cited. The sentence was prepared and was to issue unexpectedly like a bolt out of the blue sky. They enclosed a copy of it, and waited for instructions from Francis as to the line which they were to take. To set things straight again would, they said, be almost impossible; but they would do their best to prevent extremities, and to show the King of England that they had endeavoured to serve him. Nothing like the sentence which Paul had constructed had been ever seen before. Some articles had been inserted to force Francis to choose between the Pope and the King. They were malicious, unjust, and terriblement enormes.[1]
The new Hildebrand, applying to himself the words of Jeremiah, "Behold, I have set thee over nations and kingdoms, that thou mayest root out and destroy," had proceeded to root out Henry. He had cursed him; he cursed his abettors. His body when he died was to lie unburied and his soul lie in hell for ever. His subjects were ordered to renounce their allegiance, and were to fall under interdict if they continued to obey him. No true son of the Church was to hold intercourse or alliance with him or his adherents, under pain of sharing his damnation; and the Princes of Europe and the Peers and commons of England were required, on their allegiance to the Holy See, to expel him from the throne.[2]
This was the "remedy" for which Catherine had been so long entreating, out of affection for her misguided lord, whose soul she wished to save. The love which she professed was a love which her lord could have dispensed with.
The Papal Nuncio reported from Paris the attitude
- ↑ Du Bellay and the Bishop of Mâcon to Francis I., November 12, 1535.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. ix. p. 273.
- ↑ Froude's History of England, vol. ii. p. 386.
