is kingdom; and he sent couriers to the various courts to seek
their co-operation in executing his judgment. But the weapons of
Innocent III. were rusty with age. Francis denounced the Pope's claim
as a most impudent attack on monarchical dignity; and Charles was
engaged in the conquest of Tunis. Thus Henry was able to take a high
tone in reply to the remonstrances addressed to him, and to proceed
undisturbed with the work of enforcing his royal supremacy. The autumn
was occupied mainly by a visitation of the monasteries and of the
universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the schoolmen, Thomas Aquinas,
Duns Scotus and others were deposed from the seat of authority they
had held for so many centuries, and efforts were made to substitute
studies like that of the civil law, more in harmony with the King's
doctrine and with his views of royal authority.

The more boldly Henry defied the Fates, the more he was favoured by
Fortune. "Besides his trust in his subjects," wrote Chapuys in (p. 335)
1534, "he has great hope in the Queen's death;"[939] and the year
1536 was but eight days old when the unhappy Catherine was released
from her trials, resolutely refusing to the last to acknowledge in any
way the invalidity of her marriage with Henry. She had derived some
comfort from the papal sentence in her favour, but that was not
calculated to soften the harshness with which she was treated. Her
pious soul, too, was troubled with the thought that she had been the
occasion, innocent though she was, of the heresies that had arisen in
England, and of the enormities which had been practised against the
Church. Her last days were cheered by a visit from Chapuys,[940] who
went down to Kimbolton on New Year's Day and stayed until the 5th of
January, when the Queen seemed well on the road to recovery. Three
days later she passed away, and on the 29th she was buried with the
state of a princess dowager in the church of the Benedictine abbey at
Peterborough. Her physician told Chapuys that he suspected poison, but
the symptoms are now declared, on high medical authority, to have been
those of cancer of the heart.[941] The suspicion was the natural
result of the circumstance that her death relieved the King of a
pressing anxiety. "God be praised!" he exclaimed, "we are free from
all suspicion of war;"[942] and on the following day he proclaimed his
joy by appearing at a ball, clad in yellow from head to foot.[943] Every
inch a King, Henry VI