nion in Italy was waning, the Emperor's thunderbolts were
less terrifying, and the justice of the cause of his aunt less
apparent.

[Footnote 596: It was called a "decretal
commission," and it was a legislative as well as an
administrative act; the Pope being an absolute
monarch, his decrees were the laws of the Church;
the difficulties of Clement VII. and indeed the
whole divorce question could never have arisen had
the Church been a constitutional monarchy.]

[Footnote 597: _L. and P._, iv., 3913.]

[Footnote 598: _Ibid._, iv., 4345.]

[Footnote 599: _Engl. Hist. Rev._, xii., 110-14.]

[Footnote 600: Ehses, _Roemische Dok._, No. 23;
_Engl. Hist. Rev._, xii., 8.]

[Footnote 601: _L. and P._, iv., 3682, 3750.]

[Footnote 602: _Ibid._, iv., 3934, 3949, 4224.]

* * * * *

On 25th July Campeggio embarked at Corneto,[603] and proceeded by slow
stages through France towards England. Henry congratulated himself
that his hopes were on the eve of fulfilment. But, unfortunately for
him, the basis, on which they were built, was as unstable as water.
The decision of his case still depended upon Clement, and Clement
wavered with every fluctuation in the success or the failure of (p. 216)
the Spanish arms in Italy. Campeggio had scarcely set out, when
Doria, the famous Genoese admiral, deserted Francis for Charles;[604]
on the 17th of August Lautrec died before Naples;[605] and, on 10th
September, an English agent sent Wolsey news of a French disaster,
which he thought more serious than the battle of Pavia or the sack of
Rome.[606] On the following day Sanga, the Pope's secretary, wrote to
Campeggio that, "as the Emperor is victorious, the Pope must not give
him any pretext for a fresh rupture, lest the Church should be utterly
annihilated.... Proceed on your journey to England, and there do your
utmost to restore mutual affection between the King and Queen. You are
not to pronounce any opinion without a new and express commission
hence."[607] Sanga repeated the injunction a few days later. "Every
day," he wrote, "stronger reasons are discovered;" to satisfy Henry
"involves the certain ruin of the Apostolic See and the Church, ow