CHAPTER VII.

The two Legates.

1528.

1. WOLSEY had cause for much alarm. The French were losing time in Italy; and Henry was impatient for the papal answer. Suffolk and Mary were against him. He had nothing to expect from Rochford; nor could he easily conceal his treacheries much longer from the eyes of Lady Anne. Cranmer was writing on the dispensation in a sense to widen the dispute with Rome, and ruin the Cardinal's chances of succeeding to the triple crown. All parties were in league against him. In his dread of losing what he had, he clutched at more and more. Fox died; he took the See of Winchester into his hands. As if to test his power, he asked the King to give the See of Durham to his son, Tom Winter. Henry had lately made this youngster, who was still at school in Paris, Warden of St. Leonard's Hospital. He refused to make him one of his bishops, and the Cardinal of York was in despair.

2. In speaking to the Bishop of Bayonne, Wolsey expressed his weariness of the world, and his increasing wish to go into his diocese and give up public life. "If I could see the league of France and England firmly made, the King's divorce ar

ranged, his Highness married to a second wife, the dynasty secured in the birth of a Prince, the laws amended, and the Church reformed, I would retire from Court, and spend the remnant of my days in serving God." The Bishop chuckled in his sleeve. A man as keen of sight as he was quick of wit, Bellay began to see that the King's inconstancy, on which both he and his English brother had been counting, was a failure. "Yes," he wrote to France, "I have been called a bad prophet; let it be so; for I now think the King so much in love, that God only can get him out of his mess." Bellay went on to say, "The Cardinal is still resolved on having Madame Renée for his master; and this affair may come about, unless something else shall happen first." Cranmer, by his appeal from Rome to Holy Writ, had given the whole affair a hostile. turn. Henry was urging Cranmer to go on, and Cranmer's arguments were winning over many voices in the universities. Until Campeggio came, Wolsey must court the favourite, in order to retain his place; but Bellay saw that he was sinking in the midst of all his plots. "As to the Cardinal, I believe, in spite of all his airs and talk, that he has no true idea of what is going on."

3. Few persons guessed the spirit in which Campeggio was coming. In the face of Henry's giftshis house in Rome, his loans of money, and his English mitre - he had sold himself to Charles. That Campeggio was a worldly priest, with children to support, the Cardinal knew; that England offered him a better market for his vote than Spain the

Cardinal thought; but no one understood how much the scare of two attacks and two captivities within a year was acting on the nerves of aged cardinals. Detained in Rome almost as much by gout as by his captors, Campeggio lived in mortal fear of the Imperialists. In name, he was the Governor of Rome; in fact, he was a puppet in Quiñones' hands. This friar forbade the Pope to take one step without his previous knowledge and expressed consent. "Write to his Holiness," said the stern Franciscan to Campeggio, "that his Majesty will not have him grant the Papal breve." Campeggio trembled and obeyed.

4. Leaving Farnese governor in his room, Campeggio quitted Rome before the stroke of war had been delivered. Lautrec was advancing towards the south, where Orange and Moncada were hanging on his flank. Campeggio was ordered to relieve his gout by easy stages, so that news might reach him ere he crossed the Straits. His action must be governed by events. In any case he must consider what was best for Clement and the Holy See. Campeggio nursed his gout with care, not only in obedience to the Pontiff, but in deference to the Franciscan General. He could not ride; he could not walk. When news came tardily from the seat of war, he was too ill to leave his bed. The pain being chiefly in his hands, he could not hold a pen. Bryan was sent to spur him forward, but the gouty cardinal was hard to move. In Paris he had men to see. He had to speak with François and Louise, whose captains were not doing much in Naples.

Clerk was with him; but a Papal legate was too great a man to press. Campeggio would not mount his horse, and litters had to be procured. At length, however, he set out, his mind a little cleared by his Italian news.

5. All parties were impatient for the legate's coming. Anne wished to hear the news, and Henry sent such scraps as he received to Hever Castle. "The reasonable requests of your last letter," he wrote, "with the pleasure I also take to know them, cause me to send you these news. The legate, which we most desire, arrived at Paris on Sunday or Monday last past, so that I trust by next Monday to hear of his arrival at Calais; and then I trust, within a little while after to enjoy that which I have so long longed for, to God's pleasure and both our comforts. No more to you at this present, mine own Darling, for lack of time; but that I would you were in my arms, and I in yours, for I think it's long since I kissed you."

6. At length the legate's gout was got to bed in Bath Place. An air of mystery surrounded him. He was too ill to rise, and Wolsey, eager to inspect his comrade, took a boat and saw him in his rooms. He talked about the Lutherans and the Turks, and hinted that the King should fix his thoughts on a recovery of Jerusalem. A second and a third time Wolsey rowed to Bath Place. The Bishop of Bayonne also went to see the legate, but the airy Frenchman was perplexed. "What it will come to no one knows," he wrote. Catharine seemed to She knew a great

be the only person at her ease.

deal more about Campeggio's plans than either Wolsey or Bellay, and while an ordinary eye saw nothing in her future but despair, she talked as though her darkest hours were past. A foreign cardinal was sure to do her justice, and her nephew had the means of forcing Clement to sustain her cause. London was full of peers and knights, as though a royal marriage and a coronation were expected. Anne and Lady Rochford were at court. Rochford, whose recovery had been slower than his daughter's, came from Kent. Norfolk and Suffolk had been summoned from their country-seats; and every tongue was busy with the great affair. Yet Catharine kept her place and post as in her regal days. She got up dances and other pastimes in her chambers, and desired the ladies and gentlemen of her household to be merry. A common interest and a common danger brought the King's sister to her side; for Mary, thinking of her children, was averse to Henry's match with Anne; and, like the Queen, she was involved in a disputed point of matrimonial law. The Duke's first wife was still alive; and who could say what Lady Mortimer might not attempt if Catharine's marriage were dissolved? The two Queens felt a common duty in persuading Henry to desist.

7. Wolsey and Campeggio peered into each other's eyes. These legates were to sit in judgment under one commission, but their objects in the suit were wide apart, and each was bent on finding out his colleague's means and ends. "At my departure,” said Campeggio, "his Holiness led me to believe