd of November and did not separate till the last link in the chain which bound England to Rome was sundered, and the country was fairly launched on that sixty years' struggle which the defeat of the Spanish Armada concluded.[704] The step might well seem a desperate hazard. The last Parliament had broken up in discontent; it had been followed by open revolt in various shires; while from others there had since then come demands for the repayment of the loan, which Henry was in no position to grant. Francis and Charles, on whose mutual enmity England's safety largely depended, had made their peace at Cambrai; and the Emperor was free to foment disaffection in Ireland and to instigate Scotland to war. His chancellor was boasting that the imperialists could, if they would, drive Henry from his kingdom within three months,[705] and he based his hopes on revolt among Henry's own subjects. The divorce had been from the beginning, and remained to the end, a stumbling-block to the people. Catherine received ovations wherever she went, while the utmost efforts of the King could scarcely protect Anne Boleyn from popular insult. The people were moved, not only by a creditable feeling that Henry's first wife was an injured woman, but by the fear lest a breach with Charles should destroy their trade in wool, on which, said the imperial ambassador, half the realm depended for sustenance.[706]