Note (back) — Chapter VIII

To effect the Pope's liberation, or rather to call an assembly of cardinals in France during Clement's captivity, was the real object of the mission to France, on which Wolsey started in July. Such a body, acting under Wolsey's presidency and in the territories of the French King, was as likely to favour an attack upon the Emperor's aunt as the Pope in the hands of Charles's armies was certain to oppose it. Wolsey went in unparalleled splendour, not as Henry's ambassador but as his lieutenant; and projects for his own advancement were, as usual, part of the programme. Louise of Savoy, the queen-mother of France, suggested to him that all Christian princes should repudiate the Pope's authority so long as he remained in captivity, and the Cardinal replied that, had the overture not been made by her, it would have been started by himself and by Henry.[565] It was rumoured in Spain that Wolsey "had gone into France to separate the Church of England and of France from the Roman, not merely during the captivity of the Pope and to effect his liberation, but for a perpetual division,"[566] and that Francis was offering Wolsey the patriarchate of the two schismatic churches. To win over the Cardinal to the interest of Spain, it was even suggested that Charles should depose Clement and offer the Papacy to Wolsey.[567] The project of a schism was not found feasible; the cardinals at Rome were too numerous, and Wolsey only succeeded in gaining four, three French and one Italian, to join him in signing a protest repudiating Clement's authority so long as he remained in the Emperor's power. It was necessary to fall back after all on the Pope for assent to Henry's divorce, and the news that Charles had already got wind of the proceedings against Catherine made it advisable that no time should be lost. The Emperor, indeed, had long been aware of Henry's intentions; every care had been taken to prevent communication between Catherine and her nephew, and a plot had been laid to kidnap a messenger she was sending in August to convey her appeal for protection. All was in vain, for the very day after Wolsey's court had opened in May, Mendoza wrote to Charles that Wolsey "as the finishing stroke to all his iniquities, had been scheming to bring about the Queen's divorce"; and on the 29th of July, some days before Wolsey had any suspicion that a hint was abroad, Charles informed Mendoza that he had despatched Cardinal Quignon to Rome, to act on the Queen's behalf and to persuade Clement to revoke Wolsey's legatine powers.[568]