to a voice upon the matter. If some lawful means could be discovered by which your Majesty could furnish yourself with male offspring, the Emperor could no more justly complain than if the Queen were to die and the prospects of the princess were interfered with by a second marriage of an ordinary kind. To this the Pope made no answer. I cannot tell what your Majesty will think, nor how far this suggestion of the Pope would be pleasing to your Majesty. Nor indeed can I feel sure, in consequence of what he said about the Emperor, that he actually would grant the dispensation of which he spoke. I have thought it right, however, to inform you of what passed.'[1]
This letter is undated, but it was written, as appears from internal evidence, some time in the year 1532.[2]
- ↑ Letter from, containing an account of an interview with his Holiness: Rolls House MS.
- ↑ The proposal was originally the King's (see chapter 2), but it had been dropped because one of the conditions of it had been Catherine's 'entrance into religion.' The Pope, however, had not lost sight of the alternative, as one of which, in case of extremity, he might avail himself; and, in 1530, in a short interval of relaxation, he had definitely offered the King a dispensation to have two wives, at the instigation, curiously, of the Imperialists. The following letter was written on that occasion to the King by Sir Gregory Cassalis:—
Serenissime et potentissirae domine rex, domine mi supreme humillimâ commendatione premissâ, salutem et felicitatem. Superioribus diebus Pontifex secreto, veluti rem quam magni faceret, mihi proposuit conditionem hujusmodi; concedi posse vestræ majestati, ut duas uxores habeat; cui dixi nolle me proviuciam suscipere eâ de re scribendi, ob eam causam quod ignorarem an inde vestræ conscientiæ satisfieri posset quam vestra majestas imprimis exonerare cupit. Cur autem sic responderem, illud in causâ fuit, quod ex certo loco, unde quæ Cæsariani moliantur aucupari soleo exploratum certumque habebam Cæsarianos illud ipsum quærere et procurare. Quem vero ad finem id quærant pro certo exprimere non
