CLEMENT
26
CLEMENT
from the Holy See, contingently upon the granting of
the divorce, a dispensation from the impediment of
affinity in the first degree (an impediment which
stood between him and any legal marriage with Anne
on account of his previous carnal intercourse with
Anne's sister Mary), the scruple of conscience cannot
have been very sincere. Moreover, as Queen Cath-
erine solemnly swore that the marriage between her-
self and Henry's elder brother Arthur had never been
consummated, there had consequently never been any
real affinity between her and Henry but only the im-
pedimentiim publico; honestatis. The king's impa-
tience, however, was such that, without giving his full
confidence to Wolsey, he sent his envoy. Knight, at
once to Rome to treat with the pope about getting the
marriage annulled. Knight found the pope a pris-
oner in Sant' Angelo and could do little until he visited
Clement, after his escape, at Orvieto. Clement was
anxious to gratify Henry, and he did not make much
difficulty about the contingent dispensation from
affinity, judging, no doubt, that, as it would only take
effect when the marriage with Catherine was can-
celled, it was of no practical consequence. On being
pressed, however, to issue a commission to Wolsey to
try the divorce case, he made a more determined
stand, and Cardinal Pucci, to whom was submitted
a draft instrument for the purpose, declared that
such a document would reflect discredit upon all
concerned. A second mission to Rome organized by
AVoIsey, and consisting of Gardiner and Foxe, was at
first not much more successful. A commission was
indeed granted and taken back to England by Foxe,
but it was safeguarded in ways which rendered it prac-
tically innocuous. The bullying attitude which Gar-
diner adopted towards the pope seems to have passed
all limits of decency, but Wolsey, fearful of losing the
royal favour, egged him on to new exertions and im-
plored him to obtain at any cost a "decretal commis-
sion". This wasaninstrument which decided the points
of law beforehand, secure from appearand left onlythe
is,sue of fact to be determined in England. Against this
Clement seems honestly to have striven, but he at last
yielded so far as to issue a secret commission to Car-
dinal Wolsey and Cardinal Campeggio jointly to try
the case in England. The commission was to be
shown to no one, and was never to leave Campeggio's
hands. We do not know its exact tenns; but if it fol-
lowed the drafts prepared in England for the purpose,
it pronounced that the Bull of dispensation granted
by Julius for the marriage of Henry with his deceased
brother's wife must be declared obreptitious and con-
sequently void, if the commissioners found that the
motives alleged by Julius were insufficient and con-
trary to the facts. For example, it had been pre-
tended that the dispensation was necessary to cement
the friendship between England and Spain, also that
the young Henry himself desired the marriage, etc.
Campeggio reached England by the end of Septem- ber, 1528, but the proceedings of the legatine court were at once brought to a standstill by the production of a second dispensation granted by Pope Julius in the form of a Brief. This had a double importance. Clem- ent's commission empowered Wolsey and Campeg- gio to pronounce upon the sufficiency of the motives alleged in a certain specified document, viz. the Bull; but the Brief was not contemplated by, and lay out- side, their commission. Moreover, the Brief did not limit the motives for granting the dispensation to cer- tain specified allegations, but spoke of "aliis causis animain nostram moventibus". The production of the Brief, now commonly admitted to be quite authen- tic, though the king's party declared it a forgery, ar- rested the proceedings of the commission for eight months, and in the end, under pressure from Charles V, to whom his Aunt Catherine had vehemently ap- pealed for support as well as to the pope, the cause was revoked to Rome. There can be no doubt that
Clement showed much weakness in the concessions he
had made to the English demands; but it must also
be remembered, first, that in the decision of this point
of law, the technical grounds for treating the dispen-
sation as obreptitious were in themselves serious and,
secondly, that in committing the honour of the Holy
See to Campeggio's keeping, Clement had known that
he had to do with a man of exceptionally high prin-
ciple.
How far the pope was influenced by Charles V in his resistance, it is difficult to say; but it is clear that his own sense of justice disposed him entirely in favour of Queen Catherine. Henry in consequence shifted his ground, and showed how deep was the rift which separated him from the Holy See, by now urging that a marriage with a deceased husband's brother lay beyond the papal powers of dispensation. Clement retaliated by pronouncing censure against those who threatened to have the king's divorce suit decided by an English tribunal, and forbade Henrj' to proceed to a new marriage before a decision was given in Rome. The king on his side (1531) extorted a vast sum of money from the English clergy upon the pretext that the penalties of pra!munire had been incurred by them through their recognition of the papal legate, and soon afterwards he prevailed upon Parliament to prohibit under certain conditions the payment of annates (q. V.) to Rome. Other developments followed. The death of .Archbishop Warham (22 August, 1532) allowed Henry to press for the institution of Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury, and through the inter- vention of the King of France this was conceded, the pallium being granted to him by Clement. Almost immediately after his consecration Cranmer proceeded to pronounce judgment upon the divorce, while Henry had previously contracted a secret marriage with Anne Boleyn, which marriage Cranmer, in May, 1533, declared to be valid. Anne Boleyn was consequently crowned on June the 1st. Meanwhile the Commons had forbidden all appeals to Rome and enacted the penalties of praemunire against all who introduced pajjal Bulls into England. It was only then that Clement at last took the step of launchuig a sentence of excommunication against the king, declaring at the same time Cranmer's pretended decree of divorce to be invalid and the marriage with Anne Boleyn null and void. The papal nuncio was withdrawn from England and diplomatic relations with Rome broken off. Henrj' appealed from the pope to a general coun- cil, and in January, 1534, the Parliament pressed on further legislation abolishing all ecclesiastical depend- ence on Rome. But it was only in March, 1534, that the papal tribunal finally pronounced its verdict upon the original issue raised by the king and declared the marriage between Henrj- and Catherine to be unques- tionably valid. Clement has been much blamed for this delay and for his various concessions in the mat- ter of the divorce; indeed he has been accused of losing England to the Catholic Faith on account of the en- couragement thus given to Henry, but it is extremely doubtful whether a firmer attitude would have had a more beneficial result. The king was determined to effect his purpose, and Clement had sufficient princi- ple not to yield the one vital point upon which all turned.
With regard to Germany, though Clement never broke away from his friendship with Charles V, which was cemented by the coronation at Bologna in 1530, he never lent to the emperor that cordial co-operation which could alone have coped with a situation the extreme difficulty and danger of which Clement probably never understood. In par- ticular, the pope seems to have had a horror of the idea of convoking a general council, foreseeing, no doubt, grave difficulties with France in any such at- tempt. Things were not improved when Henry, through his envoy Bonner, who found Clement visits-
