due performance of our pleasure to you declared,
or halt or stumble at any part or specialty of the same; Be ye assured
that we, like a prince of justice, will so extremely punish you for the
same, that all the world beside shall take by you example, and beware
contrary to their allegiance to disobey the lawful commandment of their
Sovereign Lord and Prince.

"Given under our signet, at our Palace of Westminster, the 9th day of
June, 1534."[276]

* * * * *

So Henry spoke at last. There was no place any more for nice
distinctions and care of tender consciences. The general, when the shot
is flying, cannot qualify his orders with dainty periods. Swift command
and swift obedience can alone be tolerated; and martial law for those
who hesitate.

[Sidenote: Death of Clement VII.]

This chapter has brought many things to a close. Before ending it we
will leap over three months, to the termination of the career of the
pope who has been so far our companion. Not any more was the distracted
Clement to twist his handkerchief, or weep, or flatter or wildly wave
his arms in angry impotence, he was to lie down in his long rest, and
vex the world no more. He had lived to set England free--an exploit
which, in the face of so persevering an anxiety to escape a separation,
required a rare genius and a combination of singular qualities. He had
finished his work, and now he was allowed to depart.

[Sidenote: His character.]

In him, infinite insincerity was accompanied with a grace of manner
which regained confidence as rapidly as it was forfeited. Desiring
sincerely, so far as he could be sincere in anything, to please every
one by turns, and reckless of truth to a degree in which he was without
a rival in the world, he sought only to escape his difficulties by
inactivity, and he trusted to provide himself with a refuge against all
contingencies by waiting upon time. Even when at length he was compelled
to act, and to act in a distinct direction, his plausibility long
enabled him to explain away his conduct; and, honest in the excess of
his dishonesty, he wore his falsehood with so easy a grace that it
assumed the character of truth. He was false, deceitful, treacherous;
yet he had the virtue of not pretending to be virtuous. He was a real
man, though but an indifferent one; and we can refuse to no one, however
grave his faults, a certain ambiguous sympathy, when in his perplexities
he shows us fe