conscience, that he soon became fully convinced that it was his duty to put Catherine aside.[1]
Accordingly, Henry asked the Pope, Clement VII., to grant him a divorce. The request placed Clement in a very embarrassing position; for if he refused to grant it, he would offend Henry; and if he granted it, he would offend Charles V., who was Catherine's relative. So Clement in his bewilderment was led to temporize, to make promises to Henry and then evade them. At last, after a year's delay, he appointed Cardinal Wolsey and an Italian cardinal named Campeggio as commissioners to hold a sort of court in England to determine the validity of Henry's marriage to Catherine. A year or more dragged along without anything being accomplished, and then Clement, influenced by the Emperor Charles, ordered Henry and Catherine both to appear before him at Rome. (Respecting appeals to Rome, see p. 418).
The Fall of Wolsey.—Henry's patience was now completely exhausted. Becoming persuaded that Wolsey was not exerting himself as he might to secure the divorce, he banished him from the court. The hatred of Anne Boleyn and of others pursued the fallen minister. He was deposed from all his offices save the archbishopric, and eventually was arrested on the charge of high treason. While on his way to London the unhappy minister, broken in spirits and health, was prostrated by a fatal fever. As he lay dying, he uttered these words, which have lived so long after him: " Had I served my God as diligently as I have served my king, He would not have given me over in my gray hairs" (1530)
Thomas Cromwell.—A man of great power and mark now
- ↑ Political considerations, without doubt, had much if not most to do in bringing Henry to this state of mind. He was ready to divorce Catherine and openly break with Spain, because the Emperor Charles V., to whom he had offered the hand of the Princess Mary, had married the Infanta of Portugal, and thus cast aside the English alliance. On this point consult Seebohm, The Era of the Protestant Revolution, pp. 178–180.
