who had anticipated all his desires; and exposed as he was to an ordeal from which no human being could have escaped uninjured, we have more cause, after all, to admire him for those excellences which he conquered for himself, than to blame the defects which he retained.
But if in his private relations the King was hasty and careless, towards the Pope, to whom we must now return, he exhausted all resources of forbearance: and although, when separation from Rome was at length forced upon him, he then permitted no half measures, and swept into his new career with the strength of irresistible will, it was not till he had shown resolution no less great in the endurance of indignity; and of the three great powers in Europe, the prince who was compelled to break the unity of the Catholic Church, was evidently the only one who was capable of real sacrifices to preserve it unbroken. Clement comprehended his reluctance, but presumed too far upon it; and if there was sin in the 'great schism' of the Reformation, the guilt must rest where it is due. We have now to show the reverse side of the transactions at Bologna, and explain what a person wearing the title of his Holiness, in virtue of his supposed sanctity, had been secretly doing.
In January, 1532, some little time before his conversation with Sir Gregory Cassalis, on the subject of the two wives, the Pope had composed a pastoral letter to Henry, which had never been issued. From its contents it would seem to have been written on the receipt of an indignant remonstrance of Queen Catherine, in which she had complained of her desertion by
