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CHAPTER IX.

WOLSEY AND ANNE.

1527.

1. WHILE Wolsey was in France, promising Louise of Savoy that within a year a princess of her family should be Henry's wife, the King sent out an agent of his own to Rome, in Father Knight, his confidential secretary. From kindness to the Cardinal, Henry had requested Knight to see him on his way, and make pretence of taking his instructions how to act in Rome. But Wolsey, seeing the peril of a separate mission, and ignorant of the power acquired by Anne, took on himself to stop the secretary's journey. Knight affected to receive his orders, but he knew his business, and was ready to set out next day, even though he had to start without the Cardinal's leave. That night a messenger came in, and Wolsey, finding how the tides were running in his absence, smoothed the matter over, and allowed the secretary to depart.

2. Again at York Place, Wolsey sought to turn his master from his course; falling on his knees and crying in the bitterness of his heart; for he had

promised Henry to Louise; and he was but too well aware that Anne was not his friend. Her uncle, Norfolk, was his rival at the council-board; her father, Rochford, was his rival in the closet; and her neighbour, Warham, was his rival in the Church. Wyat and Carey, Norreys and Brooke, were seekers after light. From such a party he had little to expect; nor was he ignorant that the most learned and aggressive persons in the land were at their back. In spite of Henry's Defence of the Seven Sacraments, the new opinions were gaining ground. Some of the prelates were suspected. Warham was talking of reform, and how could an infallible Church require to be reformed? Some of the peers, and notably Lord Rochford and Lord Cobham, were associated with the scholars who were carrying on the work of human freedom. Many of the clergy and their congregations clung to the old English doctrines of John Wycliffe. Latimer was denouncing Rome, in language worthy of a Lollard, and the portreeves could not hinder Tyndale's New Testament from coming in. Wolsey was shrewd enough to see that Anne Boleyn's rise must be his fall. New doctrines would produce new men. If she were Queen, Tyndale might be left to write in peace, and Latimer might become her chaplain, while the favour long enjoyed by Forest and his brethren would be given to advocates of a National Church.

3. That he was hated and maligned, the winds of heaven made known to him. His wealth, his

genius, his success, disgusted every man who thought high birth entitled him to place and power. His grasping at so many bishoprics annoyed the clergy, who were pushed aside in favour of the greatest pluralist on earth. His dissolution of the convents, to enrich his colleges at Oxford and Ipswich, 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