Page:Divorce of Catherine of Aragon.djvu/242

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The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon

could help it, to flourish his spiritual weapons without a sword to support them.

The King wrote to inform Charles of his marriage. "In the face of the Scotch pretensions to the succession," he said, "other heirs of his body were required for the security of the Crown. The thing was done, and the Pope must make the best of it." This was precisely what the Pope was inclined to do. Cifuentes thought that, though he seemed troubled, "he was really pleased."[1] "He said positively that, if he was to declare the King of England deprived of his crown, the Emperor must bind himself to see the sentence executed."[2] Charles had no intention of binding himself, nor would his Cabinet advise him to bind himself. The time was passed when Most Catholic Princes could put armies In motion to execute the decrees of the Bishop of Rome. The theory might linger, but the facts were changed. Philip II. tried the experiment half a century later, but it did not answer to him. A fresh order of things had risen in Europe, and passionate Catholics could not understand it. Dr. Ortiz shrieked that "the King, by his marriage, was guilty of heresy and schism;" the Emperor ought to use the opportunity, without waiting for further declarations from the Pope, and unsheath the sword which God had placed in his hands.[3] English Peers and Prelates, impatient of the rising strength of the Commons and of the growth of Lutheranism, besieged Chapuys with entreaties for an Imperial force to be landed. They told him that Richard III. was

  1. The Count de Cifuentes to Charles V., May 7, 1533.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. vi. pp. 203–4.
  2. Ibid., May 10.
  3. Ortiz to Charles V., May 3, 1533.—Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. part 2, p. 659.