of Milan, if he would look on while the Emperor and the Pope attacked England.[1]
This language bears all the character of sincerity; and when we remember that it followed immediately upon a close and intimate communication of three weeks with Clement, it is not easy to believe that he could have mistaken the extent of the Pope's promises. We may suppose Clement for the moment to have been honest, or wavering between honesty and falsehood; we may suppose further that Francis trusted him because it was undesirable to be suspicious, in the belief that he was discharging the duty of a friend to Henry, and of a friend to the Church, in offering to mediate upon these terms.
But Henry was far advanced beyond the point at which fair words could move him. He had trusted many times, and had been many times deceived. It was not easy to entangle him again. It mattered little whether Clement was weak or false; the result was the same—he could not be trusted. To an open English understanding there was something monstrous in the
- ↑ Commission of the Bishop of Paris: Legrand, vol, iii.; Burnet, vol. iii. p. 128; Foxe, vol. v. pp. 106–111. The commission of the Bishop of Bayonne is not explicit on the extent to which the Pope had bound himself with respect to the sentence. Yet either in some other despatch, or verbally through the Bishop, Francis certainly informed Henry that the Pope had promised that sentence should be given in his favour. We shall find Henry assuming this in his reply; and the Archbishop of York declared to Catherine that the Pope 'said at Marseilles, that if his Grace would send 'a proxy thither he would give sentence for his Highness against her, because that he knew his cause to be good and just.'—State Papers, vol. i. p. 421.
