ng co-operation of
Rome.

In it the Regent Louise accepted the conditions laid down by the
cardinal: she did not neglect to secure him by a considerable pension.
From the beginning she had on her side also tried to excite his
world-wide ambition; for Francis I and Henry VIII, if once they became
friends, would do noble deeds to their own-undying renown and to the
glory of God, and the direction of their enterprises would fall to the
cardinal.[88]

Even after Henry VIII abandoned him, the Emperor still kept the upper
hand. He extorted the Peace of Madrid; the League of the Italian
princes with France, by which its execution was to have been hindered,
and to which England lent her moral support without actually joining
it, led Charles V to new victories, to the conquest of Rome, and hence
to a position in the world which now did really threaten the freedom
of all other nations. The necessary result was that France and England
drew still more closely together. Cardinal Wolsey appeared in France;
a close alliance was concluded and (not without considerable English
help) an army sent into the field, which in fact gained the upper hand
in Italy and restored to the Pope, who had escaped to Orvieto, some
feeling of independence. Soon the largest projects were formed on this
side also, in which the two Kings expected to have the Pope entirely
with them. The French declared their wish to conquer Naples and never
restore it to the Emperor, not even under the most favourable
conditions. Wolsey thought that the Pope might pronounce the
deposition of the Emperor in Naples and even in the Empire, for which
certain German electors could be won over; he boasted that he would
bring about such a revolution as had not been seen for a century.

It was at this crisis in the general situation, and when an attempt
was being made to direct politics towards the annihilation of the
Emperor, that the thought occurred of dissolving Henry VIII's marriage
with the Emperor's aunt, the Infanta Catharine.

It is very possible, as a contemporary tradition informs us, that
Wolsey was instigated to this by personal feelings. His arrogant and
wanton proceedings, offensive by their excesses, and withal showing
all the priestly love of power, were hateful to the inmost soul of the
pure and earnest Queen. She is said to have once reproached him with
them, and to have even repelled his unbecoming behaviour with a
threatening word, and he on his part to hav