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sembled, she hath been to me as true, as obedient, and as conformable a wife as I could in my fantasy desire. She hath all the virtuous qualities that ought to be in a woman of her dignity!" Wolsey, ever watching for a sign of change, and thinking that his hour was come, made haste to get himself excused, asserting that he had never been a mover in this great affair.

7. "I moved this matter first," said Henry, "to you, my Lord of Lincoln, my ghostly father; and, forasmuch as then you were in some doubt to give me counsel, moved me to ask further counsel of all you, my lords; wherein I moved you first, my Lord of Canterbury, asking your license (as you were our metropolitan) to put this matter in question: and so I did of all you, my lords, to the which you have all granted by writing under your seals." "That is the truth," said Warham, "and I doubt not, but all my brethren here present will affirm the same." Fisher stood out; "No, sir, not I! you have not my consent thereto." "No!" cried Henry; "look here on this-is not this your hand and seal?" Henry passed towards him a paper. "It is not my hand nor seal," said Fisher. "How say you?" asked Henry, turning to the primate, "is it not his hand and seal?" "Yes, sir," replied Warham. "That is not so!" cried Fisher; "you were in hand to wish me to have both my hand and seal, as other of my lords had done, but then I said to you I would never consent to no such act." "You say truth," replied the Archbishop; "but at last you were fully persuaded that I should for you subscribe your

name, and put a seal myself, and you would allow the same." Fisher denied that he had given this leave. "Well, well!" cried Henry, losing patience, "it shall make no matter: we will not stand with you in argument herein, for you are but one man.”

8. A day arrived when sentence must be given. Henry sat in a gallery above the court; Norfolk, Suffolk, and a crowd of peers were in the court below. The case presented by the King's councillors was strongly put. Catharine had been Arthur's wife. Was not the bull of dispensation evidence of the fact? If that original statement were untrue, the bull was vitiated by the falsehood, and the marriage based on it was void. This argument compelled the Queen's advocates to admit that Catharine had been Arthur's wife and widow. Then, rejoined the King's councillors, the case was clear. The canons had laid down the rule that a man cannot marry his brother's wife; therefore the King's pretented marriage had been always null and void.

9. They asked for judgment. Then Campeggio threw aside his mask. "I will give no judgment in this cause until I have made relation to the Pope of our proceedings. Wherefore I adjourn the court." Every one stood amazed, and Suffolk gave the wonder and the fury voice. With lofty mien and flashing eye he strode into the centre of the group, and cried, "it was never merry in England while we had cardinals among us!" Wolsey retorted sharply, "Sir! of all men within this realm you have least cause to be offended with cardinals; for if I, a simple cardinal, had not been, you should have

had at this moment no head on your shoulders." Henry left the court abruptly, while the peers and prelates looked into each other's faces for a sign. All felt that something great and striking had occurred, but few conceived the greatness of that hour. The revolution had commenced.

BOOK THE TWENTY-FIRST.

REVOLUTION.

CHAPTER I.

Catharine and Anne.

1529.

1. FROM the moment of Campeggio's speech and his adjournment of the court, a revolution set in.

Henry, the devoted servant of his Church, had done with cardinals, and, like his people, he was in the temper for a breach with Rome. Before the legates showed their game, news had come from Bryan, full of reproach against the cardinals who were near the Pope, and more than all against that Spanish friar whom Clement had created cardinal of Santa Cruz. Bryan told the truth. "The Pope," he wrote, "will do nothing for your grace." A layman, why should he conceal the truth? Cardinal Quiñones struck him as "a whorson, flattering friar." Bryan was unearthing Wolsey's underground intrigues. By means of a lady, he procured the Cardinal's secret letter to the Pope. He wished to bring that document home, the contents being too perilous for common eyes to scan. The first part of

his mission bore no fruit. "The Pope will do nothing for your grace," he wrote; "I trust never to die but that the Pope and popes shall have, as they have had, need of your grace, and that your grace will quit them." Bryan entered Rome a faithful servant of his Church; he was about to leave it in a bitter and rebellious mood.

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2. So long as any hope remained, Bryan had sent his news to Anne; but when he saw too plainly that his country would be sacrificed, he ceased to tell her what was passing, and referred her to the King for news. "I write a letter to my cousin Anne," he said to Henry, "but I dare not write the truth of this affair, because I do not know whether your Grace will be contented that she should know it so shortly or no; but I have said to her that Grace will make her privy to all our news." morbid feeling was engendered in the English court, and many were of Suffolk's mind that cardinals were becoming evil things. Wolsey was out of favour; for the King accused him of delay, if not of something worse. A candidate for the Papacy, Wolsey was less attached to England than to Rome; and when his countrymen perceived this fact the Cardinal of York was lost.

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3. On news arriving in Rome that Catharine refused to plead before the legates, Contarini, the Venetian envoy, waited on the Pope to learn what steps he meant to take. The war was dying out. François, broken by his many losses, was inclined to peace. The Signory was no less eager than the French, since Charles was now too powerful to resist.

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