e for the authority of the church. His temper urged him to the
most rigorous measure of injustice; and his injustice produced no
shame, although he was restrained somewhat by the opinions of the very
men whom he did not hesitate to murder.

[Sidenote: Queen Catharine.]

Queen Catharine, besides being a virtuous and excellent woman, was
powerfully allied, and was a zealous Catholic. Her repudiation,
therefore, could not take place without offending the very persons
whose favor the king was most anxious to conciliate especially the
Emperor Charles, her nephew, and the pope, and all the high
dignitaries and adherents of the church. Even Wolsey could not in
honor favor the divorce, although it was his policy to do so. In
consequence of his intrigues, and the scandal and offence so
outrageous an act as the divorce of Catharine must necessarily produce
throughout the civilized world, Henry long delayed to bring the matter
to a crisis, being afraid of a war with Charles V., and of the
anathemas of the pope. Moreover, he hoped to gain him over, for the
pope had sent Cardinal Campeggio to London, to hold, with his legate
Wolsey, a court to hear the case. But it was the farthest from his
intention to grant the divorce, for the pope was more afraid of
Charles V. than he was of Henry VIII.

[Sidenote: Disgrace and Death of Wolsey.]

The court settled nothing, and the king's wrath now turned towards
Wolsey, whom he suspected of secretly thwarting his measures. The
accomplished courtier, so long accustomed to the smiles and favors of
royalty, could not bear his disgrace with dignity. The proudest man in
England became, all at once, the meanest. He wept, he cringed, he lost
his spirits; he surrendered his palace, his treasures, his honors, and
his offices, into the hands of him who gave them to him, without a
single expostulation: wrote most abject letters to "his most gracious,
most merciful, and most pious sovereign lord;" and died of a broken
heart on his way to a prison and the scaffold. "Had I but served my
God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given
me over in my gray hairs"--these were the words of the dying cardinal;
his sad confessions on experiencing the vanity of human life. But the
vindictive prince suffered no word of sorrow or regret to escape him,
when he heard of the death of his prime minister, and his intimate
friend for twenty years.

[Sidenote: More--Cranmer--Cromwell.]

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