Volume III Part 20 (1/2)
The Regent, in receiving Wriothesley, a.s.sured him that his master's confidence was well placed--that ”the Emperor was a prince of honour,”
and never meant ”to proceed with any practice of dissimulation.”
Whatever others might choose to say, both she and her brother remained in one mind and purpose, and desired nothing better than to see the d.u.c.h.ess Christina Queen of England.[373] Her language remained similarly cordial till the beginning of October; and, as the least violent hypothesis is generally the safest, it may be believed that till this time the Emperor had really entertained, or had not as yet relinquished, the intention of bestowing his niece as he professed to wish. But from the end of the autumn the tide turned, and soon flowed visibly the other way. There was no abrupt conclusion--the preliminaries were wearily argued day after day. The English minister was still treated with courtesy; but his receptions had lost their warmth, and with court and people his favour chilled with the changing season. He was taunted with the English apostasy from the Church. ”It is said that religion is extinct among us,” he wrote in November,--”that we have no ma.s.ses--that the saints are burned--and all that was taken for holy clearly subverted.”[374] Each day the prospect became visibly darker: from cordiality there was a change to politeness--from politeness to distance--from distance to something like a menace of hostility. The alteration can without difficulty be interpreted.
[Sidenote: The Pope launches his bull,]
[Sidenote: January. And Pole's book is printed.]
The intentions of the Papal court had been made known by Michael Throgmorton, in his letter to Cromwell. The Pope's movements were, perhaps, quickened when the insult to the martyr's bones became known to him. The opportunity was in every way favourable. France and Spain were at peace; the Catholic world was exasperated by the outrage at Canterbury. The hour was come--he rose upon his throne, and launched with all his might his long-forged thunderbolt. Clement's censure had been mild sheet lightning, flickering harmlessly in the distance: Paul's was the forked flash, intended to blight and kill. Reginald Pole, his faithful adherent, had by this time rewritten his book: he had enriched it with calumnies, either freshly learned, or made credible in his new access of frenzy. It was now printed, and sown broadcast over Christendom. The Pope appended a postscript to his Bull of Deposition, explaining the delay in the issue: not, as he had explained that delay to Henry himself, by pretending that he had executed no more than a form which had never been intended for use; but professing to have withheld a just and necessary punishment at the intercession of the European sovereigns. But his mercy had been despised, his long-suffering had been abused, and the monstrous king had added crime to crime, killing living priests and profaning the sepulchres of the dead. In his contempt for religion he had cited the sainted Thomas of Canterbury to be tried as a traitor; he had pa.s.sed an impious sentence upon him as contumacious. The blessed bones, through which Almighty G.o.d had worked innumerable miracles, he had torn from their shrine of gold, and burnt them sacrilegiously to ashes. He had seized the treasures consecrated to Heaven; he had wasted and robbed the houses of religion; and, as he had transformed himself into a wild beast, so to the beasts of the field he had given honour beyond human beings. He had expelled the monks from their houses, and turned his cattle among the vacant ruins. These things he had done, and his crimes could be endured no longer. As a putrid member he was cut off from the Church.[375]
[Sidenote: Pole goes to Spain to rouse the Emperor.]
The book and the excommunication being thus completed and issued, Pole was once more despatched to rouse the Emperor to invasion, having again laid a train to explode, as he hoped successfully, when the Spanish troops should land.
The Pope's intentions must have been made known to Charles before they were put in force, and interpret the change of treatment experienced by Wriothesley. Whether, as a sovereign prince, he would or would not consent to give the active support which was to be demanded of him, the Emperor, perhaps, had not determined even in his own mind; but at least he would not choose the opportunity to draw closer his connexion with the object of the Church's censures.
[Sidenote: The marriage treaty is finally relinquished.]
On the 21st of January Wriothesley wrote to Cromwell that he had no more hopes of the d.u.c.h.ess of Milan, and that the king must look elsewhere.
”If this marriage may not be had,” he said, ”I pray his Grace may fix his n.o.ble stomach in some such other place as may be to his quiet.” ”And then,” he added, chafed with the slight which had been pa.s.sed upon his sovereign, ”I fear not to see the day, if G.o.d give me life but for a small season, that as his Majesty is father to all Christian kings in time of reign and excellency of wisdom, so his Highness shall have his neighbours in that stay that they shall be glad to do him honour and to yield unto him his own.”[376]
[Sidenote: Henry may bring the Pope to reason at the gates of Rome.]
For the present, however, the feeling of the Netherlanders was of mere hostility. The ruin of England was talked of as certain and instant.
James of Scotland and Francis were ”to do great things,” and ”the Emperor, it might be, would a.s.sist them.” The amba.s.sador tossed aside their presages. ”These men,” said one of his despatches, ”publicly tell me how the Bishop of Rome hath now given a new sentence against the King's Majesty. I discourse to them how much every of the princes of Europe is bound to his Majesty; what every of them hath to do for himself; how little need we have to care for them if they would all break their faith and for kindness show ingrat.i.tude: and I show myself, besides, of no less hope than to see his Majesty, as G.o.d's minister, correct that tyrant--that usurper of Rome--even within Rome's gates, to the glory of G.o.d, and the greatest benefit that ever came to Christendom.”[377]
[Sidenote: February 21. Arrest of English s.h.i.+ps in Flanders, and recall of the Spanish amba.s.sador.]
But, though Wriothesley carried himself proudly, his position was embarra.s.sing. The regent grew daily more distant, her ministers more threatening. The Spaniards resident in England suddenly were observed to be hastening away, carrying their properties with them. At length, on the 21st of February, a proclamation was sent out laying all English s.h.i.+ps in Flanders under arrest. Mendoza was recalled from London, and the common conversation on the Bourse at Antwerp was that the united force of France and the Empire would be thrown immediately on the English coasts.[378]
For a closer insight into the Emperor's conduct, I must again go back over the ground. The history at this point is woven of many fibres.
[Sidenote: Pole's Apology to Charles V.]
[Sidenote: Henry of England ”the king of fierce countenance” described by Daniel.]
Pole's book was published in November or December. His expedition into Spain followed immediately after; and, feeling some little misgiving as to the Emperor's approbation of his conduct, he thought it prudent to prepare his appearance by a general defence of his position. A rebellious subject engaged in levying war against his sovereign might interest the Papacy; but the example might easily appear more questionable in the eyes of secular princes. His book, he said in an apology addressed to Charles, had been written originally in obedience to orders from England. He had published it when the Pope instructed him to vindicate the severity of the censures. His present duty was to expose in the European courts the iniquity of the King of England,--to show that, as an adversary of the Church, he was infinitely more formidable than the Sultan,--and that the arms of the Emperor, if he wished well to the interests of religion, should be specially directed against the chief offender.[379] When the king's crimes were understood in detail, the Christian sovereigns would see in their enormity that such a monster must be allowed to vex the earth no longer. He recapitulated the heads of his book, and Henry's history as he there had treated it. In an invective against Cromwell he bathed his name in curses;[380] while the king he compared to Nero, and found the Roman tyrant innocent in the contrast. Finally, he closed his address with a peroration, in which he quoted and applied the prophecy of Daniel on the man of sin. Henry of England was the king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences, who was to stand up in the latter time and set himself above all that was called G.o.d; whose power should be mighty, but not by his own power; who should destroy wonderfully, and prosper, and practise, and destroy the mighty and the holy people; who should rise up against the Prince of princes, but in the end be broken without hand.[381]
[Sidenote: The Pope writes to the Emperor,]
[Sidenote: Entreating him to attack England.]
Pole's business was to supply the eloquent persuasions. A despatch from Paul furnished the more worldly particulars which the Emperor would desire to know before engaging in an enterprise which had been discussed so often, and which did not appear more easy on closer inspection. James the Fifth, the Pope said, would be ready to a.s.sist, with his excellent minister, David Beton. If only the war with the Turks were suspended, the other difficulties might be readily overcome. The Turks could be defeated only at a great expense, and a victory over them would do little for religion. The heart of all the mischief in the world lay in England, in the person of the king. Charles must strike there, and minor evils would afterwards heal of themselves.[382]
[Sidenote: English agents in Rome.]
[Sidenote: Intercepted letter to the Cardinal of Seville.]
[Sidenote: The Earl of Desmond makes offers to the Pope to raise Ireland.]
[Sidenote: Desmond will govern as the Pope's viceroy.]