expected to fulfil his promises without disguise or subterfuge.
Clement's method of proceeding with the divorce was rejected. The dispensation and commission which had been amended with a view to it were rejected also as worthless. Dr. Fox and Stephen Gardiner were despatched to Orvieto with fuller powers and with a message peremptory and even menacing. They were again to impress on the Pope the danger of a disputed succession. They were to hint that, if relief was refused in deference to the Emperor, England might decline from obedience to the Holy See. The Pope must, therefore, pass the commission and the dispensation in the form in which it had been sent from England. If he objected that it was unusual, they were to announce that the cause was of great moment. The King would not be defrauded of his expectation through fear of the Emperor. If he could not obtain justice from the Pope, he would be compelled to seek it elsewhere.[1]
The language of these instructions shows that the King and Wolsey understood the Proteus that they were dealing with, and the necessity of binding his hands if he was not to slip from them. It was not now the fountain of justice, the august head of Christendom, that they were addressing, but a shifty old man, clad by circumstances with the robe of authority, but whose will was the will of the power which happened to be strongest in Italy. It was not tolerable that the Emperor should dictate on a question which touched the vital interests of an independent kingdom.
Spanish diplomatists had afterwards to excuse and
- ↑ Wolsey to Gardiner and Fox, February -, 1528.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic, vol. iv. part 2, p. 1740.
