in a cause which was not committed to him; and the King composed, but probably did not deliver, a very angry speech in reply addressed to the judges. The Court went on, taking evidence chiefly about the circumstances of Prince Arthur's marriage, till July 23, when Campeggio prorogued it to October 1. Shortly afterwards arrived an intimation that the cause was "advoked" to Home and all further proceedings must be prosecuted there. This the Imperialists had procured on the Queen's demand for justice, which the Pope could not resist, and Henry saw that it was a death-blow to his expectations.
The fall of Wolsey was now inevitable. From the first the business of the divorce had been a source of intense anxiety to him, knowing as he did that, if he failed to give the King satisfaction, his ruin would be easily achieved by the leading lords who had been so long excluded from the King's counsels. And now that the failure was complete he was visibly out of favour. But the King was too well aware of his value not to desire his advice about many things, even now; and there was one matter in particular in which his guiding hand had scarcely completed his work. The King, indeed, had intended to send him to Cambray to assist in a European settlement if the trial could have been got over soon enough; but Bishop Tunstall and Sir Thomas More were sent in his place. By the Treaty of Cambray, signed on August 5, the state of war between Francis and the Emperor was ended, the conditions of the Treaty of Madrid were at length modified, and Francis was permitted to redeem his sons without parting with Burgundy. It was undoubtedly the Emperor's fear of England that secured these favourable conditions for France, and France had in return to take upon herself all the Emperor's liabilities to Henry. The English also made their own separate treaties at Cambray both with the Emperor and with Francis.
But through the influence of Anne Boleyn Wolsey was presently excluded from the King's presence, and ultimately he found himself cut off from all communication with his sovereign. On October 9, the first day of Michaelmas term, he took his seat as Chancellor for the last time in Westminster Hall. That day an indictment was preferred against him in the King's Bench, and the 30th of the same month was appointed for his trial. But meanwhile he was made to surrender the Great Seal and to execute a curious deed, in which he confessed the praemunire of which he was afterwards found guilty, and desired the King to take all his land and property in part compensation for his offences. This he did, not because the praemunire was just, but only in the hope of avoiding a parliamentary impeachment; which nevertheless was brought forward in the House of Lords, but was thrown out in the Commons by the exertions of his dependent, Thomas Cromwell.
For a new Parliament had been called, after an interval of six years, and the session had been opened by Sir Thomas More, who had just been appointed Lord Chancellor in Wolsey's place. The elections had
