e name of Farnese, had
succeeded to the papal throne. This pontiff, who while cardinal, had
always favored Henry's cause, had hoped that personal animosities
being buried with his predecessor, might not be impossible to form
an agreement with England: and the king himself was so desirous of
accommodating matters, that in a negotiation which he entered into with
Francis a little before this time, he required that that monarch should
conciliate a friendship between him and the court of Rome. But Henry
was accustomed to prescribe, not to receive terms; and even while he was
negotiating for peace, his usual violence often carried him to commit
offences which rendered the quarrel totally incurable. The execution of
Fisher was regarded by Paul as so capital an injury, that he immediately
passed censures against the king, citing him and all his adherents to
appear in Rome within ninety days, in order to answer for their crimes:
if they failed, he excommunicated them; deprived the king of his crown;
laid the kingdom under an interdict; declared his issue by Anne Boleyn
illegitimate; dissolved all leagues which any Catholic princes had made
with him; gave his kingdom to any invader; commanded the nobility to
take arms against him; freed his subjects from all oaths of allegiance;
cut off their commerce with foreign states; and declared it lawful for
any one to seize them, to make slaves of their persons, and to convert
their effects to his own use.[*] But though these censures were passed,
they were not at that time openly denounced; the pope delayed the
publication till he should find an agreement with England entirely
desperate; and till the emperor, who was at that time hard pressed
by the Turks and the Protestant princes in Germany, should be in a
condition to carry the sentence into execution.

The king knew that he might expect any injury which it should be in
Charles's power to inflict; and he therefore made it the chief object
of his policy to incapacitate that monarch from wreaking his resentment
upon him.[**]

* Sanders, p. 148.

** Herbert, p. 350, 351.

He renewed his friendship with Francis, and opened negotiations for
marrying his infant daughter, Elizabeth, with the duke of Angouleme,
third son of Francis. These two monarchs also made advances to the
princes of the Protestant league in Germany, ever jealous of the
emperor's ambition; and Henry, besides remitting them some money, sent
Fox, bishop of H