concerning himself and the English nation. "The Pope may excommunicate me," he said. "I care not a fig for his excommunication. Let him do as he wills at Rome. I will do here as I will. … I take the Pope to be a worthy man on the whole, but ever since the last war he has been so afraid of the Emperor that he dares not act against his wishes."[1]
The most obvious resource was to adopt the suggestion already made that the case should be transferred to Cambray, or to some other spot not open to objection, where it could be heard with impartiality. Clement himself was weary of the struggle, and eager to escape from it by any reasonable means. If Catherine would agree, Charles was unlikely to hesitate; but, though weary and worn out with disappointments, she was a resolute woman, and as long as she persisted the Emperor was determined not to desert her. With small hope of success, but as an experiment which it was thought desirable to try, a deputation of Peers and Bishops were commissioned to see Catherine, to ask her to withdraw her demand for an immediate sentence, and consent that the cause should be tried in a neutral place; while the Pope, through his Legate in Spain, made a similar proposition to Charles. The Queen heard that they were coming, and prepared for them by causing several "masses of the Holy Ghost" to be said, that she might be enlightened how to answer. The delegates arrived shortly after the masses were completed, the two Dukes, Lord Exeter, Earls, Barons, Bishops, and canon lawyers, thirty of them in all. Norfolk spoke for the rest. He said that the King had been treated with contempt and vituperation by the Pope on her account; he had
- ↑ Chapuys to Charles V., June 6, 1531.—Spanish Calendar, vol. iv. part 2, p. 170.
