Page:Divorce of Catherine of Aragon.djvu/268

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The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon

the faith were bitter against Rome and Romanism. The Duke of Norfolk was the loudest of them all. Flanders could not live, he said, to a deputation of alarmed citizens, without the English trade; and as to the Pope, the Pope was a wretch and a bastard, a liar and a bad man; he would stake wife and children and his own person to be revenged on him.[1] An order of Council came out that the Pope henceforward was to be styled only Bishop of Rome. Chapuys could not understand it. The Duke, he thought, was strangely changed; he had once professed to be a staunch Catholic. Norfolk had not changed. The peculiar Anglican theory was beginning to show itself that a Church might still be Catholic though it ceased to be Papal.

Irritated though he was at his last failure, Francis did not wholly abandon his efforts. A successful invasion of England by the Emperor would be dangerous or even fatal to France. He wrote to Anne. He sent his letter by the hands of her old friend, Du Bellay, and she was so pleased that she kissed him when he presented it. Du Bellay sought out Chapuys. "Could nothing be done," he asked, "to prevent England from breaking with the Papacy? Better England, France, and the Empire had spent a hundred thousand crowns than allow a rupture. The Emperor had done his duty in supporting his aunt; might he not now yield a little to avoid worse?" Chapuys could give him no hope. The treatment of Catherine alone would force the Emperor to take further measures.

That Catherine, so far, had no personal ill-usage to complain of had been admitted by the Spanish Coun-

  1. Chapuys to Charles, Dec, 9, 1533.—Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. part, p. 875.