Note (back) — Chapter VIII

Dr. Knight had comparatively little difficulty in obtaining the dispensation for Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn; but it was only to be effective after sentence had been given decreeing the nullity of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon; and, as Wolsey saw, that was the real crux of the question.[584] Knight had scarcely turned his steps homeward, when he was met by a courier with fresh instructions from Wolsey to obtain a further concession from Clement; the Pope was to empower the Cardinal himself, or some other safe person, to examine the original dispensation, and, if it were found invalid, to annul Henry's marriage with Catherine. So Knight returned to the Papal Court; and then began that struggle between English and Spanish influence at Rome which ended in the victory of Charles V. and the repudiation by England of the Roman jurisdiction. Never did two parties enter upon a contest with a clearer perception of the issues involved, or carry it on with their eyes more open to the magnitude of the results. Wolsey himself, Gardiner, Foxe, Casale, and every English envoy employed in the case, warned and threatened Clement that, if he refused Henry's demands, he would involve Wolsey and the Papal cause in England in a common ruin. "He alleged," says Campeggio of Wolsey, "that if the King's desire were not complied with... there would follow the speedy and total ruin of the kingdom, of his Lordship and of the Church's influence in this kingdom."[585] "I cannot reflect upon it," wrote Wolsey himself, "and close my eyes, for I see ruin, infamy and subversion of the whole dignity and estimation of the See Apostolic if this course is persisted in. You see in what dangerous times we are. If the Pope will consider the gravity of this cause, and how much the safety of the nation depends upon it, he will see that the course he now pursues will drive the King to adopt remedies which are injurious to the Pope, and are frequently instilled into the King's mind."[586] On one occasion Clement confessed that, though the Pope was supposed to carry the papal laws locked up in his breast, Providence had not vouchsafed him the key wherewith to unlock them; and Gardiner roughly asked in retort whether in that case the papal laws should not be committed to the flames.[587] He told how the Lutherans were instigating Henry to do away with the temporal possessions of the Church.[588] But Clement could only bewail his misfortune, and protest that, if heresies and schisms arose, it was not his fault. He could not afford to offend the all-powerful Emperor; the sack of Rome and Charles's intimation conveyed in plain and set terms that it was the judgment of God[589] had cowed Clement for the rest of his life, and made him resolve never again to incur the Emperor's enmity.