Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

not to deliver it; and King Henry continued to claim the money due upon the forfeiture, as a debt still owing him. The peace was then treated, chiefly with a view to resist the Turk, and to repress heresy, that was then much spread, both through Germany and Poland.

Another original letter was writ after Francis was at liberty, setting forth, " that the nobles and courts in France would not confirm the treaty that Francis had signed to obtain his liberty; and therefore earnest persuasions were to be used to prevail with the emperor to restore the hostages, and to come into reasonable terms, to maintain the peace, and to call his army out of Italy." By these it appears, that the league against the emperor was then made, of which the king was declared the protector: but the king had not then accepted of that title. He ordered his ambassadors to propose a million of crowns for redeeming the hostages, to be paid at different times; yet they were forbid to own to the emperor, that if the offices, in which the king interposed, were not effectual, he would enter into the league.

There are in that collection some of Wolsey's letters; by one of the 17th of July he claims his pensions of 7500 ducats, upon the bishoprics of Palentia and Toledo; besides 9000 crowns a year, in recompence for his parting with the bishopric of Tournay, and the abbey of St. Martin's there; for which there was an arrear of four years due. On the 29th of September, he wrote over a severe charge, to be laid before the emperor, for the sack of Rome, the indignities put on the person of the pope, the spoiling the church of St. Peter, and other churches, and the ignominious treating the ornaments of them: all the blame was cast on the Cardinal Colonna and Hugo de Moncada, they being persuaded that it was done without the emperor's knowledge or order. He proposes the king to be mediator, as a thing agreed on by all sides he uses in this that bold way of joining himself with the king, very often saying, "the king and I." And on the 20th of October, he presses with great earnestness the mediating a peace between France and the emperor; in all which nothing appears, either partial or revengeful, against the emperor. The true interest of England seems to be pursued in that whole negociation.

There was then in the emperor's court a very full embassy from England: for in one or other of these letters, mention is made of the bishops of London, Worcester, and of Bath; of Dr. Lee and Sir Francis Bryan. But since the dismal fate of Rome and of Pope Clement is mentioned in these letters, I must now change the scene.

Pope Clement, as soon as he could after his imprisonment, wrote over to Wolsey an account of the miserable state he was in (Collect. No. xi), which he sent over by Sir Gregory Cassal, who saw it all, and so could give a full account of it. The pope's only comfort and hope was in Wolsey's credit with the king, and in the king's own piety towards the church and himself, now so sadly oppressed, that he had no other hope but in the protection he expected from him." There were many other letters written by the cardinals, setting forth the miseries they were in, and that in the most doleful strains possible; all their eyes being then towards the king, as the person on whose protection they chiefly depended. Upon this Wolsey went over to France in a most splendid manner, with a prodigious and magnificent train, reckoned to consist of a thousand persons; and he had the most unusual honours done him, that the court of France could invent, to flatter his vanity. He was to conclude a treaty with Francis, for setting the pope at liberty, and to determine the alternative of the marriage of the Princess Mary, either to the king of France, or to the duke of Orleans, his second son, and to lay a scheme for a general peace. He came to Compiegne in the end of September, and from thence he wrote the first motion that was made about the divorce to the pope (Sept. 16): for the first letter that I found relating to that matter, begins with mentioning that which he wrote from Compiegne. Mr. Le Grand told me he had seen that dispatch, but he has not printed it *.

"

From that place, Wolsey, with four cardinals, wrote to the pope, setting forth the sense that they had of the calamity that he was in, and their zeal for his service, in which they hoped for good success: yet fearing lest the emperor should take occasion from his imprisonment to seize on the territories of the church, and to force both him to confirm it, and the cardinals now imprisoned with him to ratify it, which they hoped neither he nor they would do; yet, if human infirmity should so far prevail, they protested against all such alienations: they also declare, that if he should die, they would proceed to a new election, and have no regard to any election to which the imprisoned cardinals might be forced. In conclusion, they do earnestly pray, that the pope would grant them a full deputation of his authority; in the use of which they promise all zeal and fidelity; and that they would invite all the other cardinals that were at liberty to come and concur with them." This was signed by Wolsey,

* Le Grand, tom. iii, No. 2.

and by the cardinals of Bourbon, Salviati, Lorrain, and Cardinal Prat. Wolsey wrote to the king (Collect. No. xii), expressing the concern he had for him, with relation to his great and secret affair; it seems expecting a general meeting of cardinals that was to be called together in France, which he reckoned would concur to the process that he intended to make; but apprehending that the queen might decline his jurisdiction, he would use all his endeavours to bring the king of France to agree to the emperor's demands, as far as was reasonable; hoping the emperor would abate somewhat in consideration of the king's mediation; but if that did not succeed, so that the pope was still kept a prisoner, then the cardinals must be brought to meet at Avignon, and thither he intended to go, and to spare no trouble or charge in doing the king service. When he was at Avignon, he should be within a hundred miles of Perpignan; and he would try to bring the emperor and the French king's mother thither, if the king approved of it, to treat for the pope's deliverance, and for a general peace. This is the substance of the minute of a letter writ in the cardinal's hand.

The king at this time intended to send Knight, then secretary of state, to Rome, in point of form to condole with the pope, and to prevent any application that the queen might make by the emperor's means in his great matter: so he appointed the cardinal to give him such commissions and instructions as should seem requisite, with all diligence; and he pressed the cardinal's return home, with great acknowledgments of the services he had done him (No. xiii). By this letter it appears, that the queen then understood somewhat of the king's uneasiness in his marriage. The king of France sent from Compiegne a great deputation, at the head of which Montmorency, then the great master, was put, to take the king's oath, confirming the treaties that Wolsey had made in his name (Sept. 25): one in the commission was Bellay, then bishop of Bayonne, afterwards of Paris, and cardinal.

When that was done, the king's matter, that had been hitherto more secretly managed, began to break out. Mr. Le Grand has published a letter that Pace wrote to the king (Tom. iii, No. 1), as he says, in the year 1526; but no date is added to the letter. The substance of it is, "that the letter and book, which was brought to the king the day before, was writ by him; but by the advice and help of Doctor Wakefield, who approved it, and was ready to defend every thing in it, either in a verbal disputation, or in writing. The king had told him, that some of his learned counsellors had written to him,

that Deuteronomy abrogated Leviticus; but that was certainly false; for the title of that book in Hebrew was the two first words of it: it is a compend and recapitulation of the Mosaical law; and that was all that was imported by the word Deuteronomy. He tells the king, that, after he left him, Wakefield prayed him to let him know, if the king desired to know the truth in that matter, whether it stood for him or against him. To whom Pace answered, that the king desired nothing but what became a noble and a virtuous prince: so he would do him a most acceptable thing, if he would set the plain truth before him. After that, Wakefield said, he would not meddle in the matter, unless he were commanded by the king to do it; but that when he received his commands, he would set forth such things both for and against him, that no other person in his kingdom could do the like." The letter is dated from Sion, but I have reason to believe it was written in the year 1527; for this Wakefield (who seems to have been the first person of this nation that was learned in the oriental tongues, not only in the Hebrew, the Chaldaic, and the Syriac, but in the Arabic) wrote a book for the divorce: he was at first against it, before he knew that Prince Arthur's marriage with Queen Katherine was consummated: but when he understood what grounds there were to believe that was done, he changed his mind, and wrote a book on the subject: and in his own book, he with his own hand inserts the copy of his letter to King Henry, dated from Sion, 1527; which it seems was written at the same time that Pace wrote his; for these are his words (as the author of Ath. Oxon. relates, who says he saw it), "He will defend his cause or question in all the universities of Christendom :" but adds, "that if the people should know that he, who began to defend the queen's cause, not knowing that she was carnally known of Prince Arthur, his brother, should now write against it, surely he should be stoned of them to death, or else have such a slander and obloquy raised upon him, that he would die a thousand times rather than suffer it."

He was prevailed on to print his book in Latin, with a Hebrew title*; in which he undertook to prove, that the marrying the brother's wife, she being carnally known of him, was contrary to the decrees of holy church, utterly unlawful, and forbidden both by the law of nature and the law of God, the laws of the gospel, and the customs of the catholic and orthodox church.

(1528.) It appears from the letters writ in answer to those

*Koster Codicis.

that Knight carried to Rome, that the pope granted all that was desired. This was never well understood till Mr. Rymer, in his diligent search, found the first original bull, with the seal in lead hanging to it: he has printed it in his 14th volume, p. 237, and therefore I shall only give a short abstract of it. It is directed to Cardinal Wolsey, and bears date the Ides of April, or the 13th day, in the year 1528. "It empowers him, together with the archbishop of Canterbury, or any other English bishop, to hear, examine, pronounce, and declare concerning the validity of the marriage of King Henry and Queen Katherine, and of the efficacy and validity of all apostolical dispensations in that matter, and to declare the marriage just and lawful, or unjust and unlawful, and to give a plenary sentence upon the whole matter; with licence to the parties to marry again, and to admit no appeal from them. For which end he creates Wolsey his vicegerent, to do in the premises all that he himself could do, with power to declare the issue of the first as well as of any subsequent marriage legitimate: all concludes with a non obstante to all general councils and apostolical constitutions."

This rare discovery was to us all a great surprise, as soon as it was known: but it does not yet appear how it came about that no use was ever made of it. I am not lawyer enough to discover whether it was that so full a deputation was thought null of itself: since by this the pope determined nothing, but left all to Wolsey; or whether Wolsey, having no mind to carry the load of the judgment on himself, made the king apprehend that it would bring a disreputation on his cause, if none but his own subjects judged it, or whether it was that Wolsey would not act in conjunction with Warham, or any under the degree of a cardinal. I leave the reasons of their not making use of the bull as a secret, as great as the bull itself was, till it was found out by Rymer. Another bull was after that desired and obtained, which bears date the 8th of June (6to idus) from Viterbo. This I take from the licence granted under the great seal to the legates to execute the commission of that date*; but it seems they did not think they had the pope fast enough tied by this and therefore they obtained from him, on the 23d of July following, a solemn promise, called in their letters pollicitatio, by which he promised, in the word of a pope, that he would never, neither at any person's desire, nor of his own motion, inhibit or revoke the commission he had granted to the legates to judge the matter of the king's marriage. This I did not publish in my former work, because

* Rymer.

« ZurückWeiter »