in Rome; the removal to Cambray meant only delay, and from delay she had suffered long enough; should Anne Boleyn have a son meanwhile, the King would be more obstinate than ever. The Pope must be required to end the cause himself and to end it quickly. The Emperor knew her determination and might have spared his application.[1] She wrote to Chapuys "that, sentence once pronounced, the King, for all his bravado and obstinacy, would listen to reason, and war would be unnecessary." "On that point," the Ambassador said, "she would not find a single person to agree with her."[2]
Catherine had pictured to herself a final triumph, and she could not part with the single hope which had cheered her through her long trial. If any chance of accommodation remained after her peremptory answer, it was dispelled by the discovery of the treason connected with the Nun of Kent. The story of Elizabeth Barton has been told by me elsewhere. Here it is enough to say that from the beginning of the divorce suit a hysterical woman, professing to have received Divine revelations, had denounced the King's conduct in private and public, and had influenced the judgment of peers, bishops, statesmen, and privy councillors. She had been treated at first as a foolish enthusiast, but her prophecies had been circulated by an organisation of itinerant friars, and had been made use of to feed the disaffection which had shown itself in the overtures to Chapuys. The effect which she had produced had been recently discovered. She had been arrested, had made a large confession, and
