[Footnote 701: _Cf._ Buckingham's remark in _L. and
P._, iii., 1356: "An he had not offended no more
unto God than he had done to the Crown, he should
die as true a man as ever was in the world".]

[Footnote 702: _D.N.B._, xxxviii., 437.]

CHAPTER X. (p. 249)

THE KING AND HIS PARLIAMENT.

In the closing days of July, 1529, a courier came posting from Rome
with despatches announcing the alliance of Clement and Charles, and
the revocation to the Papal Court of the suit between Henry VIII. and
the Emperor's aunt. Henry replied with no idle threats or empty
reproaches, but his retort was none the less effective. On the 9th of
August[703] writs were issued from Chancery summoning that Parliament
which met on the 3rd of November and did not separate till the last
link in the chain which bound England to Rome was sundered, and the
country was fairly launched on that sixty years' struggle which the
defeat of the Spanish Armada concluded.[704] The step might well seem
a desperate hazard. The last Parliament had broken up in (p. 250)
discontent; it had been followed by open revolt in various shires;
while from others there had since then come demands for the repayment
of the loan, which Henry was in no position to grant. Francis and
Charles, on whose mutual enmity England's safety largely depended, had
made their peace at Cambrai; and the Emperor was free to foment
disaffection in Ireland and to instigate Scotland to war. His chancellor
was boasting that the imperialists could, if they would, drive Henry
from his kingdom within three months,[705] and he based his hopes on
revolt among Henry's own subjects. The divorce had been from the
beginning, and remained to the end, a stumbling-block to the people.
Catherine received ovations wherever she went, while the utmost
efforts of the King could scarcely protect Anne Boleyn from popular
insult. The people were moved, not only by a creditable feeling that
Henry's first wife was an injured woman, but by the fear lest a breach
with Charles should destroy their trade in wool, on which, said the
imperial ambassador, half the realm depended for sustenance.[706]

[Footnote 703: Rymer, _Foedera_, xiv., 302.]

[Footnote 704: It has been alleged that the
immediate object of this P