nature, and man, is due unto us. Hereupon depended the wealth of our realm; hereupon consisted the surety of our succession, which by no other means could be well assured.' 'And therefore,' he went on, 'you [the Duke] shall say to our good brother, that the Pope persisting in the ways he hath entered, ye must needs despair in any meeting between the French King and the Pope, to produce any such effect as to cause us to meet in concord with the Pope; but we shall be even as far asunder as is between yea and nay. For to the Pope's enterprise to revoke or put back anything that is done here, either in marriage, statute, sentence, or proclamation[1]—of which four members is knit and conjoined the surety of our matter, nor any can be removed from the other, lest thereby the whole edifice should be destroyed—we will and shall, by all ways and means, say nay, and declare our nay in such sort as the world shall hear, and the Pope feel it. Wherein ye may say our firm trust, perfect hope, and assured confidence is, that our good brother will agree with us: as well for that it should be partly dishonourable for him to see decay the thing that was of his own foundation and planting; as also that it should be too much dishonourable for us—having travelled so far in this matter, and brought it to this point, that, all the storms of the year passed, it is now comn to harvest, trusting to see shortly the fruit of our marriage, to the wealth, joy, and comfort of all our realm and our own singular consolation—that anything should now be
- ↑ The proclamation ordering that Catherine should be called not Queen, but Princess Dowager.
